A Hero of Romance Part 19

"Yes, I do."

"And for nothing else?"

Bertie paused for a moment to consider.

"I don't know about nothing else, but I shouldn't have thought of it if you hadn't told me to."

"Then it strikes me the best thing I can do is to turn round and drive you back again."

"I won't go."

Mr. Bankes laughed. There was such a sullen meaning in the boy's slow utterance.

"Oh! won't you? What'll you do?"

In an instant Bertie had risen from his seat, and if Mr. Bankes had not been very quick in putting his arm about him he would have sprung out upon the road. As it was, Mr. Bankes, taken by surprise, gave an unintentional tug at the left rein, and had he not corrected his error with wonderful dexterity Mary Anne would have landed the trap and its occupants in a convenient ditch.

"Don't you try that on again," said Mr. Bankes, retaining his hold on the lad.

"Don't you say you'll drive me back again."

"Here's a fighting c.o.c.k. There have been lunatics in the family--I know there have. Don't be a little idiot. Sit still."

"Promise you won't drive me back."

"And supposing I won't promise you, what then?"

Bertie's only answer was to give a sudden twist, and before Mr. Bankes had realized what he intended he had slipped out of his grasp, and was sprawling on the road. Fortunately the trap had been brought to a standstill, for had Bertie carried out his original design of springing out with Mary Anne going at full speed, the probabilities are that he would have brought his adventures to a final termination on the spot. Mr. Bankes stared for a moment, and then laughed.

"Well, of all the young ones ever I heard tell of!"

Then, seeing that Bertie had picked himself up, and was preparing to escape by scrambling through a quickset hedge into a field of uncut hay--

"Stop!" he cried. "I won't take you back. I promise you upon my honour I won't. A lad of your kidney's born to be hanged; and if it's hanging you've made up your mind to, I'm not the man to stop you."

The lad eyed him doubtfully.

"You promise you'll let me do as I please?"

"I swear it, my bantam c.o.c.k. You shall do as you please, and go where you please. I can't stop mooning here all day; jump in, and let's be friends again. I'm square, upon my honour."

The lad resumed his former seat; Mary Anne was once more started.

"Next time you feel it coming on, why, tip me the wink, and I'll pull up. It's a pity that a neck like yours should be broken before the proper time; and if you were to jump out while Mary Anne was travelling like this, why, there'd be nothing left to do but to pick up the pieces."

As Bertie vouchsafed no answer, after a pause Mr. Bankes went on.

"Now, Bailey, joking aside, what is the place you're making for?"

"I'm going to London."

"London. Got any friends there?"

"No."

"Ever been there before?"

"I've been there with father."

"Know anything about it?"

"I don't know much."

"So I should say, by the build of you. I shouldn't be surprised if you know more when you come back again--if you ever do come back again, my bantam. Shall I tell you what generally happens to boys like you who go up to London without knowing much about it, and without any friends there? They generally"--Mr. Bankes, as it were, punctuated these words, laying an emphasis on each--"go under, and they stop under, and there's an end of them."

He paused; if for a reply, in vain, for there was none from Bailey.

"Do you think London's the Land of Golden Dreams? Well, it is; that's exactly what it is--it's the Land of Golden Dreams, and the dreams are short ones, and when you wake from them you're up to your neck in filth, and you wish that you were dead. For they're nothing else but dreams, and the reality is dirt, and shame, and want, and misery, and death."

Again he paused; and again there was no reply from Bertie. "How much money have you got?"

"One and fivepence."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"Well! well! I say nothing, but I think a lot. And do you mean to tell me that you're off to London with the sum of one shilling and fivepence in your pocket?"

"You said you ran away with ninepence-halfpenny."

"Well, that's a score! And so I did, but circ.u.mstances alter cases, and that was the foolishest thing that ever I did."

"You said it was the most sensible thing you'd ever done."

"You've a remarkable memory--a remarkable memory; and if you keep it up you'll improve as you go on. If I said that, I was a liar--I was the biggest liar that ever lived. I wonder if you could go through the sort of thing that I have done?"

Mr. Bankes' eyes were again fixed on Bertie, as though he would take his measure.

"Most men would have been dead a dozen times. I don't know that I haven't been; I know I've often wished that I could have died just once--that I could have been wiped clean out. G.o.d save you, young one, from such a life as mine. Pray G.o.d to pull you up in time."

Another pause and then--

"What's your plans?"

"I don't know."

"I shouldn't think you did by the look of you. And how long do you suppose you're going to live, on the sum of one and fivepence?"