CLARE THE VAGABOND.
The next morning Clare happened to do something not altogether to the
farmer’s mind. It was a matter of no consequence--only cleaning that
side of one of the cow-houses first which was usually cleaned last. He
gave him a box on the ear that made him stagger, and then stand
bewildered.
“What do you mean by staring that way?” cried the farmer, annoyed with
himself and seeking justification in his own eyes. “Am I not to box
your ears when I choose?” And with that he gave him another blow.
Then first it dawned on Clare that he was not wanted, that he was no
good to anybody. He threw down his scraper, and ran from the
cow-house; ran straight from the farm to the lane, and from the lane
to the high road. Buffets from the hand of his only friend, and the
sudden sense of loneliness they caused, for the moment bereft Clare of
purpose. It was as if his legs had run away with him, and he had
unconsciously submitted to their abduction.
At the mouth of the lane, where it opened on the high road, he ran
against Tommy turning the corner, eager to find him. The eyes of the
small human monkey were swollen with weeping; his nose was bleeding,
and in size and shape scarce recognizable as a nose. At the sight, the
consciousness of his protectorate awoke in Clare, and he stopped,
unable to speak, but not unable to listen. Tommy blubbered out a
confused, half-inarticulate something about “granny and the other
devil,” who between them had all but killed him.
“What can I do?” said Clare, his heart sinking with the sense of
having no help in him.
Tommy was ready to answer the question. He had been hatching vengeance
all the way. Eagerly came his proposition--that they should, in their
turn, lie in ambush for Simpson, and knock his crutch from under
him. That done, Clare should belabour him with it, while he ran like
the wind and set his grandmother’s house on fire.
“She’ll be drunk in bed, an’ she’ll be burned to death!” cried
Tommy. “Then we’ll mizzle!”
“But it would hurt them both very badly, Tommy!” said Clare, as if
unfolding the reality of the thing to a foolish child.
“Well! all right! the worse the better! Ain’t they hurt _us_?” rejoined
Tommy.
“That’s how we know it’s not nice!” answered Clare. “If they set it a
going, we ain’t to keep it a going!”
“Then they’ll be at it for ever,” cried Tommy, “an’ I’m sick of it!
I’ll _kill_ granny! I swear I will, if I’m hanged for it! She’s said a
hundred times she’d pull my legs when I was hanged; but _she_ won’t be
at the hanging!”
“Why shouldn’t you run for it first?” said Clare. “Then they wouldn’t
want to hang you!”
“Then I shouldn’t have nobody!” replied Tommy, whimpering.
“I should have thought Nobody was as good as granny!” said Clare.
“A big bilin’ better!” answered Tommy bitterly. “I wasn’t meanin’
granny--nor yet stumpin’ Simpson.”
“I don’t know what you’re driving at,” said Clare. Tommy burst into
tears.
“Ain’t you the only one I got, up or down?” he cried.
Tommy had a little bit of heart--not much, but enough to have a chance
of growing. If ever creature had less than that, he was not human. I
do not think he could even be an ape.
Some of the people about the parson used to think Clare had no heart,
and Mrs. Goodenough was sure of it. He had not a spark of gratitude,
she said. But the cause of this opinion was that Clare’s affection
took the shape of deeds far more than of words. Never were judges of
their neighbours more mistaken. The chief difference between Clare’s
history and that of most others was, that his began at the unusual
end. Clare began with loving everybody; and most people take a long
time to grow to that. Hence, those whom, from being brought nearest to
them, he loved specially, he loved without that outbreak of show which
is often found in persons who love but a few, and whose love is
defiled with partisanship. He loved quietly and constantly, in a
fashion as active as undemonstrative. He was always glad to be near
those he specially loved; beyond that, the signs of his love were
practical--it came out in ministration, in doing things for
them. There are those who, without loving, desire to be loved, because
they love themselves; for those that are worth least are most precious
to themselves. But Clare never thought of the love of others to
him--from no heartlessness, but that he did not think about
himself--had never done so, at least, until the moment when he fled
from the farm with the new agony in his heart that nobody wanted him,
that everybody would be happier without him. Happy is he that does not
think of himself before the hour when he becomes conscious of the
bliss of being loved. For it must be and ought to be a happy moment
when one learns that another human creature loves him; and not to be
grateful for love is to be deeply selfish. Clare had always loved, but
had not thought of any one as loving him, or of himself as being loved
by any one.
“Well,” rejoined Clare, struggling with his misery, “ain’t I going
myself?”
“You going!--That’s chaff!”
“’Tain’t chaff. I’m on my way.”
“What! Going to hook it? Oh golly! what a lark! Won’t Farmer
Goodenough look blue!”
“He’ll think himself well rid of me,” returned Clare with a sigh. “But
there’s no time to talk. If you’re going, Tommy, come along.”
He turned to go.
“Where to?” asked Tommy, following.
“I don’t know. Anywhere away,” answered Clare, quickening his pace.
In spite of his swollen visage, Tommy’s eyes grew wider.
“You ain’t cribbed nothing?” he said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You ain’t stole something?” interpreted Tommy.
Clare stopped, and for the first time on his own part, lifted his hand
to strike. It dropped immediately by his side.
“No, you poor Tommy,” he said. “I don’t steal.”
“Thought you didn’t! What are you running away for then?”
“Because they don’t want me.”
“Lord! what will you do?”
“Work.”
Tommy held his tongue: he knew a better way than that! If work was the
only road to eating, things would go badly with _him_! But he thought
he knew a thing or two, and would take his chance! There were degrees
of hunger that were not so bad as the thrashings he got, for in his
granny’s hands the rope might fall where it would; while all cripple
Simpson cared for was to make him squeal satisfactorily. But work was
worse than all! He would go with Clare, but not to work! Not he!
Clare kept on in silence, never turning his head--out into the
untried, unknown, mysterious world, which lay around the one spot he
knew as the darkness lies about the flame of the candle. They walked
more than a mile before either spoke.