and the sun was not unpleasantly strong. The boys did a good deal of
looking for the missing donkey, but also managed to combine with that a
few other things, such as bird-nesting, picking wild strawberries, and
enjoying themselves as only boys can, when roaming about in the open
air. At last rather late in the afternoon they spied in the distance a
donkey, and delighted to think their quest was at an end, they hastened
up to it.
Dudley had brought some carrots in his pocket, but the donkey was
utterly indifferent to such a dainty; she waited till the boys were
nearly up to her, and then with a kick up of her heels away she
galloped, evidently enjoying the chase.
"Won't I give her a licking when I catch her," shouted Dudley,
wrathfully, as after a long and tiring race, they stopped a minute to
rest; "let us leave her and go home, Roy. I'm sure it's tea time, for I
feel dreadfully hungry, and we're miles and miles away. I've never been
so far before."
"Oh, we mustn't give up," Roy replied, with his usual determination; "we
won't be beaten by an old donkey, and when we do catch her, we will both
get on her back and ride her home. Come on, let us have another try!"
"We haven't got a halter, that's the worst of it."
[Illustration: "'Now then, you rascals, what are you doing to my
donkey?'"]
But Dudley plucked up courage, and in another half hour they were
successful; Roy seated on the donkey's back, and Dudley holding firmly
to her tail.
"Now then--away with you--hip--hip--hurray!"
Away they tore, both donkey and boys in best of spirits now: but before
long they were brought to a standstill. A man brandishing a huge stick
sprang out in front of them.
"Now then, you rascals, what are you doing to my donkey? Get off it this
instant!"
"It isn't your donkey, it's old Roger's, and we're taking it home to
him. Don't you cheek us! You're a rascal yourself!"
Dudley spoke angrily, but as he noticed the donkey stop instantly, and
begin to sidle up toward the man an awful fear smote him, and Roy added
quietly,
"You see you may be a thief or any one, for all we know, and it isn't
likely we're going to let you have the chance of stealing old Roger's
donkey. You go away and leave us alone. We're going home now--Gee-up.
Come on, Dudley."
Not an inch would the donkey stir; and the man with a laugh, slipped a
halter out of his pocket and in another minute Roy was rolling on the
grass, and the donkey was being led off in the opposite direction.
"You may think yourselves lucky to escape the thrashing ye desarves!"
shouted out the man; "ye've given me a nice chase after my beast for the
last hour, and ye needn't add a pack of lies to your wicked pranks!"
The boys sat down on the grass to consider their position.
"Well, I call it beastly rot," grumbled Dudley, thoroughly cross; "if
that's his donkey I don't believe old Roger's is on the hills at all. It
must have been this one that somebody saw, and now I come to think of it
Roger's has a black stripe down her back, and this one hadn't!"
"I'm so awfully tired," said Roy, disconsolately; "we've done no good as
usual. I don't believe we ever shall do any one any good!"
When Roy's spirits sank it was a bad case, and for some minutes there
was silence between them. Then feeling they must make the best of it
they scrambled to their feet and plodded slowly on in the direction of
home. A heavy mist was falling by this time, and dusk was setting in.
Roy began to cough, and at last in despair Dudley cried out, "I do
believe we're lost; I don't know where the path is, and I'm sure this
isn't the way we came!"
"Well," said Roy, gasping as he spoke; "I'm afraid this old mist is
getting into my chest, and I can't go very fast when my breath gets
short. What shall we do? Can you shout--p'raps that man with the donkey
might hear us."
Dudley shouted and shouted till he was hoarse, and then the little
fellows trudged wearily on.
"You see," said Roy, bravely; "we must get somewhere if we go straight
on."
"I believe," said Dudley, in doleful tones; "that you get right round
the world and come back to where you started, if you only walk straight
enough!"
This depressing view did not comfort his cousin.
"I've always thought it would be very exciting to be lost," Roy said
with a sigh; "but it doesn't seem very nice, does it? And it is so cold.
I wonder if we shall meet with any adventures, lost people generally
do."
"If we could come into a gipsies' camp with a huge fire and a pot of
stewed hares, it would be stunning! Or if we could find old Principle's
cave, that would be better still!"
They were stumbling on, Roy gasping and panting for breath, and Dudley
every minute or two giving a shout, when suddenly almost as if he had
risen from the ground, a lad appeared in front of them.
"We're lost," shouted Dudley; "who are you? Can you tell us where
Crockton village is?"
"Ay, can't I! You're only about four mile off!"
"Is it straight on?" questioned Roy, wistfully.
"No, you're goin' away from it."
The lad stood looking down at the two small boys and there was some pity
in his tone.
"The little 'un is dead beat. Here--let me hoist you on my back, I'd as
lief go to Crockton as anywhere else to-night, and I know every inch of
these hills, I've been looking after cattle here since I were a babby!
There now, ain't that better?"
Roy was too tired out to resist, though he made a faint protest, and
Dudley seeing him comfortably settled on the broad shoulders of the lad,
trotted along contentedly by his side.
"How did you find us? Did you hear us shouting?"
"I was trapping some moles close to yer, as ye came on."
"Where do you live? And what's your name?"
"I'm called Rob. I don't live nowheres now. Got chucked out last night!"
And Rob gave a short laugh as he spoke.
"Where from?"
"Well, you see there's a lot of us, and the old woman--she's my
stepmother--she told me she wouldn't keep me no longer. My father--he
died last year, and work is hard to get. I'll tramp into some town and
try my luck there."
"Then where were you going to sleep to-night?"
"Sleep? Oh, bless yer--there's plenty o' room and accommodation in the
open. And I haven't been about these parts for so long without knowing
many a snug corner. I could show yer plenty a one. My pet one has been
found out by some old chap lately. He goes into it and digs up
quantities o' stones and then sits and hugs them, all as if they was
gold! I laugh to see him sometimes!"
"Why that must be old Principle, and that's the cave he thinks so much
of! He looks for bones."
Rob gave another of his hearty laughs.
"Well, if he has a taste that way, why don't he go to a churchyard,
he'll dig to more success there."
"No, it's only animals' bones he likes, very, very old ones."
They tramped on, and then Roy asked if he could be put down, and Dudley
given a lift instead. Rob good-naturedly assented, but some minutes were
spent in altercation between the two boys before Dudley would consent
to this arrangement.
"You're as tired as I am," persisted Roy.
"Oh, no, I'm not--at least it's only my legs. You see I haven't a chest
like you. I'll manage, it's always you that gets home ill, I never do."
"I can't help it," said Roy, in a shaky voice; "I know I shall never be
good for anything, I don't think I'm much better than a girl, I suppose
I ought to have been made one."
Roy was always in the depths of misery when he came to this climax, and
Dudley hastened to reassure him.
"Rot! You're as good a walker as I any day. Yes, I'll have a ride on
your back, Rob, if you like. I'm nearly done for, and Roy looks quite
fresh again."
There was great commotion when the trio reached the Manor at last. Miss
Bertram came out into the hall to greet them with an anxious face.
"Oh, you scamps! You'll turn my hair grey before long. Where have you
been? Half the village has turned out to look for you! What mischief
have you been up to?"
When the explanation was given Miss Bertram gave a little groan.
"If we are going to have these kind of expeditions, I really must insist
upon your leaving off trying to do other people good. Old Roger told me
he found his donkey quite early in the afternoon. Now come off to bed
both of you. I believe nurse is already getting her poultice ready in
anticipation of a bad night, Jonathan!"
"What is Rob going to do?" Roy asked, shortly after, when he was
comfortably tucked up in bed, and was enjoying a hot basin of bread and
milk. Miss Bertram had just come in to see how he was.
"Is that the lad that brought you back? He is having a good supper in
the kitchen, and then will go home, I suppose."
"But he hasn't any home," said Roy, putting down his spoon and looking
at his aunt with an anxious face; "he can't get work, so his mother
turned him out of doors, and I want him to come and live with us, and
when I grow up he shall be my servant!"
Miss Bertram laughed.
"My dear boy, not quite so fast. I shall not turn him out to-night, if
he has no home to go to; but we cannot keep a lot of idle boys about the
establishment."
Roy's brown eyes filled with tears. It was so rarely that he showed his
feelings that his aunt began to wonder whether he was not too weak and
exhausted from his walk to be talked to.
"Don't worry your little head over him," she said, kindly; "go to
sleep, and I'll let you see him to-morrow morning."
"Have you ever been lost, Aunt Judy?"
Roy was struggling for self-command, and his voice was very quiet.
"No, I'm thankful to say I never have."
"I prayed to God," he went on solemnly; "that He would send some one to
show us the way home, and Rob was the answer. And when he took me up on
his shoulders and I knew he was taking me home, I thought of that
picture over there!"
Roy pointed to a print of the Good Shepherd with the lost sheep across
his shoulders, and Miss Bertram's face softened as she stooped and
kissed her little nephew.
"Good-night dear. We will see what can be done."
She left the room and when nurse came bustling up to see if the bread
and milk had disappeared she found her little charge gazing dreamily in
front of him.
"Come, dearie, eat your supper. Don't you feel easier?"
"I was thinking," Roy said, slowly bringing back his gaze to the basin
before him; "that if you're very strong you miss a lot of comfort; and
however big and strong I grow up to be, I hope I shan't be too big and
strong to be carried by Him!"
He pointed to the picture again, and good old nurse responded,
"If you outgrow the Lord, you'll outgrow heaven!"
VI
ROB
Roy was not allowed to go to the Rectory the next morning as it was
rather damp, and nurse was carefully trying to ward off a bronchial
attack, but he was permitted to see Rob, and the latter came in looking
rather sheepish and as if he did not know what to do with his hands and
his feet.
"What are you going to do, Rob?" asked Roy, eagerly, after their first
greetings had been exchanged; "you aren't going home again?"
"I'd sooner be shot," was the short reply.
"I've been talking to Aunt Judy about you again this morning, and she
says if you would like to help our old gardener in the garden and could
get a character from some one, she'd try you. I don't quite know what
she means about the character. I thought that belonged to you and not to
any one else. She says she doesn't know what you're like, but I told her
I'd find out. I say, take a chair, won't you. Now then, you don't mind
my asking you a few questions, do you? Are you a thief?"
Rob took the chair that was offered him, squared his shoulders, and
looked up with a pleasant smile at this blunt question.
"No, I ain't that."
"Have you ever killed anybody?"
"No."
"Are you a drunkard?"
"I hate the stuff!"
"Are you a fighter?"
"Well, no, not a reg'lar one. I can't say I've never knocked a feller
down, or squared up with him a bit, but I don't fight till I'm driven to
it."
"Are you a liar?"
"No."
Roy drew a sigh of relief, then continued: "Well, if you aren't any of
those, I'm sure Aunt Judy will have you, I told her I knew you weren't
wicked."
"But I ain't no scholar," said Rob, doubtfully; "I can't write nor read,
and that's against a feller!"
"Oh, well, you won't have to read and write much in the garden. Old Hal
can't read either, and he makes a cross for his name when he has to
write it. But I suppose you can learn, can't you?"
Rob nodded.
"You see I played truant mostly when I was sent to school, and then I
began to mind the cattle soon after I were eight year old, but if any
body would start me, I believe I could pick it up."
"I'll teach you myself when I've nothing else to do," said Roy, grandly;
"for I want you to be clever. I want you to come with me, when I'm grown
up, to my big house. You shall be my head servant, and live with me
always. Would you like that?"
Rob grinned, and seemed to think it a great joke.
Roy continued: "Of course I shall want you more when Dudley goes away.
He has got a stepfather, so when he grows up he will go out to India, I
expect, to live with him, but we don't talk of it, and we pretend we're
never going to leave each other. Did you find Dudley very much heavier
to carry than me?"
"Well, yes, he were a bit heavier."
"I'm afraid I shall never catch him up, he is nearly a head taller, and
he seems to grow quicker every month. I grow so slowly. I think it is
because I lie in bed so much more than he does, I'm always having to go
to bed in the daytime when I'm ill, and that must keep you from growing,
don't you think so?"
The conversation was here interrupted by Miss Bertram's entrance. She
had a long talk with Rob, and in the end took him for a month on trial,
as she had known his father.
The boys were delighted, but Roy still persisted in regarding him as
his special protégé, and more than once this had occasioned a heated
argument between the two cousins.
"He doesn't belong to you. You order him about as if he were your
servant," said Dudley, impatiently, one afternoon after Roy had sent Rob
on more than one errand to the house for him.
"Well, so he will be one day," returned Roy, flushing up.
They were seated again in their favorite corner on the wall, some ripe
plums having just been handed up to them by the obliging Rob, and Dudley
having put an extra big one in his mouth was speechless for a moment.
"I suppose you'll get so fond of Rob, that you won't want me any
longer," he said, after some consideration.
"Rob is my servant, but you're a friend and relation," asserted Roy.
"He is an opportunity, and a pretty big one, isn't he?"
"Why, yes; I never thought of that! How splendid!"
Roy's large eyes were shining, and he gazed with tender pride at Rob who
was now sweeping the lawn.
"We have done him good already, haven't we?" pursued Dudley,
reflectively; "only he started by doing us good. I tell you what we
might do for him. Teach him to read."
Roy looked very doubtful.
"It is so difficult, and he seems so stupid. I did try the other day,
for he asked me to; but I never thought any body _could_ be so stupid! I
told him we would have to give it up, for it made me lose my temper so.
I thought perhaps he could go to old Principle. You see he is too big
for school, but old Principle is always saying he likes to teach people
things."
"Well, that is awfully funny," said Dudley, pointing down to the pine
woods opposite them. "Talk of him and there he is! Isn't that him
walking along over there? Look--now he's stooping down to look at
something. I'm sure it's old Principle; we'll call him!"
Two shrill boyish voices rang out, "Old Principle! Hi! We want you! Old
Principle!"
Soon after old Principle was standing beneath the wall, having obeyed
the summons.
He stood looking up at them with his straw hat pushed to the back of his
head, and his keen, piercing eyes twinkling kindly under his thick,
shaggy eyebrows.
"Well, laddies, you're above me now. 'Tisn't often you can look down at
old Principle from such a superior height."
"We want to ask you if we may send Rob down to you for you to teach him
to read," said Roy, eagerly.
"And why have not two idle boys more time than a busy shopkeeper to do
such a thing?" demanded the old man.
"Oh, well, you see," explained Roy, confusedly; "grown-up people know
how to teach, and boys don't. Besides, we aren't idle, we work hard at
lessons all the morning, and we have half an hour's prep after tea."
Old Principle shook his head.
"And you're the lad for making people better, and doing good to all.
'Tis a bad principle, my boy, to wait for great opportunities, and let
the small ones go!"
"Do you think we ought to teach him?" questioned Dudley.
"If he wants to learn, and you have the time, you will be letting the
opportunity slip, that's all. And moreover old Principle isn't going to
be the one to help you do it."
The old man turned his back upon them and walked into the pine wood
again, leaving the two boys gazing after him with perturbed faces.
"He's rather cross this afternoon," observed Dudley.
"I s'pose he thinks it's for our good. Shall we try again? Could you
teach him one day, and me the next? That wouldn't be quite so tiring."
Rob was called upon and consulted, and it was finally arranged that
every afternoon from two to three he should have a reading lesson on the
top of the garden wall.
"We shan't feel sleepy here, and it's the time everybody else is taking
a nap," said Roy, trying to take a cheerful view of it. "I'm going to
try and be very patient and not be cross once, for you're our
opportunity, or one of them, isn't he, Dudley?"
Dudley nodded. "The biggest we've had yet," he said.
Rob grinned and went away delighted. He was a steady, honest lad,
devoted to both boys; but especially to Roy, who, without Dudley's
constant remonstrance, would have tyrannized over him to his heart's
content. Miss Bertram left them alone; she exercised a certain
supervision over Rob's work, but never objected to his joining her
little nephews' amusements.
"They will not learn any harm from him," she told her mother; "and he
may teach them many things that are good."
So it came to pass that reading lessons took place regularly every day
on the top of the wall, and Rob's eagerness to master all hard words,
and his humble diffidence, when his little teachers waxed wrath with
him, was touching to witness. Sometimes conversation would bear a large
part in the lessons, especially when Roy was the teacher. And Dudley
would always insist on having a break for refreshments.
"You will be able to write letters for me, Rob, when I grow up," said
Roy, one afternoon, pausing in the lesson. "I don't like writing
letters, and I'm thinking of travelling round the world and discovering
countries, so I shall have to write home sometimes. You will come with
me, won't you?"
"For certain I will," was the emphatic reply.
"I've been thinking," pursued Roy, thoughtfully, as he let his gaze
wander from the book between them to the top of the dark pines swaying
gently in the summer breeze; "that I may be quite strong enough when I
grow up to be a discoverer. You see I can't be a soldier or sailor, but
I haven't anything the matter with me but a weak chest, and doctors say
sea voyages and travelling do weak chests good sometimes. Do you think
I'm a very poor body to look at, Rob? That's what some of the villagers
say I am, but my head and legs and arms are all right. I'm not a cripple
or a hunchback, or blind, or deaf, or dumb, so I must be very glad of
that. What do you think?"
"You're just as straight and plucky as Master Dudley, and you'll grow
up a big, strong man, I dare say," said Hob, sympathetically.
"Old Principle says you may be a maker, a mender, or a breaker in your
life. I want to be a maker. And I should like to find a country and make
it into a nice big town. I want to do something big. I ask God every day
to let me find something to do."
"Do you believe in--in God?" asked Rob, rather sheepishly.
"Of course I do; what do you mean? Don't you?"
"I don't know. I don't know much about Him, only you often talk as if
you're--well quite friends with Him, and I've wondered at it."
Roy brought down his gaze from the hilltops to his companion's face with
grave interest.
"I've known God since I was a baby," he said. "I don't remember when I
didn't know Him. Nurse used to talk to me when I was very small, and
when my father was dying he called me to him, and said,--'Fitz Roy!
Serve God first, then your Queen, and then your fellow men!' I've always
remembered it, only you know we don't talk about these things, and I've
only told Dudley. I'm trying to serve God--you don't want to be very
strong to do that; but I'm longing to serve the Queen, and when Mr.
Selby talked to us of opportunities for doing good to all men I've been
longing to find them ever since. Don't you know much about God, Rob?"
Rob shook his head. "I used to larn He made the world and me, and I know
He'll punish the wicked, but I've never tried to serve Him, and--and I
don't think as how I care about it."
"P'raps you don't know about Jesus Christ?" asked Roy, solemnly.
"Well, yes, I used to larn about Him when I was a kid at the
Sunday-school. I know He came into the world to save people, but I never
rightly understood why, nor what difference it makes."
"I'll be able to tell you that. If He hadn't died, I suppose I shouldn't
have cared about serving God because it would have been no use--nothing
would have been any use, for we should all have had to go to hell when
we died, to punish us for our sins. We could never have got to heaven at
all."
"If we had been very good I reckon we could," put in Rob, knitting his
brows with this aspect of the subject.
"But you see the Bible says we can't be good, not one of us--the devil
won't let us."
"But there are good people in the world."
"You interrupt so," said Roy, a little impatiently. "I was going to
tell you. Jesus died to let God be able to forgive us and take us to
heaven. It's rather difficult to explain, but God punished Him _instead_
of us, do you see? So now we can all go to heaven, and the reason we try
to be good is to please Jesus because He has loved us, and the reason we
are able to be good is because Jesus helps us to be, and He can fight
the devil better than we can. There, I think I've told you it right. Now
shall we go on with the reading?"
Rob said no more till after the lesson was over, then he said slowly,
"It's rather strange, that what you were a tellin' me, but I don't see
it quite. P'raps another day you'll tell me again."
"If you make haste and read, I'll give you a Bible, and then you'll be
able to read about it yourself. Of course you ought to be serving God
just as much as anybody else, and you'd better begin at once!"
Saying which Roy scrambled down from his high perch and raced across the
garden to the stables where he had settled to meet Dudley; whilst Rob
descended more slowly, muttering to himself, "'Tis a good thing not to
be afraid of God like Master Roy, but I doubt if I should ever get to
serve Him!"
VII
A WALNUT STOKY
"I say, Dudley, do come out for a ride! Aunt Judy is with granny, and
she says the house must be quiet, and I hate being in a quiet house.
Come on! What are you doing?"
Roy finished his sentence by springing on Dudley's back, and as he was
in a crouching attitude in a corner of the old nursery, he brought him
flat to the ground by his unexpected attack. For a minute or two both
boys rolled on the ground in each other's clutches, and feet and hands
were having a busy time of it. Then Dudley sprang to his feet.
"I like you coming in to tell me to be quiet, and then beginning a fight
at once! Do shut up! You've quite spoilt my last letter!"
"Well, what are you doing?"
"I'm carving my name in the corner here, just below my father's."
Roy looked with curiosity at Dudley's handiwork.
"Yes, your M is very crooked; but I wouldn't choose to write my name on
the wainscoting. It's too low down. I like to be at the top of
everything. Now if you carved it on the ceiling that would be something
like!"
"You're always wanting to do impossibilities!"
"I should like to have a try at them," rejoined Roy, quickly. "I hate
everything that is easy. Now come on, do! and we'll have a good gallop
over the down!"
Half an hour later and the boys were tearing through the village on
their ponies, and were soon out on an open expanse of heather and grass.
Roy was in the midst of an eloquent harangue on all he was going to do
when he was grown up, when Dudley suddenly came to a standstill.
"Something is the matter with Hazel. I believe she's going lame. Oh, I
see, one of her shoes is loose! Now what are we to do!"
He sprang off his pony as he spoke, and looked perplexed at this
calamity.
"Lead her on gently," was Roy's ready advice. "We aren't far off from
C----, and I know there's a blacksmith there."
Dudley grumbled a little at having his ride spoiled in this fashion; but
it was not long before they reached the neighboring village, and the
smith's forge was soon found.