A Rough Shaking, page 16
On his way to baby, he almost hoped Tommy would not return: he would gladly be saved putting him in the water-butt!
He forgot him again as he drew near the nursery, and for a long while after he reached it. He found the infant and the dog lying as he had left them. The only sign that either had moved was the strange cleanness of the tiny gray face which Clare had not ventured to wash. It gave indubitable evidence that the dog had been licking it more than a little—probably every few minutes since he was left curate in charge.
And now Clare did with deliberation a thing for which his sensitive conscience not unfrequently reproached him afterward. His defence was, that he had hurt nobody, and had kept baby alive by it. Having in his mind revolved the matter many a time that day, he got some sticks together from the garden, and with one of the precious matches lighted a small fire of coals that were not his own, and for which he could merely hope one day to restore amends. But baby! Baby was more than coals! He filled a rusty kettle with water, and while it was growing hot on the fire, such was his fear lest the smoke should betray them, that he ran out every other minute to see how much was coming from the chimney.
While the fire was busy heating the water, he was busier preparing a bottle for baby—making a hole through the cork of a phial, putting the broken stem of a clean tobacco pipe he had found in the street through the hole, tying a small lump of cotton wool over the end of the pipe-stem, and covering that with a piece of his pocket-handkerchief, carefully washed with the brown Windsor soap, his mother’s last present. For the day held yet another gladness: in looking for a kettle he had found the soap—which probably the rat had carried away and hidden before finding baby. Through the pipe-stem and the wool and the handkerchief he could without difficulty draw water, and hoped therefore baby would succeed in drawing her supper. As soon as the water was warm he mixed some with the milk, but not so much this time, and put the mixture in the bottle. To his delight, the baby sucked it up splendidly. The bottle, thought out between the heavy linen and the hard street, was a success! Labour is not unfriendly to thought, as the annals of weaving and shoe-making witness.
And now at last was Clare equipped for a great attempt: he was going to wash the baby! He was glad that disrespectful Tommy was not in the house. With a basin of warm water and his precious piece of soap he set about it, and taking much pains washed his treasure perfectly clean. It was a state of bliss in which, up to that moment, I presume, she had never been since her birth. In the process he handled her, if not with all the skill of a nurse, yet with the tenderness of a mother. His chief anxiety was not to hurt, more than could not be helped, the poor little rat-eaten toes. He felt he must wash them, but when in the process she whimpered, it went all through the calves of his legs. When the happy but solicitous task was over, during which the infant had shown the submission of great weakness, he wrapped her in another blanket, and laid her down again. Soothed and comfortable, as probably never soothed or comfortable before, she went to sleep.
As soon as she was out of his arms, he took a piece of bread, and with some of the hot water made a little sop for the dog, which the small hero, whose four legs carried such a long barrel of starvation, ate with undisguised pleasure and thankfulness. For his own supper Clare preferred his bread dry, following it with a fine draught of water from the well.
Then, and not till then, returned the thought—what had Tommy done with himself? Left to himself he was sure to go stealing! He might have been taken in the act! Clare could hardly believe he had actually run away from him. On the other hand, he had left the baby, and knew that if he returned he would be put in the water-butt! He might have come to the conclusion that he could do better without Clare, who would not let him steal! It was clear he did not like taking his share in the work of the family, and looking after the baby! Had he been anything of a true boy, Clare would have taken his bread in his hand and gone to look for him; being such as he was, he did not think it necessary. He felt bound to do his best for him if he came back, but he did not feel bound to leave the baby and roam the country to find a boy with whom baby’s life would be in constant danger.
CHAPTER XXXIII. A BAD PENNY.
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BEFORE CLARE HAD DONE HIS thinking, darkness had fallen, and, weary to the very bones, he threw himself on the bed beside the baby. The dog jumped up and laid himself at his feet, as if the place had been his from time immemorial—as it had perhaps been, according to time in dog-land. The many pleasures of that blessed day would have kept Clare awake had they not brought with them so much weariness. He fell fast asleep. Tommy had not had a happy day: he had been found out in evil-doing, had done more evil, and had all the day been in dread of punishment. He did not foresee how ill things would go for him—did not see that a rat had taken his place beside the baby, and that he would not get back before Clare; but the vision of the water-butt had often flashed upon his inner eye, and it had not been the bliss of his solitude. He deserted his post in the hope of finding something to eat, and had not had a mouthful of anything but spongy turnip, and dried-up mangel-wurzel, or want-root. If he had been minding his work, he would have had a piece of good bread—so good that he would have wanted more of it, whereas, when he had eaten the turnip and the beetroot, he had cause to wish he had not eaten so much! He had been set upon by boys bigger than himself, and nearly as bad, who, not being hungry, were in want of amusement, and had proceeded to get it out of Tommy, just as Tommy would have got it out of the baby had he dared. They bullied him in a way that would have been to his heart’s content, had he been the bully instead of the bullied. They made him actually wish he had stayed with the baby—and therewith came the thought that it was time to go home if he would get back before Clare. As to what had taken place in the morning, he knew Clare’s forgivingness, and despised him for it. If he found the baby dead, or anything happened to her that he could not cover with lying, it would be time to cut and run in earnest! So the moment he could escape from his tormenters, off went Tommy for home. But as he ran he remembered that there was but one way into the house, and that was by the very lip of the water-butt.
Clare woke up suddenly—at a sound which all his life would wake him from the deepest slumber: he thought he heard the whimpering of a child. The baby was fast asleep. Instantly he thought of Tommy. He seemed to see him shut out in the night, and knew at once how it was with him: he had gone out without thinking how he was to get back, and dared not go near the water-butt! He jumped out of bed, put on his shoes, and in a minute or two was over the wall and walking along the lane outside of it, to find the deserter.
The moon was not up, and the night was dark, yet he had not looked long before he came upon him, as near the house as he could get, crouching against the wall.
“Tommy!” said Clare softly.
Tommy did not reply. The fear of the water-butt was upon him—a fear darker than the night, an evil worse than hunger or cold—and Clare and the water-butt were one.
“You needn’t think to hide, Tommy; I see you, you bad boy!” whispered Clare. “After all I said, you ran away and left the baby to the rats! They’ve been biting her horribly—one at least has. You can stay away as long as you like now; I’ve got a better nurse. Good-night!” Tommy gave a great howl.
“Hold your tongue, you rascal!” cried Clare, still in a whisper. “You’ll let the police know where we are!”
“Do let me in, Clare! I’m so ‘ungry and so cold!”
“Then I shall have to put you in the water-butt! I said I would!”
“If you don’t promise not to, I’ll go straight to the police. They’ll take the brat from you, and put her in the workhouse!”
Clare thought for a moment whether it would not be right to kill such a traitor. His mind was full of history-tales, and, like Dante, he put treachery in its own place, namely the deepest hell. But with the thought came the words he had said so many times without thinking what they meant—"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us,” and he saw that he was expected to forgive Tommy.
“Tommy, I forgive you,” he said solemnly, “and will be friends with you again; but I have said it, and I was right to say it, and into the water-butt you must go! I can’t trust your word now, and I think I shall be able to trust it after that.”
Ere he had finished the words, Tommy lifted up his voice in a most unearthly screech.
Instantly Clare had him by the throat, so that he could not utter a sound.
“Tommy,” he said, “I’m going to let you breathe again, but the moment you make a noise, I’ll choke you as I’m doing now.”
With that he relaxed his hold. But Tommy had paid no heed to what he said, and began a second screech the moment he found passage for it. Immediately he was choked, and after two or three attempts, finally desisted.
“I won’t!” he said.
“You shall, Tommy. You’re going head over in the butt. We’re going to it now!”
Tommy threw himself upon the ground and kicked, but dared not scream. It was awful! He would drop right through into the great place where the moon was!
Clare threw him over his shoulder, and found him not half the weight of the parcel of linen. Tommy would have bitten like a weasel, but he feared Clare’s terrible hands. He was on the back of Giant Despair, in the form of one of the best boys in the world. Clare took him round the wall, and over the fence into the blacksmith’s yard. The smithy was quite dark.
“Please, I didn’t mean to do it!” sobbed Tommy from behind him, as Clare bore him steadily up the yard. It was all he could do to say the words, for the thought of what they were approaching sent a scream into his throat every time he parted his lips to speak.
Clare stopped.
“What didn’t you mean to do?” he asked.
“I didn’t mean to leave the baby.”
“How did you do it then?”
“I mean I didn’t mean to stay away so long. I didn’t know how to get back.”
“I told you not to leave her! And you could have got back perfectly, you little coward!”
Tommy shuddered, and said no more. Though hanging over Clare’s back he knew presently, by his stopping, that they had come to the heap. There was only that heap and the wall between him and the water-butt! Up and up he felt himself slowly, shakingly carried, and was gathering his breath for a final utterance of agony that should rouse the whole neighbourhood, when Clare, having reached the top, seated himself upon the wall, and Tommy restrained himself in the hope of what a parley might bring. But he sat down only to wheel on the pivot of his spine, as he had seen them do on the counter in the shop, and sit with his legs alongside of the water-butt. Then he drew Tommy from his shoulder, in spite of his clinging, and laid him across his knees; and Tommy, divining there were words yet to be said, and hoping to get off with a beating, which he did not mind, remained silent.
“Your hour is come, Tommy!” said Clare. “If you scream, I will drop you in, and hold you only by one leg. If you don’t scream, I will hold you by both legs. If you scream when I take you out, in you go again! I do what I say, Tommy!”
The wretched boy was nearly mad with terror. But now, much as he feared the water, he feared yet more for the moment him in whom lay the power of the water. Clare took him by the heels.
“I’m sorry there’s no moon, as I promised you,” he said; “she won’t come up for my calling. I should have liked you to see where you were going. But if you ain’t an honest boy after this, you shall have another chance; and next time we will wait for the moon!”
With that he lifted Tommy’s legs, holding him by the ankles, and would have shoved his body over the edge of the butt into the water. But Tommy clung fast to his knees.
“Leave go, Tommy,” he said, “or I’ll tumble you right in.”
Tommy yielded, his will overcome by a greater fear. Clare let him hang for a moment over the black water, and slowly lowered him. Tommy clung to the side of the butt. Clare let go one leg, and taking hold of his hands pulled them away. Tommy’s terror would have burst in a frenzied yell, but the same instant he was down to the neck in the water, and lifted out again. He spluttered and gurgled and tried to scream.
“Now, Tommy,” said Clare, “don’t scream, or I’ll put you in again.”
But Tommy never believed anything except upon compulsion. The moment he could, that moment he screamed, and that moment he was in the water again. The next time he was taken out, he did not scream. Clare laid him on the wall, and he lay still, pretending to be drowned. Clare got up, set him on his feet in front of him, and holding him by the collar, trotted him round the top of the wall to the door, and dropped him into the garden. He was quiet enough now—more than subdued—incapable even of meditating revenge. But when they entered the nursery, the dog, taking Tommy for a worse sort of rat, made a leap at him right off the bed, as if he would swallow him alive, and the start and the terror of it brought him quite to himself again.
“Quiet, Abdiel!” said Clare.
The dog turned, jumped up on the bed, and lay down again close to the baby.
Clare, who, I have said, was in old days a reader of Paradise Lost, had already given him the name of Abdiel.
“Please, I couldn’t help yelling!” said Tommy, very meekly. “I didn’t know you’d got him!”
“I know you couldn’t help it!” answered Clare. “What have you had to eat to-day?”
“Nothing but a beastly turnip and a wormy beet,” said Tommy. “I’m awful hungry.”
“You’d have had something better if you’d stuck by the baby, and not left her to the rats!”
“There ain’t no rats,” growled Tommy.
“Will you believe your own eyes?” returned Clare, and showed him the skin of the rat Abdiel had slain. “I’ve a great mind to make you eat it!” he added, dangling it before him by the tail.
“Shouldn’t mind,” said Tommy. “I’ve eaten a rat afore now, an’ I’m that hungry! Rats ain’t bad to eat. I don’t know about their skins!”
“Here’s a piece of bread for you. But you sha’n’t sleep with honest people like baby and Abdiel. You shall lie on the hearth-rug. Here’s a blanket and a pillow for you!”
Clare covered him up warm, thatching all with a piece of loose carpet, and he was asleep directly.
The next day all terror of the water-butt was gone from the little vagabond’s mind. He was now, however, thoroughly afraid of Clare, and his conceit that, though Clare was the stronger, he was the cleverer, was put in abeyance.
CHAPTER XXXIV. HOW THINGS WENT FOR A TIME.
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CLARE’S NEXT DAY WENT MUCH as the preceding, only that he was early at the shop. When his dinner-hour came, he ran home, and was glad to find Tommy and the dog mildly agreeable to each other. He had but time to give baby some milk, and Tommy and Abdiel a bit of bread each.
His look when he returned, a look of which he was unaware, but which one of the girls, who had a year ago been hungry for weeks together, could read, made her ask him what he had had for dinner. He said he had had no dinner.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because there wasn’t any.”
“Didn’t your mother keep some for you?”
“No; she couldn’t.”
“Then what will you do?”
“Go without,” answered Clare with a smile.
“But you’ve got a mother?” said the girl, rendered doubtful by his smile.
“Oh, yes! I’ve got two mothers. But their arms ain’t long enough,” replied Clare.
The girl wondered: was he an idiot, or what they called a poet? Anyhow, she had a bun in her pocket, which she had meant to eat at five o’clock, and she offered him that.
“But what will you do yourself? Have you another?” asked Clare, unready to take it.
“No,” she answered; “why shouldn’t I go without as well as you?”
“Because it won’t make things any better. There will be just as much hunger. It’s only shifting it from me to you. That will leave it all the same!”
“No, not the same,” she returned. “I’ve had a good dinner—as much as I could eat; and you’ve had none!”
Clare was persuaded, and ate the girl’s bun with much satisfaction and gratitude.
When he had his wages in the evening, he spent them as before—a penny for the baby, and fivepence at Mr. Ball’s for Tommy, Abdiel, and himself.
Observing that he came daily, and spent all he earned, except one penny, on bread; seeing also that the boy’s cheeks, though plainly he was in good health, were very thin, Mr. Ball wondered a little: a boy ought to look better than that on five pennyworth of bread a day!
They were a curious family—Clare, and Tommy, and the baby, and Abdiel. But the only thing sad about it was, that Clare, who was the head and the heart of it, and provided for all, should be upheld by no human sympathy, no human gratitude; that he should be so high above his companions that, though he never thought he was lonely, he could not help feeling lonely. Not once did he wish himself rid of any single member of his adopted family. It was living on his very body; he was growing a little thinner every day; if things had gone on so, he must before long have fallen ill; but he never thought of himself at all, body or soul.
He had no human sympathy or gratitude, I say, but he had both sympathy and gratitude from Abdiel. The dog never failed to understand what Clare wished and expected him to understand. In Clare’s absence he took on himself the protection of the establishment, and was Tommy’s superior.
Though Tommy was of no use to earn bread, Clare did not therefore allow him to be idle. He insisted on his keeping the place clean and tidy, and in this respect Tommy was not quite a failure. He even made him do some washing, though not much could be accomplished in that way where there was so little to wash. Now that Abdiel was nurse, Tommy had the run of the garden, and often went beyond it for an hour or two without Clare’s knowledge, but always took good care to be back before his return.
