Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 78

David had halted in his work at the tea-cups, his brown eyes fixed on his mother. That it was not the first time he had listened to the superst.i.tion, and that he was every whit as bad as she, might plainly be seen.

"I have never liked the thought of that new place from the first, Master Johnny. It is as if something held me back from it. Hill keeps saying that it's a convenient dwelling, and dirt-cheap; and so it is; but I don't like the notion of it. No more does David."

"Oh, I dare say you will like it when you get in, Mrs. Hill, and David, too."

"It is to be hoped so, sir."

The day went on; and its after events I can only speak of from hearsay.

Hill moved in a good many of his goods, David carrying some of the lighter things, Luke Macintosh was asked to go and sleep in the house that night as a safeguard against thieves, but he flatly refused, unless some one slept there with him. Hill ridiculed his cowardice; and finally agreed that David should bear him company.

He made the bargain without his wife. She had other views for David. Her intention was to send the lad over to Worcester by the seven-o'clock evening train; not so much because his bed and bedding had been carried off and there was nothing for him to sleep on, as that his dying grandmother had expressed a wish to see him. To hear then that David was not to go, did not please Mrs. Hill.

It was David himself who carried in the news. She had tea waiting on the table when they came in: David first, for his step-father had stopped to speak to some one in the road.

"But, David, dear--you _must_ go to Worcester," she said, when he told her.

"He will never let me, mother," was David's answer. "He says the things might be stolen if n.o.body takes care of them: and Macintosh is afraid to be there alone."

She paused and looked at him, a thought striking her. The boy was leaning upon her in his fond manner, his hand in hers.

"Should you be afraid, David?"

"Not--I think--with Luke. We are to be in the same room, mother."

But Mrs. Hill noticed that his voice was hesitating; his small weak hand trembled in hers. There was not a more morally brave heart than David Garth's; he had had a religious training; but at being alone in the dark he was a very coward, afraid of ghosts and goblins.

"Hill," said she to her husband when he stamped in, the lad having gone to wash his hands, "I cannot let David sleep in the other house to-night. He will be too timid."

"Timid!" repeated Hill, staring at the words. "Why, Luke Macintosh will be with him."

"David won't like it. Macintosh is nothing but a coward himself."

"Don't thee be a fool, and show it," returned Hill, roughly. "Thee'll keep that boy a baby for his life. Davvy would as soon sleep in the house alone, as not, but for the folly put into his head by you. And why not? He's fourteen."

Hill--to give him his due--only spoke as he thought. That any one in the world, grown to fourteen and upwards, could be afraid of sleeping in a house alone, was to him literally incomprehensible.

"I said he must go over to Worcester to see mother, James," she meekly resumed; "you know I did."

"Well, he can't go to-night; he shall go in the morning. There! He may stop with her for a week, an' ye like, for all the good he is to me."

"Mother's looking for him to-night, and he ought to go. The dying----"

"Now just you drop it, for he can't be spared," interrupted Hill. "The goods might be stole, with all the loose characters there is about, and that fool of a Macintosh won't go in of himself. He's a regular coward!

Davvy must keep him company--it's not so much he does for his keep--and he may start for Worcester by daylight."

Whenever Hill came down upon her with this resolute decision, it struck her timid forthwith. The allusion to the boy's keep was an additional thrust, for it was beginning to be rather a sore subject. An uncle at Worcester, who had no family and was well to do, had partly offered to adopt the lad; but it was not yet settled. Davy was a great favourite with all the relatives; Miss Timmens, the schoolmistress, doted on him.

Mrs. Hill, not venturing on further remonstrance, made the best of the situation.

"Davy, you are to go to Worcester the first thing in the morning," she said, when he came back from washing his hands. "So as soon as you've been home and had a bit o' breakfast, you shall run off to the train."

Tea over, Hill went out on some business, saying he should be in at eight, or thereabouts, to go with Davy to the cottage. As the hour drew near, David, sitting over the fire with his mother in pleasant talk, as they loved to do, asked if he should read before he went: for her habit was to read the Bible to him, or cause him to read to her, the last thing.

"Yes, dear," she said. "Read the ninety-first Psalm."

So David read it. Closing the book when it was over, he sat with it on his knee, thoughtfully.

"If we could only _see_ the angels, mother! It is so difficult to remember always that they are close around, taking care of us."

"So it is, Davy. Most of us forget it."

"When life's over it will be so pleasant for them to carry us away to heaven! I wish you and I could go together, mother."

"We shall each go when G.o.d pleases, David."

"Oh yes, I know that."

Mrs. Hill, remembering this little bit of conversation, word for word, repeated it afterwards to me and others, with how they had sat, and David's looks. I say this for fear people might think I had invented it.

Hill came in, and they prepared to go to the other house. David, his arms full--for, of course, with things to be carried, they did not go out empty-handed--came suddenly back from the door in going out, flung his load down, and clasped his mother. She bent to kiss him.

"Good night, my dear one! Don't you and Luke get chattering all night.

Go to sleep betimes."

He burst into tears, clinging to her with sobs. It was as if his heart were breaking.

"Are you afraid to go?" she whispered.

"I must go," was his sobbing answer.

"Now then, Davvy!" called back Hill's rough tones. "What the plague are you lagging for?"

"Say good-bye to me, mother! Say good-bye!"

"Good-bye, and G.o.d bless you, David! Remember the angels are around you!"

"I know; I know!"

Taking up his bundles, he departed, keeping some paces behind Hill all the way; partly to hide his face, down which the tears were raining; partly in his usual awe of that formidable functionary who stood to him as a step-father.

Arrived at the house, Hill was fumbling for the key, when some one came darting out from the shadow of its eaves. It proved to be Luke Macintosh.

"I was a-looking round for you," said crusty Hill. "I began to think you'd forgot the time o' meeting."

"No, I'd not forgot it; but I be come to say that I can't oblige you by sleeping there," was Luke's reply. "The master have ordered me off with the waggon afore dawn, and so--I'm a-going to sleep at home."

Had I been there, I could have said the master had _not_ ordered Luke off before dawn; but after his breakfast. It was just a ruse of his, to avoid doing what he had never relished, sleeping in the house. Hill suspected as much, and went on at him, mockingly asking if he was afraid of hobgoblins. Luke dodged away in the midst of it, and Hill relieved his anger by a little hot language.

"Come along, Davvy," said he at last; "we must put these here things inside."