THE LOST FOUND.
Egerton expelled--Harry lost--Settling to work--Two years after--A
triumphal entry--The halt--Pre-occupied--A stranger--Found at last.
There was a great stir in Wilton on Harry's disappearance. The single
policeman the village boasted was sent for and vigorously interrogated.
Had he seen any traces of a young gentleman answering to Harry's
description?
"No! he hadn't seen nothing!"
Was he on his beat that night? Had he passed the school buildings?
He had stood talking for half-an-hour in one spot of the village, and
then had gone to bed.
"He hadn't thought there was any call for him to go round the village."
No wonder "he hadn't seen nothing!"
All other inquiries met with pretty much the same answer. It was in
vain. Harry was quite beyond all discovery.
So Doctor Palmer wrote at last to H.M.S. "Fervid," telling
Chief-engineer Campbell, honestly and openly, the whole proceeding;
concluding his letter with some kind and tender words of sympathy for
him in his sorrow.
Egerton was promptly packed off to his guardian, a stern, sour-faced
London lawyer (his parents were both dead), with an explicit account of
his conduct, and his consequent expulsion.
In a very short time things went on much as usual at the school, to all
external appearances. The excitement had died the usual death.
It is not, however, to be wondered that both Doctor Palmer and Mr
Prichard felt very uneasy at the total failure of the attempts to
discover Harry's whereabouts.
Mrs Valentine's distress could know no bounds, and both she and Mrs
Bromley were full of indignation, woman-like, with everybody at the
school. Boys and masters alike came in for blame from them.
But it was all of no avail. Each day Harry was getting farther away
from Wilton; more lost than ever; settling down deeper and deeper into
that strange and motley mass of wanderers on the face of the earth,
whose individuality nobody recognises, or cares to recognise.
He had plenty to do. And work is the one grand thing that keeps us
from too near communion with any sorrow it may be our lot to bear. Yet
often and often, as they halted at different towns, Harry's heart would
grow very heavy, as he saw among the spectators, numerous boys of his
own age, well-dressed and cared-for, with happy faces full of
astonishment and wondering admiration.
And he thought of what might have been his lot, had it not been--for
whom?--had it not been for Egerton, he might, like them, have been in
his proper place, instead of the outcast that he was; and the old
feeling of revenge grew firmer and stronger with his growing years.
He must, he would, meet Egerton some day, and then, then he would
settle the account that was between them.
So time flew on, and Harry had been two years with Mr and Mrs Blewcome;
and these years of "roughing it" had physically done him good. He had
grown fast, and happily proportionally strong with his height; and you
would not have recognised the Harry of fifteen in his common clothes,
as being the same fragile boy of thirteen whom you saw that night in
June weeping over his mother's grave in the moonlight.
Still, in spite of his dress, you could see he was a gentleman, every
inch his father's son. For it is not to be supposed, as some might
hastily and ignorantly suppose, that Alan Campbell was not a gentleman,
because he was an engineer.
A chief-engineer on board one of Her Majesty's ships-of-war, and an
engine-driver of a locomotive, are two very different personages. This
new branch of sea-service is of course to be traced to the change in
the Royal Navy from the old sailing vessels to the iron-clad
steamships. And the post of chief-engineer, though not necessarily
requiring a gentleman by birth, yet often attracted those who, having
changed their plans in life, wished to join the service, when it was
too late to join as midshipmen.
* * * * * *
It was a bright June morning, nearly two years to the very day since
Harry had fallen in with Blewcome's Royal Menagerie; and after a long
journey through the greater part of the night, the cavalcade was
wearily entering a seaport town in the south of England. Mr and Mrs
Blewcome were both asleep, snoring in unison within their gorgeously
painted caravan, and Harry was sitting astride one of the identical old
piebald steeds that had drawn Mr and Mrs B. for the last ten years.
On reaching a turnpike at the outskirts of the town, the proprietor and
proprietress of the Royal Menagerie arose from their slumbers. And
this was a general signal for a "wake-up." The whips were plied
lustily over the jaded horses, to give them a lively, not to say frisky
appearance. The trumpets rose to the lips of the musicians, and the
drumsticks flew into the hands of the energetic drummer, and with an
elevating strain of discordant music, Blewcome's Royal Menagerie
majestically entered the town.
It did the hearts good of Blewcome and his spouse to see the
street-doors flung open, and the gaping faces of the suburban
inhabitants; and from the ever-increasing number of dirty little boys
who brought up the rear of the cavalcade, Mrs Blewcome began reckoning
on an unprecedented harvest of good luck. And the trumpeters
trumpeted, and the drummer drummed; but as usual the latter had a long
way the best of it.
The morning was spent, as it always was on such occasions, in arranging
the caravans in the wonted horse-shoe shape. At the square end of the
horse-shoe, so to speak, stretched the imposing canvas screen, painted
in a most elaborate style, by the hand of some artist whose name
unhappily has not been preserved for the benefit of posterity. There
you might see the sheep-like lion, and the pig-like bear; leopards like
short-legged zebras, and monkeys most unpleasantly like human beings.
Indeed, ill-natured persons had been heard to declare one picture of a
very lean ancient ourang-outang bore a strong resemblance to Mr
Blewcome. But, then, some people see such strange likenesses!
And there were painted on the screen sundry other impossible animals,
intended to attract the outside spectators, and induce them to enter
and behold the wondrous originals within that magic circle of caravans.
And while all these preparations were being hurried on, the yellow
chariot and the band paraded the town at various periods of the day.
The first night at a new place was always a sort of refreshment to the
jaded show-people. They had not much novelty, in good truth. But on
these occasions they had the slight excitement of seeing new faces, and
speculating how their arrival would "draw" the populace.
Harry, of course, young as he was to the business of his present life,
quite naturally looked forward to the new places and new people.
At eight o'clock the band ascended the platform ranged in front of the
painted screen before alluded to, and set about making a great deal of
noise, and a goodly assemblage began to flock towards the show, and
carried quite away by the life-like pictorial representations of the
animals, first hesitated, then put their hands in their pockets,
hesitated again, and finally paid their sixpences and went in.
Mrs Blewcome was in high glee at the rapid way in which her exchequer
was filling. Mr Blewcome was in the midst of a most instructive
harangue upon the nature and habits of that sportive animal, the
elephant, and Harry sat on the steps of the platform, where the band
was playing, and watched the people whom the show attracted, and those,
too, who kept perpetually passing to and fro between the centre of the
town and the docks. For the menagerie had taken up its position in an
open space close by some wharves adjoining the docks.
By and by there appeared in the distance, coming from the docks, a
figure which Harry seemed to know.
Impossible! It could not be! Whom should he be likely to meet with,
here, miles and miles away from Wilton. He strained his eyes. The
figure came nearer, was just passing with a half-careless look at the
show. A brave, stern face,--a sad, earnest face--a stout, manly form.
Harry looked again eagerly through the darkening shadows of the summer
evening, and then running hastily through the wondering, jostling,
bustling crowd, was at his father's side.
"Papa, papa!" he cried, "don't you know me?"
Alan Campbell turned suddenly and looked inquiringly at him, and then
putting his arm round his boy's neck, round the poor, common clothes,
kissed him with the fondness of one who had found what he had lost and
yearned to find; and, in a voice scarcely audible with emotion,
murmured repeatedly, "Thank God! thank God! found at last!"