Roger Ingleton, Minor Part 9

How long he would have gone on thus it is hard to say. Mr Armstrong cut short the scene rather abruptly.

"There, there!" said he. "Good-bye, Gustav. I shall go very soon, and will come and see you when I return." And he went back to the performance.

"You've missed it!" said Tom, as he dropped into his seat. "It was the finest 'break-down' you ever saw! That one next but one to Bones kept it up best. We couldn't get an encore out of them. Never mind; perhaps they'll have another to finish up. There's lot's more in the programme."

Mr Armstrong watched it all with the same critical interest as before, but his mind was far away. It wandered to the foreign city, to the gaunt pauper hospital there, to a little low bed where lay an old dying friendless man, tossing and moaning for the laggard death to give him rest. He saw nothing of what went on before him; he felt none of the merry boy's nudges at his side; he even forgot Roger and Maxfield.

The performance was over at last.

"Well, that _was_ a jolly spree! I wish it was coming all over again,"

chirped the boy. "Oh, thank you awfully, Mr Armstrong, for bringing me. Did you like it too? That last break-down wasn't up to the other, but I'm glad you've seen one of them, at any rate."

As they crowded out, Mr Armstrong was surprised and a little vexed to see Gustav still hanging about the lobby waiting for him. He dropped behind the boy for a moment and beckoned him.

"Well, Gustav?" said he impatiently.

"Ah, _mon ami_," said the Frenchman, putting a little bunch of early violets into the tutor's hands, "vill you give 'im zese from me? 'Tis all I can send. But he will love zem for the sake of me and ze little Francoise. Adieu, adieu, _mon cher ami_."

It took not a minute; but in that time Tom had wandered serenely on, never dreaming that his protector was not close at his heels. Nor did he discover his mistake till he found himself half-way up Piccadilly, enlarging to a stranger at his side on the excellence of the evening's performance. Then he looked round and missed his companion. The pavement was crowded with wayfarers of all sorts, some pressing one way, some another. Among them all the boy could not discover the stalwart form of Mr Armstrong. He pushed back to the hall, but he was not there. He followed one or two figures that looked like his; but they were strangers all. Then he returned up the street at a run, hoping to overtake him; but in vain.

He knew nothing of London; he did not even know the name of the hotel; he had no money in his pocket.

He was, in short, lost.

As for Mr Armstrong, not seeing his charge at the door, he had started to run in the direction of the hotel, which was the opposite direction to that taken by Tom. Seeing no sign of the prodigal, he too returned to the hall, just after Tom had started a second time on the contrary tack; and so for an hour these two played hide and seek; sometimes almost within reach of one another; at others, with the whole length of the street between them.

At last the crowd on the pavement thinned, and the tutor, sorely chagrined, started off to the hotel, on the chance of the boy having turned up there. No Tom was there. Tom, in fact, was at that moment debating somewhere about a mile and a half away whether he should not try to make his way to the "Oriana" at the Docks, and remain quietly there till claimed. What a joke it would all be when he _was_ found!

What an adventure for his first night in London!

It was not very easy even for Tom Oliphant to derive much amus.e.m.e.nt from these philosophical reflections, and he looked about him rather dismally for some one of whom to inquire his way.

A seedy-looking person was standing under a lamppost hard by, trying to light a cigarette in the wind. Tom decided to tackle him.

"Please can you tell me the way to the Docks where the P and O steamers come in?" said he.

The man let drop his match and stared at the boy.

"Vy," said he with an odd shrug, "that is some long walks from here.

_Mais, comment_. Vas you not at ze Christy Minstrel to-night viz a nice gentleman?"

"Rather!" said the boy. "Were you there? I say, wasn't it a clipping turn out? I did like it, especially the break-down. I say, I'm lost.

The fellow who was looking after me has lost me."

"Oh, you 'ave lost 'im. I am 'appy you to find. You sall not valk to ze Dock, no. I sall give you sleeps at ze hotel, and to-morrow you sall find zat dear gentleman. Come wiz me."

"Oh, but you know, he'll be looking for me; besides, I've got no tin.

Father forgot to leave me any. I'd better go to the Docks, I say."

"You sall not. Zey will be all shut fast zere. No, my dear friend, you sall come sleep at my hotel, and you sall have nothings to pay. It will be all right. I would die for to help ze friend of my friend."

"Is Mr Armstrong a friend of yours?" asked the boy. "I thought you were only cheeking him that time in the Hall. Oh, all right, if you know him. Thanks awfully."

Gustav, as delighted as a cat who has found her kitten, led the boy off jubilantly to his third-rate hotel off the Strand, taking the precaution, as he pa.s.sed, to leave word at the Hall that if a gentleman called who had lost a boy, he should be told where he would find him.

He smuggled Tom up to his own garret, and made him royally welcome with three-quarters of his scanty supper and the whole of his narrow bed, sleeping himself on the floor cheerfully for the sake of the _cher ami_ who had that night promised to go to Paris to hold the hand of his dying father.

About three in the morning there was a loud ringing of the bell and a sound of steps and voices on the stairs, and presently Mr Armstrong entered the room.

Gustav sprang up with his finger on his lips, pointing to the sleeping boy.

"Oh, _mon ami_," whispered he, "'ow 'appy I am you 'ave found 'im. But I keep him ver' safe. I love to do it, for you are ver' good to me and the _pauvre pere_. He sall rest here till to-day, vile you (helas! that I have no two beds to offer you), you sall take one in ze hotel, and at morning we sall all be 'appy together."

Mr Armstrong grimly accepted this proposal, and took a room for the night at Gustav's hotel.

The next morning, scarcely waiting to take breakfast or bid another adieu to his grateful friend, he hurried the genial Tom, who had enjoyed himself extremely, to the station, and carried him down by express train to Maxfield.

CHAPTER FIVE.

A CHURCHYARD COUGH.

When Mr Armstrong with his jovial charge arrived about midday at Maxfield, he was struck with the transformation scene which had taken place since he quitted it gloomily a day or two before.

The house was the same, the furniture was untouched, the ordinary domestic routine appeared to be unaltered, but a sense of something new pervaded the place which he could interpret only by the one word-- Oliphant.

The captain had made a touching entry--full of sympathy, full of affection, full of a desire to spare his dear cousin all business worry, full of the responsibility that was on him to take charge of the dear fatherless boy, full of that calm sense of duty which enables a man to a.s.sert himself on all occasions for the good of those committed to his care. As for his charming daughters, they had floated majestically into their quarters--Miss Rosalind a trifle defiantly, making no secret of her dislike of the whole business; Miss Jill merrily, delighted with the novelty and beauty of this new home, so much more to her mind than the barrack home in India. And Roger, despite all his sinister antic.i.p.ations, found himself tolerant already of the new guardian, and more than tolerant of his _suite_.

For somehow his pulses had taken to beating a little quicker since yesterday, and when half a dozen times that evening he had heard a summons down the landing to come and hang this picture, or like a dear boy unfasten that strap, or like an angel come and make himself agreeable, unless he intended his cousins to sit by themselves all the evening as penance for coming where they were not wanted,--at all such summonses Roger Ingleton had experienced quite a novel sensation of nervousness and awkwardness, which contributed to make him very uncomfortable.

"Why," said he, as he and his tutor greeted one another again in Mr Armstrong's room, "why, it seems ages since I saw you, and yet it's only yesterday. I wish we could all have come down together. Do you know, Armstrong, I half fancy it's not going to be as awful as I expected."

"That's all right," said Mr Armstrong, who had already begun to entertain a contrary impression.

"Oliphant seems civilly disposed, and not inclined to interfere; and the girls--well they seem harmless enough. How do you like Tom?"

"Tom's a nice, quiet, business-like boy," said the tutor with a grin.

"I'll tell you more about him soon, but at present I have no time. I must catch the four o'clock train back to London."

"What! What ever for?" exclaimed Roger, with falling face.

"Urgent private affairs. I shall be away perhaps a week," said Mr Armstrong shortly, in a tone which discouraged Roger from making further inquiries.

"I'm awfully sorry," said he; "I shall miss you specially just now."

"If I could have taken any other time, I would," said the tutor, busily throwing his things into his bag all the time; "but I am going to a death-bed."

"Oh, Armstrong, I'm so sorry. Is it a relation?"