Brownsmith's Boy Part 43

"No; I'm going away altogether," I said.

"I know'd it," she cried angrily; "I know'd it. I always said it would come to that with you mixing yourself up with that bye. A nasty dirty hay-and-straw-sleeping young rascal, as is more like a monkey than a bye. And now you're to be sent away."

"Yes," I said grimly; "now I'm to be sent away."

She stood frowning at me for a minute, and then took off her dirty ap.r.o.n and put on a clean one, with a good deal of angry s.n.a.t.c.hing.

"I shall just go and give Mr Brownsmith a bit of my mind," she said.

"I won't have you sent away like that, and all on account of that bye."

"No, no," I said. "I'm going away with Mr Brownsmith's brother, to learn all about hothouses I suppose."

"Oh, my dear bye!" she exclaimed. "You mustn't do that. You'll have to be stoking and poking all night long, and ketch your death o' cold, and be laid up, and be ill-used, and be away from everybody who cares for you, and and I don't want you to go."

The tears began to run down the poor homely-looking woman's face, and affected me, so that I was obliged to run out, or I should have caught her complaint.

"I must be a man over it," I said. "I suppose it's right;" and I went off down the garden to say "Good-bye" to the men and women, and have a few last words with Ike.

As I went down the garden I suddenly began to feel that for a long time past it had been my home, and that every tree I pa.s.sed was an old friend. I had not known it before, but it struck me now that I had been very happy there leading a calm peaceable life; and now I was going away to fresh troubles and cares amongst strangers, and it seemed as if I should never be so happy again.

To make matters worse I was going down the path that I had traversed that day so long ago, when I first went to buy some fruit and flowers for my mother, and this brought back her illness, and the terrible trouble that had followed. Then I seemed to see myself up at the window over the wall there, at Mrs Beeton's, watching the garden, and Shock throwing dabs of clay at me with the stick.

"Poor old Shock!" I said. "I wonder whether he'll be glad when I'm gone. I suppose he will."

I was thinking about how funny it was that we had never become a bit nearer to being friendly, and then I turned miserable and choking, for I came upon half a dozen of the women pulling and bunching onions for market.

"I've come to say good-bye," I cried huskily. "I'm going away."

"Oh! are you?" said one of them just looking up. "Good luck to you!"

The coolness of the rough woman seemed to act as a check on my sentimentality, and I went on feeling quite hurt; and a few minutes later I was quite angry, for I came to where the men were digging, and told them I was going away, and one of them stopped, and stared, and said:

"All right! will yer leave us a lock of yer hair?"

I went on, and they shouted after me:

"I say, stand a gallon o' beer afore you go."

"There's n.o.body cares for me but poor Mrs Dodley," I said to myself in a choking voice, and then my pride gave me strength.

"Very well," I exclaimed aloud; "if they don't care, I don't, and I'm glad I'm going, and I shall be very glad when I'm gone."

That was not true, for, as I went on, I saw this tree whose pears I had picked, and that apple-tree whose beautiful rosy fruit I had put so carefully into baskets. There were the plum-trees I had learned how to prune and nail, and whose violet and golden fruit I had so often watched ripening. That was where George Day had scrambled over, and I had hung on to his legs, and there--No; I turned away from that path, for there were the two brothers slowly walking along with the cats, looking at the different crops, and I did not want to be seen then by one who was so ready to throw me over, and by the other, who seemed so cold and hard, and was, I felt, going to be a regular tyrant.

"And I'm all alone, and not even a cat to care about me," I said to myself; and, weak and miserable, the tears came into my eyes as I stopped in one of the cross paths.

I started, and dashed away a tear or two that made me feel like a girl, for just then there was a rustle, and looking round, there was one of Old Brownsmith's cats coming along the path with curved back, and tail drooped sidewise, and every hair upon it erect till it looked like a drooping plume.

The cat suddenly rushed at me, stopped short, tore round me, and then ran a little way, and crouched, as if about to make a spring upon me, ending by walking up in a very stately way to rub himself against my leg.

"Why, Ginger, old fellow," I said, "are you come to say good-bye?"

I don't think the cat understood me, but he looked up, blinked, and uttered a pathetic kind of _mew_ that went to my heart, as I stooped down and lifted him up in my arms to hug him to my breast, where he nestled, purring loudly, and inserting his claws gently into my jacket, and tearing them out, as if the act was satisfactory.

He was an ugly great sandy Tom, with stripes down his sides, but he seemed to me just then to be the handsomest cat I had ever seen, and the best friend I had in the world, and I made a vow that I would ask Old Brownsmith to let me have him to take with me, if his brother would allow me to include him in my belongings.

"Will you come with me, Ginger?" I said, stroking him. The cat purred and went on, climbing up to my shoulder, where there was not much room for him, but he set his fore-paws on my shoulder, drove them into my jacket, and let his hind-legs go well down my back before he hooked on there, crouching close to me, and seeming perfectly happy as I walked on wondering where Ike was at work.

I found him at last, busy trenching some ground at the back of Shock's kitchen, as I called the shed where he cooked his potatoes and snails.

As I came up to the old fellow he glanced at me surlily, stopped digging, and began to sc.r.a.pe his big shining spade.

"Hullo!" he said gruffly; and the faint hope that he would be sorry died away.

"Ike," I said, "I'm going away."

"What?" he shouted.

"I'm going to leave here," I said.

"Get out, you discontented warmint!" he cried savagely, "you don't know when you're well off."

"Yes, I do," I said; "but Mr Brownsmith's going to send me away."

"What!" he roared, driving in his spade, and beginning to dig with all his might.

"Mr Brownsmith's going to send me away."

"Old Brownsmith's going to send you away?"

"Yes."

"Why, what have you been a-doin' of?" he cried more fiercely than ever, as he drove his spade into the earth.

"Nothing at all."

"He wouldn't send you away for doing nothing at all," cried Ike, giving an obstinate clod that he had turned up a tremendous blow with his spade, and turning it into soft mould.

"I'm to go to Hampton with Mr Brownsmith's brother," I said, "to learn all about gla.s.s-houses."

"What, Old Brownsmith's brother Sol?"

"Yes," I said sadly, as I petted and caressed the cat.

"He's a tartar and a tyrant, that's what he is," said Ike fiercely, and he drove in his spade as if he meant to reach Australia.

"But he understands gla.s.s," I said.