Harding's Luck Part 3

"Well, you come alonger me. I ain't 'it yer, have I, like what yer aunt do? I give yer a ride in a pleasure boat, only you went to sleep, and I give you a tea fit for a hemperor. Ain't I?"

"You 'ave that," said d.i.c.kie.

"Well, that'll show you the sort of man I am. So now I make you a fair offer. You come longer me, and be my little 'un, and I'll be your daddy, and a better dad, I lay, nor if I'd been born so. What do you say, matey?"

The man's manner was so kind and hearty, the whole adventure was so wonderful and new....

"Is it country where you going?" said d.i.c.kie, looking at the green hedge.

"All the way, pretty near," said the man. "We'll tramp it, taking it easy, all round the coast, where gents go for their outings. They've always got a bit to spare then. I lay you'll get some color in them cheeks o' yours. They're like putty now. Come, now. What you say? Is it a bargain?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE LAY FACE DOWNWARD ON THE ROAD AND TURNED UP HIS BOOT"

[_Page 25_]

"It's very kind of you," said d.i.c.kie, "but what call you got to do it?

It'll cost a lot--my victuals, I mean. What call you got to do it?"

The man scratched his head and hesitated. Then he looked up at the sky and then down at the road--they were resting on a heap of stones.

At last he said, "You're a sharp lad, you are--bloomin' sharp. Well, I won't deceive you, matey. I want company. Tramping alone ain't no beano to me. An' as I gets my living by the sweat of charitable ladies an'

gents it don't do no harm to 'ave a little nipper alongside. They comes down 'andsomer if there's a nipper. An' I like nippers. Some blokes don't, but I do."

d.i.c.kie felt that this was true. But--"We'll be beggars, you mean?" he said doubtfully.

"Oh, don't call names," said the man; "we'll take the road, and if kind people gives us a helping hand, well, so much the better for all parties, if wot they learned me at Sunday-school's any good. Well, there it is. Take it or leave it."

The sun shot long golden beams through the gaps in the hedge. A bird paused in its flight on a branch quite close and clung there swaying. A real live bird. d.i.c.kie thought of the kitchen at home, the lamp that smoked, the dirty table, the fender full of ashes and dirty paper, the dry bread that tasted of mice, and the water out of the broken earthenware cup. That would be his breakfast, when he had gone to bed crying after his aunt had slapped him.

"I'll come," said he, "and thank you kindly."

"Mind you," said the man carefully, "this ain't no kidnapping. I ain't 'ticed you away. You come on your own free wish, eh?"

"Oh, yes."

"Can you write?"

"Yes," said d.i.c.kie, "if I got a pen."

"I got a pencil--hold on a bit." He took out of his pocket a new envelope, a new sheet of paper, and a new pencil ready sharpened by machinery. It almost looked, d.i.c.kie thought, as though he had brought them out for some special purpose. Perhaps he had.

"Now," said the man, "you take an' write--make it flat agin the sole of me boot." He lay face downward on the road and turned up his boot, as though boots were the most natural writing-desks in the world.

"Now write what I say: 'Mr. Beale. Dear Sir. Will you please take me on tramp with you? I 'ave no father nor yet mother to be uneasy' (Can you spell 'uneasy'? That's right--you _are_ a scholar!), 'an' I asks you let me come alonger you.' (Got that? All right, I'll stop a bit till you catch up. Then you say) 'If you take me along I promise to give you all what I earns or gets anyhow, and be a good boy, and do what you say. And I shall be very glad if you will. Your obedient servant----' What's your name, eh?"

"d.i.c.kie Harding."

"Get it wrote down, then. Done? I'm glad I wasn't born a table to be wrote on. Don't it make yer legs stiff, neither!"

He rolled over, took the paper and read it slowly and with difficulty.

Then he folded it and put it in his pocket.

"Now we're square," he said. "That'll stand true and legal in any police-court in England, that will. And don't you forget it."

To the people who live in Rosemary Terrace the words "police-court" are very alarming indeed. d.i.c.kie turned a little paler and said, "Why police? I ain't done nothing wrong writin' what you telled me?"

"No, my boy," said the man, "you ain't done no wrong; you done right.

But there's bad people in the world--police and such--as might lay it up to me as I took you away against your will. They could put a man away for less than that."

"But it ain't agin my will," said d.i.c.kie; "I want to!"

"That's what _I_ say," said the man cheerfully. "So now we're agreed upon it, if you'll step it we'll see about a doss for to-night; and to-morrow we'll sleep in the bed with the green curtains."

"I see that there in a book," said d.i.c.kie, charmed. "He Reward the Wake, the last of the English, and I wunnered what it stood for."

"It stands for laying out," said the man (and so it does, though that's not at all what the author of "Hereward" meant it to mean)--"laying out under a 'edge or a 'aystack or such and lookin' up at the stars till you goes by-by. An' jolly good business, too, fine weather. An' then you 'oofs it a bit and resties a bit, and some one gives you something to 'elp you along the road, and in the evening you 'as a gla.s.s of ale at the Publy Kows, and finds another set o' green bed curtains. An' on Sat.u.r.day you gets in a extra lot of prog, and a Sunday you stays where you be and washes of your shirt."

"Do you have adventures?" asked d.i.c.k, recognizing in this description a rough sketch of the life of a modern knight-errant.

"'Ventures? I believe you!" said the man. "Why, only last month a brute of a dog bit me in the leg, at a back door Sutton way. An' once I see a elephant."

"Wild?" asked d.i.c.kie, thrilling.

"Not azackly wild--with a circus 'e was. But big! Wild ones ain't 'alf the size, I lay! And you meets soldiers, and parties in red coats ridin' on horses, with spotted dawgs, and motors as run you down and take your 'ead off afore you know you're dead if you don't look alive.

Adventures? I should think so!"

"Ah!" said d.i.c.kie, and a full silence fell between them.

"Tired?" asked Mr. Beale presently.

"Just a tiddy bit, p'raps," said d.i.c.kie bravely, "but I can stick it."

"We'll get summat with wheels for you to-morrow," said the man, "if it's only a sugar-box; an' I can tie that leg of yours up to make it look like as if it was cut off."

"It's this 'ere nasty boot as makes me tired," said d.i.c.kie.

"Hoff with it," said the man obligingly; "down you sets on them stones and hoff with it! T'other too if you like. You can keep to the gra.s.s."

The dewy gra.s.s felt pleasantly cool and clean to d.i.c.kie's tired little foot, and when they crossed the road where a water-cart had dripped it was delicious to feel the cool mud squeeze up between your toes. That was charming; but it was pleasant, too, to wash the mud off on the wet gra.s.s. d.i.c.kie always remembered that moment. It was the first time in his life that he really enjoyed being clean. In the hospital you were almost too clean; and you didn't do it yourself. That made all the difference. Yet it was the memory of the hospital that made him say, "I wish I could 'ave a bath."

"So you shall," said Mr. Beale; "a reg'ler wash all over--this very night. I always like a wash meself. Some blokes think it pays to be dirty. But it don't. If you're clean they say 'Honest Poverty,' an' if you're dirty they say 'Serve you right.' We'll get a pail or something this very night."

"You _are_ good," said d.i.c.kie. "I do like you."

Mr. Beale looked at him through the deepening twilight--rather queerly, d.i.c.kie thought. Also he sighed heavily.

"Oh, well--all's well as has no turning; and things don't always---- What I mean to say, you be a good boy and I'll do the right thing by you."

"I know you will," said d.i.c.kie, with enthusiasm. "_I_ know 'ow good you are!"