A Hero of Romance Page 4

  Chapter IV

  A LITTLE DRIVE

  Those within the shop had been too much interested in their ownproceedings to be conscious of a dog-cart, which came tearing throughthe darkening shadows at such a pace that startled pedestrians mightbe excused for thinking that it was a case of a horse running awaywith its driver. But such would have been convinced of their errorwhen, in passing Mrs. Huffham's, on hearing Mr. Stephen bellowing withwhat seemed to be the full force of a pair of powerful lungs, thevehicle was brought to a standstill as suddenly as a regiment ofsoldiers halt at the word of command. The driver spoke to the horse,--

  "Steady! stand still, old girl!" The speaker alighted. ApproachingMrs. Huffham's, he stood at the glass-windowed door, observing theproceedings within; and when Mr. Stephen, in his blind rage, struckthe lamp from its place and plunged the scene in darkness, theunnoticed looker-on turned the handle of the door and entered theshop, shouting, in tones which made themselves audible above thedin,--

  "Bravo! that's the best plucked boy I've seen!" And standing on thethreshold, he repeated his assertion, "Bravo! that's the best pluckedboy I've seen." He drew a box of matches from his pocket, and strikingone, he held the flickering flame above his head, so that some littlelight was shed upon what was going on within. "What's this littleargument?" he asked.

  Seeing that Mr. Huffman was still holding Bailey firmly in his grasp,"Hold hard, big one," he said; "let the little chap get up. You oughtto have your little arguments outside; this place isn't above halflarge enough to swing a cat in. Granny, bring a light!"

  As the match was just on the point of going out he struck another, andentered the shop with it flaming in his hand. Mrs. Huffham's nerveswere too shaken to allow her to pay that instant attention to thenew-comer's orders which he seemed to demand.

  "Look alive, old lady; bring a light! This old band-box is as dark aspitch."

  Thus urged, the old lady disappeared, presently reappearing with alittle table-lamp in her trembling hands.

  "Put it somewhere out of reach--if anything is out of reach in thisdog-hole of a place. I shouldn't be surprised if you had a littlebonfire with the next lamp that's upset."

  Mrs. Huffman placed it on a shelf in the extreme corner of the shop,from which post of vantage it did not light the scene quite sobrilliantly as it might have done. Mr. Stephen and the boy, relaxing amoment from the extreme vigour of discussion, availed themselves ofthe opportunity to see what sort of person the stranger might chanceto be.

  He was a man of gigantic stature, probably considerably over six feethigh, but so broad in proportion that he seemed shorter than heactually was. A long waterproof, from which the rain was trickling inlittle streams, reached to his feet; the hood was drawn over his head,and under its shadow was seen a face which was excellently adapted tothe enormous frame. A huge black beard streamed over the stranger'sbreast, and a pair of large black eyes looked out from overhangingbrows. He was the first to break the silence.

  "Well, what is this little argument?" Then, without waiting for ananswer, he continued, addressing Mr. Huffham, "You're rather a largesize, don't you think, for that sized boy?"

  "Who are you? and what do you want? If there's anything you want tobuy, perhaps you'll buy it, and take yourself outside."

  The stranger put his hand up to his beard, and began pulling it.

  "There's nothing I want to buy, not just now." He looked at Bailey."What's he laying it on for?"

  "Nothing."

  "That's not bad, considering. What were you laying it on for?" This toHuffham.

  "I've not finished yet, not by no manner of means; I mean to takeit out of all the lot of 'em. Call themselves gents! Why, if aworking-man's son was to behave as they does, he'd get five yearsat a reformatory. I've known it done before today."

  "I daresay you have; you look like a man who knew a thing or two. Whatwere you laying it on for?"

  "What for? why, look here!" And Mr. Huffham pointed to the brokenbottles and the damaged case.

  "And I'm a hard-working woman, I am, sir, and I'm seventy-three thisnext July; and it's hard work I find it to pay my rent: and whereverI'm to get the money for them there things, goodness knows, I don't.It'll be the workhouse, after all!" Thus Mrs. Huffham lifted up hervoice and wept.

  "And they calls themselves gents, and they comes in here, and takesadvantage of an old woman, and robs her right and left, and thinksthey're going to get off scot free; not if I know it this time theywon't." Mr. Stephen Huffham looked as though he meant it, every word.

  "Did you do that?" asked the stranger of Bailey.

  "No, I didn't."

  "I don't care who did it; they're that there liars I wouldn't believea word of theirs on oath; they did it between them, and that's quiteenough for me."

  "I suppose one of you did do it?" asked the stranger.

  Bailey thrust his hands in his pockets, looking up at the strangerwith the dogged look in his eyes.

  "The place was pitch dark; why didn't they have a light in the place?"

  "Because there didn't happen to be a light in the place, is that anyreason why you should go smashing everything you could lay your handson? Why couldn't you wait for a light? Go on with you! I'll take theskin off your back!"

  "How much?" asked the stranger, paying no attention to Mr. Stephen'seloquence.

  "There's a heap of mischief done, heap of mischief!" wailed the oldlady in the rear.

  "How am I to tell all the mischief that's been done? Just look at theplace; a sovereign wouldn't cover it, no, that it wouldn't."

  "There isn't five shillings' worth of harm," said Bertie. "If you wereto get five shillings, you'd make a profit of half a crown."

  The stranger laughed, and Mr. Huffham scowled; the look which he castat Bertie was not exactly a look of love, but the boy met it withoutany sign of flinching.

  "I'll be even with you yet, my lad!" Mr. Stephen said.

  "If I give you a sovereign you will be even," suggested the stranger.

  Mr. Stephen's eyes glistened; and his grandmother, clasping her oldwithered palms together, cast a look of rapture towards the ceiling.

  "Oh, deary me! deary me!" she said.

  "It's a swindle," muttered Bertie.

  "Oh, it's a swindle, is it?" snarled Mr. Stephen. "I'd like to swindleyou, my fighting cock."

  "You couldn't do it," retorted Bertie.

  The stranger laughed again. Unbuttoning his waterproof, and in doingso distributing a shower of water in his immediate neighbourhood, outof his trousers pocket he took a heavy purse, out of the purse he tooka sovereign, and the sovereign he handed to Mr. Stephen Huffham. Mr.Stephen's palm closed on the glittering coin with a certain degree ofhesitation.

  "Now you're quits," said the stranger, "you and the boy."

  "Quits!" said Bertie, "it's seventeen-and-sixpence in his pocket!"

  Mr. Stephen smiled, not quite pleasantly; he might have been moved tospeech had not the stranger interrupted him.

  "You're pretty large, and that's all you are; if this boy were aboutyour size, he'd lay it on to you. I should say you were a considerablefine sample of a--coward."

  Mr. Stephen held his peace. There was something in the stranger'smanner and appearance which induced him to think that perhaps he hadbetter be content with what he had received. After having paused for asecond or two, seemingly for some sort of reply from Mr. Huffham, thestranger addressed the boys.

  "Get out!" They went out, rather with the air of beaten curs. Thestranger followed them. "Get up into the cart; I'm going to take youhome to my house to tea." They looked at each other, in doubt as towhether he was jesting. "Do you hear? Get up into the cart! You, boy,"touching Bailey on the shoulder, "you ride alongside me."

  Still they hesitated. It occurred to them that they had already brokentheir engagement with the credulous Mr. Shane, broken it in the mostsatisfactory manner, in each separate particular. They were not onlywet and muddy, l
ooking somewhat as though they had recently beenpicked out of the gutter, but that half-hour within which they hadpledged themselves to return had long since gone. But if theyhesitated, there was no trace of hesitation about the stranger.

  "Now then, do you think I want to wait here all night? Tumble up, youboy." And fairly lifting Wheeler off his legs, he bore him bodilythrough the air, and planted him at the back of the trap. And notWheeler only, but Griffin and Ellis too. Before those young gentlemenhad quite realized their position, or the proposal he had made tothem, they found themselves clinging to each other to preventthemselves tumbling out of the back of what was not a very largedog-cart. "You're none of you big ones! Catch hold of each other'shair or something, and don't fall out; I can't stop to pick up boys.Now then, bantam, up you go."

  And Bertie, handled in the same undignified fashion, found himself onthe front seat beside the driver. The stranger, big though he was,apparently allowed his size to interfere in no degree with hisagility. In a twinkling he was seated in his place by Bertie.

  "Steady!" he cried. "Look out, you boys!" He caught the reins in hishands; the mare knew her master's touch, and in an instant, evenbefore the boys had altogether yet quite realized their situation,they were dashing through the darkening night.

  It was about as cheerless an evening as one could very well select fora drive in an open vehicle. The stranger, enveloped in his waterproof,his hood in some degree sheltering his face, a waterproof rug drawnhigh above his knees, was more comfortable than the boys. Bailey,indeed, had a seat to sit upon and a share of the rug, but his friendshad neither seat nor shelter.

  Perhaps, on the whole, they would have been better off had they beenwalking. The imperfect light and the hasty start rendered it difficultfor them to have a clear view of their position. The mare--which, hadit been lighter and they versed in horseflesh, they would have beenable to recognise as a very tolerable specimen of an Americantrotter--made the pace so hot that they had to cling, if not to eachother's hair, at least to whatever portion of each other's person theycould manage to get hold of. Even then it was only by means of aseries of gymnastic feats that they were able to keep their footingand save themselves from being pitched out on to the road.

  They had not gone far when Griffin had a disaster.

  "I've lost my hat!" he cried. Wind and pace and nervousness combinedhad loosened his headgear, and without staying to bid farewell to hishead, it disappeared into the night.

  The stranger gave utterance to a loud yet musical laugh.

  "Never mind your hat! Can't stop for hats! The fresh air will do yougood, cool your head, my boy!" But this was a point of view which didnot occur to Griffin; he was rather disposed to wonder what Mr. Shaneand Mrs. Fletcher would say.

  "I wish you wouldn't catch hold of my throat; you'll strangle me,"said Wheeler, as the vehicle dashed round a sharp turn in the road,and the hatless Griffin made a frantic clutch at his friend to savehimself from following his hat.

  "I--can't--help--it," gasped his friend in reply. "I wish he wouldn'tgo so fast. Oh--h!"

  The stranger laughed again.

  "Don't tumble out! we can't stop to pick up boys! Hullo! what are youup to there?"

  The trio in the rear were apparently engaged in a fight for life. Theywere uttering choking ejaculations, and struggling with each other intheir desperate efforts to preserve their perpendicular. In the courseof their struggle they lurched against the stranger with suchunexpected violence that had he not with marvellous rapidity twistedround in his seat and caught them with his arm, they would in allprobability have continued their journey on the road. At the sameinstant, with his disengaged hand he brought the horse, who seemed toobey the directions of its master's hand with mechanical accuracy, toa sudden halt.

  "Now, then, are you all right?"

  They were very far from being all right, but were not at that momentpossessed of breath to tell him so. Had they not lost the power ofspeech they would have joined in a unanimous appeal to him to set themdown, and let them go anywhere, and do anything, rather than allowthem to continue any longer at the mercy of his too rapid steed. Butthe stranger seemed to take their involuntary silence foracquiescence. Once more they were dashing through the night, and againthey were hanging on for their bare lives.

  "Like driving, youngster?" The question was addressed to Bailey. "Likehorses? Like a beast that can go? Mary Anne can give a lead to a flashof lightning and catch it in two T's."

  "Mary Anne" was apparently the steed. At that moment the trio in therear would have believed anything of Mary Anne's powers of speed, butBailey held his peace. The stranger went on.

  "I like a drive on a night like this. I like dashing through the windand the darkness and the rain. I like a thing to fire my blood, andthat's the reason why I like you. That's the reason why I've asked youhome to tea. What's your name?"

  "Bailey, sir."

  "I knew a man named Bailey down in Kentucky who was hanged because hewas too fond of horses--other people's, not his own. Any relation ofyours?" Bertie disclaimed the soft impeachment.

  "I don't think so, sir."

  "There's no knowing. Lots of people are hanged without theirown mothers knowing anything about it, let alone their fathers,especially out Kentucky way. A cousin of mine was hanged in GoldenCity, and I shouldn't have known anything about it to this day ifI hadn't come along and seen his body swinging on a tree. As nicea fellow as man need know, six-feet-one-and-three-quarters in hisstockings--three-quarters of an inch shorter than me. They explainedto me that they'd hanged him by mistake, which was some consolationto me, anyway, though what he thought of it is more than I can say. Icut him down, dug a hole seven foot deep, and laid him there tosleep; and there he sleeps as sound as though he'd handed in hischecks upon a feather bed."

  Bailey looked up at the speaker. He was not quite sure if he was inearnest, and was anything but sure that the little narrative which herolled so glibly off his tongue might not be the instant coinage ofhis brain. But something in the speaker's voice and manner attractedhim even more than his words; something he would have found itdifficult to describe.

  "Is that true?" he asked.

  The stranger looked down at him and laughed.

  "Perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn't." He laughed again. "Wet,youngster?"

  "I should rather think I am," was Bertie's grim response. All thestranger did was to laugh again. Bailey ventured on an inquiry. "Doyou live far from here?" He was conscious of a certain degree ofinterest as to whether the stranger was driving them to Kentucky; he,too, had Mr. Shane and Mrs. Fletcher in his mind's eye. "Shane'll getsacked for this, as sure as fate," was his mental observation. He wasaware that at Mecklemburg House the sins of the pupils not seldom fellupon the heads of the assistant-masters.

  "Pain's Hill," was the answer to his question. "Ever heard ofWashington Villa?" Bertie could not say he had.

  "I am George Washington Bankes, the proprietor thereof. Yes, and itisn't so long ago that if any one had said to me that I should settledown as a country gentleman, I should have said, 'There have beenliars since Ananias, but none quite as big as you.'"

  Bailey eyed him from a corner of his eye. His father was a medicalman, with no inconsiderable country practice. He had seen something ofcountry gentlemen, but it occurred to him that a country gentleman inany way resembling his new acquaintance he had not yet chanced to see.

  "You at the school there?"

  Taking it for granted that he referred to Mecklemburg House, Bertieconfessed that he was.

  "Why don't you run away? I would."

  Bertie started; he had read of boys running away from school instories of the penny dreadful type, but he had not yet heard ofcountry gentlemen suggesting that course of action as a reasonable onefor the rising generation to pursue.

  "Every boy worth his salt ought to run away. I did, and I've neverdone a more sensible thing to this day." In that case one could notbut wonder for how many sensible things Mr. George Washington Banke
shad been remarkable in the course of his career. "I've been from Chinato Peru, from the North Pole to the South. I've been round the worldall sorts of ways; and the chances are that if I hadn't run away fromschool I should never have travelled twenty miles from my old mother'sdoor. Why don't you run away?"

  Bertie wriggled in his seat and gasped.

  "I--I don't know," he said.

  "Ah, I'll talk to you about that when I get you home. You're about thebest plucked lad I've seen, or you wouldn't have stood up in the wayyou did to that great hulking lubber there; and rather than see a ladof parts wasting his time at school--but you wait a bit. I'll openyour eyes, my lad. I'll give you some idea of what a man's life oughtto be! Books never did me any good, and never will. I say, throwbooks, like physic, to the dogs--a life of adventure's the life forme!"

  Bertie listened open-eyed and open-mouthed; he began to think he wasin a waking dream. There was a wildness about his new acquaintance,and about his mode of speech, which filled him with a sort of dull,startled wonder. There was in the boy, deep-rooted somewhere, thathalf-unconscious longing for things adventurous which the Britishyoungster always has. Mr. Bankes struck a chord which filled the boyalmost with a sense of pain.

  "A life of adventure's the life for me!" Mr. Bankes repeated hisconfession of faith, laughing as he did so; and the words, and thevoice, and the manner, and the laugh, all mixed together, made theboy, wet as he was, glow with a sudden warmth. "A life of adventure'sthe life for me!"

  The drive was nearly ended, and during the rest of it Mr. Bankes keptsilence. Wheeler's hat had followed Griffin's, but he had notmentioned it; partly because, as he thought, he would receive nosympathy and not much attention, and partly because, in his anxiety tokeep his footing in the trap, and get out of it with his bones whole,it would have been a matter of comparative indifference to him if therest of his clothing had followed his hat. But he, too, mistilywondered what Mr. Shane and Mrs. Fletcher would say.

  Fortunately for his peace of mind, and the peace of mind of his twofriends, the good steed, Mary Anne, brought them safely to the doorsof Washington Villa. Fond of driving as they were, as a rule, theywere conscious of a distinct sense of relief when that drive was at anend.