A Little World Part 24

"Here, shake hands," cried Lionel, "and let's have no more of it. Let's be off out and see something. Why, stop! here!--where are you going?"

"To my room," said Harry, speaking very slowly and seriously, as he took the hand held out to him.

"What for?" said Lionel.

"To write to your father!"

"Ha--ha--ha! Ha--ha--ha!" laughed Lionel, half angrily dashing away his companion's hand, half with contempt. "Are you going to tell him that I have been a naughty boy, and to ask him to come up with a stick?"

"No!" said Harry, quietly, almost sadly, "but to ask him to relieve me of my responsibility;" and then he left the room.

"A confounded prig!" cried Lionel; "he grows insufferable." Then throwing his half-smoked cigar from the window in his impatience, the lighted fragment struck a heavy-faced man who was leaning against a lamp-post, and staring up at the window of the well-lighted room.

The man dashed his hand to his face, growled, muttered, shook his fist at the window, and then stooped, picked up the piece of cigar, knocked away the few remaining sparks, and deposited it in his pocket, when he gave another glance upwards as he said, audibly--

"Look out, my fine fellow!--look out!"

Lionel lit a fresh cigar and strolled up and down the room for a few moments. "Coming to a nice pa.s.s," he muttered. "Just as if one couldn't indulge in a little piece of innocent flirtation without being taken to task like that!"

"No, Master Harry!" he said, after another turn or two. "I'm not blind either, saint as you look--St Anthony if you like. She really is uncommonly pretty, though. I liked that dove-scene, too; natural evidently--but she can't be that old rag-and-famish dog-stealer's daughter. The idea of Harry flying out like that! The beggar was jealous, I'll swear. Well, let him go if he can't act like a man of the world."

Harry Clayton did not mutter as he went to his room, but thoughts of a troublous nature came quickly. It was only by an effort that he composed himself to write a calm cool letter to Sir Richard Redgrave, stating nothing relative to what had pa.s.sed, but merely asking him to make fresh arrangements respecting his son, if he still wished him to have the counterpoise of a quiet companion, since it was the writer's wish to return immediately to Cambridge.

"Like giving up the fight--a complete coward!" said Harry, as he read over his note, and then he sighed and closed it up so that he might not falter in his determination. Then he sat by the window thinking, but not as had been his wont, for strange thoughts would intrude themselves in spite of each angry repulse; and when at last he retired, it was not to rest, but to lie tossing in a fevered manner, fighting with fancies which he could not control.

The rising sun, as it gilded chimney and house-top, found Harry pale and wakeful as he had been through the night, and he rose to sit by the open window, gazing out upon the quiet streets, clear now and bright in the early morning, and with hardly a wayfarer to be seen; but even the calmness of the only quiet hour in London streets failed to bring the peace he sought.

In due course came a letter from Sir Richard Redgrave, expressing sorrow that Harry should so soon be obliged to return to the University, but wishing him all success in his studies, ending with a hope that the writer would see him high up in the honour-list, and hinting how gratifying it would have been could he have inoculated Lionel with a little of his application.

That same morning Harry had a hard fight with self.

"I've done all I could," he exclaimed; "I'll go back and forget."

An hour after he was with Lionel, who could hardly at the last bring himself to believe that Harry was in earnest; but the affair was serious enough he found, as he accompanied his friend to the Sh.o.r.editch Station, staying upon the platform till Harry had taken his seat, and then, with rather a formal hand-shake, the young men parted.

They were not to separate, though, without Lionel sending a sharp pang through Harry's breast, as he said, mockingly--

"Any message for Decadia?"

Harry Clayton's reply was a cold, bitterly reproachful look; but as the train glided out into the open air, he threw himself back, smiling sadly as he gazed with a newly-awakened interest at the dense and wretched neighbourhood on either hand, with its thronging population, and roofs devoted often to the keeping of birds, many of which were also hung from miserable poverty-stricken windows, whose broken panes were patched with paper or stuffed with rags.

On went the train, momentarily gathering speed, till, as he saw one iridescent pigeon alight cooing upon a brick parapet, Harry Clayton's brow wrinkled, and he compressed his lips as if with pain.

An instant and the train had glided by, and the pigeon was lost to view; and as he mused upon the troubles of the past, his broken home at Norwood, and his determination to leave London for a time, the young man whispered to himself softly--

"It's a dream--a dream of folly and weakness, and it was time that I was rudely awakened."

Volume 2, Chapter IV.

JARED'S HOME.

"Well, Mr Ruggles, and how is little Pine?" said Mrs Jared, entering the room in Duplex Street, where industrious Tim was busily at work.

"Don't know what to say, ma'am," said Tim; "but somehow I fancy she's better since I changed her oil. This one seems to agree with her different to what the last one did. Oils varies a deal."

"No doubt," said Mrs Jared, smiling; "but I should have more faith in keeping her well wrapped up and out of the night air."

"I do keep her out of it, ma'am," said Tim, talking away, but busy still over his work. "I take all the care I can of her; but what we want is warm weather to bring her round. Summer weather's what we want; and there's such a very little of it yet. It's like everything else in London, ma'am--terribly adulterated. The oil's adulterated, the milk's adulterated, bread's adulterated; everything is, ma'am, more or less, that we poor people buy; and I know we pay ten per cent, more for our things, ma'am, than the rich do; while, because things ain't bad enough for us, we get our fresh air stale and fouled with blacks. As for our summer, what we get of it, that's all adulterated with cold biting easterly winds. Summers seem to me, ma'am, to get shorter every year; but, for all that, I shall be glad when the summer does come." And then, to give emphasis to his remarks, Tim brought his iron down thump upon the floor where he was seated.

Then there was a busy pause, during which time Jared was inspecting the lungs of a concertina, and, by means of his glue-pot, affixing soft patches of leather inside where failing spots were visible, Mrs Jared dividing her time between helping Patty over some garment and nursing the youngest Pellet, who sat watching Janet, staying with them for the evening.

"Strange thing this--terribly strange thing this about our poor-box, isn't it?" said Jared. "Seems that there's no mistake about it; but that it has been robbed again and again. Mrs Ruggles told you, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir, yes," said Tim; "quite startled me, it did. But there! Lord bless you, sir, there's people in this great London of ours would rob themselves, let alone other people, or church, or poor-boxes."

"Ah!" said Jared, "it is startling. Mr Timson's been talking to me about it. Sovereign of the vicar's one time, half-a-crown another, crown-piece another. No doubt about it, for it seems Mr Gray's been trying experiments."

"Experiments!" said Mrs Jared.

"Yes; setting traps to find out the offender."

"But, surely, it must be a mistake," said Patty. "No one would be so wicked as to rob a church."

"Well, I don't know, my dear; money's money," said Jared; "and your Uncle Richard says it's everything. There are plenty of people who value money more than religion."

Jared was silent for business reasons now, since he was holding a piece of leather in his mouth, his hands being occupied by the concertina-bellows and glue-brush.

"You're about right, sir," put in Tim, who was busy over a shrinking operation upon one of Jared's waistcoats, a proceeding which left room for the elision of the worn parts, so that it might fit a small person.

"No idea, I s'pose, of who it could be, sir?"

"Not the slightest," replied Jared, after placing his piece of leather _in situ_, and then preparing, with his scissors, a sc.r.a.p for another part. "Glad if I had, for the rascal deserves to be punished. A man who would rob the poor, would rob--would--would do anything. Stir the fire under the glue-pot, Patty, my dear. Puts one in mind of a camp-kettle, don't it?" he said, as the young girl stirred the glowing coals, and made the flame dance about the little vessel, hung from a hook in the chimney.

The little iron kettle began to sing, and Tim raised his eyes above his spectacles to peer round the room before taking a fresh hold of the garment upon which he was employed.

"Ah!" said Jared, after an interval of silence, "it's a strange thing about that money. Poor Mr Gray's in a sad way about it. He named it to me--says it's so grievous, and that he thinks more of the crime than of the value of the money twenty times over."

Volume 2, Chapter V.

TIMSON'S CONSISTENCY.

Jared Pellet was right. Mr Gray was in a sad way about the affair, for it was a problem that he was not likely to solve. At first he had made a point of keeping the matter secret, but as months slipped by, and no discovery was made, he ceased to be reticent. Nothing was learned as to the cause, but the effect was plain enough--the money still went. He held long consultations with Mr Timson, and together, more than before, they set to and suspected everybody connected with the church, beginning, jestingly, with themselves, and then going downwards through the other churchwardens, Jared, the clerk, Purkis, Mrs Ruggles, Ichabod Gunniss, and the bellringers, who never entered the church. But, though every one was suspected in turn, no accusation was made; for, said the vicar--

"Timson, I would not, in my weak, short sighted way, be guilty of an act of injustice to any man!"

"Why not set the police to work?" said Mr Timson. "A detective would furridge the matter out."

"No," said the vicar, "I don't like the idea. I would not care if they'd rob me, Timson, but they will not; and this business is something I really cannot get over. If I put more in the box to make up what I reckon may be the deficiency, it seems to make no difference; and though your advice may be good, I don't feel as if I could take it. I have acted upon some of your hints, but still we don't find anything out."

Mr Timson shook his head, and said, "Just so," which might have meant anything.