Boy Woodburn Part 93

She laid the violets on his breast.

CHAPTER LI

Old Mat on Heaven and Earth

When Old Mat returned home from Liverpool he hung his hat on the peg and informed Silver that he had undergone conversion--for good this time.

"Nebber no more," he announced solemnly. "I done with bettin'--now I got the cash. Always promised Mar I'd be G.o.d's good man soon as I could afford it. Moreover, besides I might lose some o' what I made. And then I might have another backslide." He settled himself in his leather chair, drew his feet out of his slippers, and his pa.s.s-book out of his pocket.

"It's cash spells conwersion, Mr. Silver," he panted. "I've often seen it in others, and now I knows it for meself. A noo-er, tru-er and bootifler h'outlook upon life, as Mr. 'Aggard said last Sunday--hall the houtcome o' cash in 'and. Yes, sir, if you wants to conwert the world, the way's clear--_Pay cash down._ That's why these 'ere Socialists are on the grow; because they talks common-sense. 'It's dollars as does it,'

they says. 'Give every chap a bankin'-account, and you'll see.' What's Church h'up and h'answer to that? Church says: 'It's all in conwersion.

Bank on conwersion. Cash is but wrath and must that corrupts,' says the clergy. 'Leave the cash to us,' they says. 'We'll see to that for you, while you keeps out o' temptation and saves your souls alive.'"

When Mrs. Woodburn told the old man the news about Joses, he received it gravely.

"Moved on, has he?" he said. "I'm sorry. I shall miss him. I always misses that sort. Shouldn't feel at home like without some of them around. Well, Mar, we shall all meet in the yappy yappy land, plea Gob in his goodness." He burst into a sort of chaunt, wagging his head, and beating time with his fist--

"_Ho, won't that be jiy-ful?

Jam for the fythe-ful._

I wouldn't miss that meetin', Mar, not for all the nuts on Iceland's greasy mountains, the Psalmist made the song about. I sees it all like in a wision." His eyes closed, and his hands and feet swam vaguely. "Me and Monkey o' the one side, and the Three J's o' tother, pitchin' the tale a treat at tops of our voices." He opened his eyes slowly, ogled Ma, tapped her knee, winked, and ended confidentially: "One thing, old dear. I'll lay they'll give Putnam's best same there as here. Now then!"

CHAPTER LII

Putnam's Once More

It was Sunday morning at Putnam's, and in Maudie's estimation things were more _comme il faut_ than they had been for long past.

About a fortnight since there had been trouble in the yard during the night, and after it, for some hours before he went away, the Monster-without-Manners had been subdued almost to gentlemanliness.

Then two of the fan-tails had been taken ill. Maudie from the top of the ladder had watched their dying contortions with the cynical interest of a Roman matron criticizing the death-agonies of a gladiator in the arena. When after staggering about the fan-tails turned over on their backs and flopped, Maudie descended from her perch and toyed with them daintily during their last moments, finally carrying their corpses up into the loft.

After that, Maudie felt queer herself, and not only from the results of a stricken conscience. Indeed, but for the urgent and instant ministrations of Putnam's Only Gentleman she would have followed where the good fan-tails had gone.

Thereafter, for a s.p.a.ce of a week, there had fallen on the yard a hallowed time of peace very different from the period of oppression and irritable energy which had preceded it. Maudie attributed the change to the absence of the Monster-without-Manners who had departed quietly with the Four-legs there was all the fuss about.

True, both had now returned, but in chastened mood, the result perhaps of well-deserved affliction experienced in foreign lands.

This morning things were much as of old. The fan-tails puffed and pouted and sidled on the roofs. Across the Paddock Close came the sound of church-bells, and from the Lads' Barn the voices of the boys singing a hymn.

The Bible Cla.s.s was in full swing.

All the lads were there but one. That one was Albert. He stood in lofty isolation in the door of the stable, a cigarette in his mouth, his arms folded and his face stiff with the self-consciousness that had obsessed him since his ride in the National. Jerry and Stanley, once the friends of Albert, and now his critics, swore that he never took that look off even when he went to bed.

"Wears it in his sleep," said Jerry, "same as his pidgearmours."

But the loftiest of us cannot live forever on the Heights of Make-Believe. And Albert, as he breathed the Spring, and remembered that no one was by to see, relaxed, became himself, and began to warble not unmelodiously--

"_When the ruddy sun-shine Beats the ruddy rain, Then the ruddy sparrow 'Gins to chirp again._"

Mr. Silver came out of the house.

Albert straightway resumed his air of a Roman Emperor turned stable-boy.

The other listened to the singing that came from the barn.

"Not inside, then, Albert?" he said.

"No, sir," answered the other. "I leave that to the lads."

Mr. Silver looked at his watch.

"You'd better do a bolt before Miss Boy catches you," he said.

Albert redoubled his frozen Emperor mien.

The other pa.s.sed into the saddle-room; and Albert revealed the bitterness of his soul to Maudie on the ladder.

"He's all right now," he told his confidante. "Goin' to start the Bank again, and all on what I won him. And all the return he can make is to insultify me. That's the way of 'em, that is."

A door opened at the back, and a rush of sound emerged.

The lads were tumbling out of the Barn.

Boy Woodburn came swiftly into the yard, her troop at her heels.

She marked the truant in the door.

"Well, Albert," she said. "We missed you."

"He's too stuck up wiv 'isself to pray to Gob any more," mocked Jerry, stopping while the girl went on into the stable.

"He thinks he can do it all on his own wivout no 'elp from no one,"

sneered Stanley. "Albert does."

Albert swaggered forward.

"Say!" he said to Jerry. "Was it you or me won the National?"

"Neever," answered Jerry. "It was Miss Boy."