A ROUGH SHAKING

By

George MacDonald

Contents. 

Chap. I. How I came to know Clare SkymerII. With his parentsIII. Without his parentsIV. The new familyV. His new homeVI. What did draw out his first smileVII. Clare and his brothersVIII. Clare and his human brothersIX. Clare the defenderX. The black auntXI. Clare on the farmXII. Clare becomes a guardian of the poorXIII. Clare the vagabondXIV. Their first helperXV. Their first hostXVI. On the trampXVII. The baker's cartXVIII. Beating the townXIX. The blacksmith and his forgeXX. Tommy reconnoitresXXI. Tommy is found and found outXXII. The smith in a rageXXIII. Treasure troveXXIV. Justifiable burglaryXXV. A new questXXVI. A new entranceXXVII. The baby has her breakfastXXVIII. TreacheryXXIX. The bakerXXX. The draperXXXI. An addition to the familyXXXII. Shop and babyXXXIII. A bad pennyXXXIV. How things went for a timeXXXV. Clare disregards the interests of his employersXXXVI. The policemanXXXVII. The magistrateXXXVIII. The workhouseXXXIX. AwayXL. MalyXLI. The caravansXLII. NimrodXLIII. Across countryXLIV. A third motherXLV. The menagerieXLVI. The angel of the wild beastsXLVII. Glum GunnXLVIII. The PumaXLIX. Glum Gunn's revengeL. Clare seeks helpLI. Clare a true masterLII. Miss TempestLIII. The gardenerLIV. The kitchenLV. The wheel rests for a timeLVI. StrategyLVII. Ann ShotoverLVIII. Child-talkLIX. Lovers' walksLX. The shoe-blackLXI. A walk with consequencesLXII. The cage of the pumaLXIII. The dome of the angelsLXIV. The pantherLXV. At homeLXVI. The end of Clare Skymer's boyhood

Illustrations. 

Clare, Tommy, and the baby in custodyMrs. Porson finds Clare by the side of his dead motherClare is heard talking to MalyClare makes friends during Mr. Porson's absenceThe blacksmith gives Clare and Tommy a rough greetingClare and Abdiel at the locked pumpClare proceeds to untie the ropes from the ring in the bull's noseClare finds the advantage of a powerful friendThe gardener's discomfitureClare asks Miss Shotover to let him carry Ann homeClare is found giving the shoeblack a lessonClare asleep in the puma's cage

Dedicated to my great-nephew, Norman MacKay Binney, aged seven, because his Godfather and Godmother love him dearly. 

Hampstead, August 26, 1890. 

A ROUGH SHAKING. 

Chapter I. 

How I Came to know Clare Skymer. 

It was a day when everything around seemed almost perfect: everythingdoes, now and then, come nearly right for a moment or two, preparatoryto coming all right for good at the last. It was the third week inJune. The great furnace was glowing and shining in full force, drivingthe ship of our life at her best speed through the ocean of space. Foron deck, and between decks, and aloft, there is so much more going onat one time than at another, that I may well say she was then going ather best speed, for there is quality as well as rate in motion. Thetrees were all well clothed, most of them in their very best. Theirgarments were soaking up the light and the heat, and the wind wasgoing about among them, telling now one and now another, that all waswell, and getting through an immense amount of comfort-work in asingle minute. It said a word or two to myself as often as it passedme, and made me happier than any boy I know just at present, for I wasan old man, and ought to be more easily made happy than any merebeginner. 

I was walking through the thin edge of a little wood of big trees, with a slope of green on my left stretching away into the sunnydistance, and the shadows of the trees on my right lying below myfeet. The earth and the grass and the trees and the air were togetherweaving a harmony, and the birds were leading the big orchestra--whichwas indeed on the largest scale. For the instruments were sodifferent, that some of them only were meant for sound; the part ofothers was in odour, of others yet in shine, and of still others inmotion; while the birds turned it all as nearly into words as theycould. Presently, to complete the score, I heard the tones of a man'svoice, both strong and sweet. It was talking to some one in a way Icould not understand. I do not mean I could not understand the words:I was too far off even to hear them; but I could not understand howthe voice came to be so modulated. It was deep, soft, and musical, with something like coaxing in it, and something of tenderness, andthe intent of it puzzled me. For I could not conjecture from it theage, or sex, or relation, or kind of the person to whom the words werespoken. You can tell by the voice when a man is talking to himself; itought to be evident when he is talking to a woman; and you can, surely, tell when he is talking to a child; you could tell if he werespeaking to him who made him; and you would be pretty certain if hewas holding communication with his dog: it made me feel strange that Icould not tell the kind of ear open to the gentle manly voice sayingthings which the very sound of them made me long to hear. I confess tohurrying my pace a little, but I trust with no improper curiosity, tosee--I cannot say the interlocutors, for I had heard, and still heard, only one voice. 

About a minute's walk brought me to the corner of the wood where itstopped abruptly, giving way to a field of beautiful grass; and then Isaw something it does not need to be old to be delighted withal: theboy that would not have taken pleasure in it, I should count half-wayto the gallows. Up to the edge of the wood came, I say, a largefield--acres on acres of the sweetest grass; and dividing it from bothwood and path stood a fence of three bars, which at the momentseparated two as genuine lovers as ever wall of "stones with lime andhair knit up" could have sundered. On one side of the fence stood aman whose face I could not see, and on the other one of the loveliesthorses I had ever set eyes upon. I am no better than a middling fairhorseman, but, for this horse's sake, I may be allowed to mention thatmy friends will all have me look at any horse they think of buying. He was over sixteen hands, with well rounded barrel, clean limbs, small head, and broad muzzle; hollows above his eyes of hazy blue, anddelicacy of feature, revealed him quite an old horse. His ears pointedforward and downward, as if they wanted on their own account to get ahold of the man the nose was so busily caressing. Neither, I presume, had heard my approach; for all true-love-endearments are shy, and theman had his arm round the horse's neck, and was caressing his face, talking to him much as Philip Sidney's lady, whose lips "seemed atonce to kiss and speak, " murmured to her pet sparrow, only here thevoice was a musical baritone. That there was something between themmore than an ordinary person would be likely to understand appearedpatent. 

Whether or not I made an involuntary sound I cannot tell: I was sotaken with the sight, bearing to me an aspect of something eternal, that I do not know how I carried myself; but the horse gave a littlestart, half lifted his head, saw me, threw it up, uttered a shrillneigh of warning, stepped hack a pace, and stood motionless, waitingapparently for an order from his master--if indeed I ought not ratherto call them friends than master and servant. 

The man looked round, saw me, turned toward me, and showing no signthat my appearance was unexpected, lifted his hat with a courtesy mostEnglishmen would reserve for a lady, and advanced a step, almost as ifto welcome a guest. I may have owed something of this reception to thefact that he saw before him a man advanced in years, for my beard isvery gray, and that by no means prematurely. I saw before me onenearly, if not quite as old as myself. His hair and beard, both ratherlong, were quite white. His face was wonderfully handsome, with thestillness of a summer sea upon it. Its features were very marked andregular and fine, for the habit of the man was rather spare. What withhis white hair and beard, and a certain radiance in his palecomplexion, which, I learned afterward, no sun had ever more thanbrowned a little, he reminded me for a moment as he turned, of Cato onthe shore of Dante's purgatorial island. 

"I fear, " I said, "I have intruded!" There was no path where I hadcome along. 

The man laughed--and his laugh was more friendly than an invitation todinner. 

"The land is mine, " he answered; "no one can say you intrude. "

"Thank you heartily. I live not very far off, and know the countrypretty well, but have got into a part of which I am ignorant. "

"You are welcome to go where you will on my property, " he answered. "I could not close a field without some sense of having thrown a fellow-being into a dungeon. Whatever be the rights of land, space can belongto the individual only '_as it were_, ' to use a Shakspere-phrase. Allthe best things have to be shared. The house plainly was designed fora family. "

While he spoke I scarce heeded his words for looking at the man, somuch he interested me. His face was of the palest health, with a faintlight from within. He looked about sixty years of age. His foreheadwas square, and his head rather small, but beautifully modelled; hiseyes were of a light hazel, friendly as those of a celestialdog. Though slender in build, he looked strong, and every movementdenoted activity. 

I was not ready with an answer to what he said. He turned from me, andas if to introduce a companion and so render the interview easier, hecalled, in tone as gentle as if he spoke to a child, but with thatpeculiar intonation that had let me understand it was not to a childhe was speaking, "Memnon! come;" and turned again to me. His movementand words directed my attention again to the horse, who had stoodmotionless. At once, but without sign of haste, the animal walked upto the rails, rose gently on his hind legs, came over withouttouching, walked up to his master, and laid his head on his shoulder. 

I bethought me now who the man was. He had been but a year or two inthe neighbourhood, though the property on which we now stood had beenhis own for a good many years. Some said he had bought it; others knewhe had inherited it. All agreed he was a very peculiar person, withways so oddly unreasonable that it was evident he had, in hiswanderings over the face of the earth, gradually lost hold of whatsense he might at one time have possessed, and was in consequence agood deal cracked. There seemed nothing, however, in his behaviour orappearance to suggest such a conclusion: a man could hardly be countedbeside himself because he was on terms of friendship with hishorse. It took me but a moment to recall his name--Skymer--one oddenough to assist the memory. I caught it ere he had done minglingfresh caresses with those of his long-tailed friend. When I came toknow him better, I knew that he had thus given me opportunity--such ashe would to a horse--of thinking whether I should like to know himbetter: Mr. Skymer's way was not to offer himself, but to give easyopportunity to any who might wish to know him. I learned afterwardthat he knew my name and suspected my person: being rather prejudicedin my favour because of the kind of thing I wrote, he was now waitingto see whether approximation would follow. 

"Pardon my rude lingering, " I said; "that lovely animal is enough tomake one desire nearer acquaintance with his owner. I don't think Iever saw such a perfect creature!"

I remembered the next moment that I had heard said of Mr. Skymer thathe liked beasts better than men, but I soon found this was only one ofthe foolish things constantly said of honest men by those who do notunderstand them. 

There are women even who love dogs and dislike children; but, nauseousfact as this is, it is not so nauseous as the fact that there are menwho believe in no animal rights, or in any God of the animals, andthink we may do what we please with them, indulging at their cost aninsane thirst after knowledge. Injustice may discover facts, but nevertruth. 

"I grant him nearly a perfect creature, " he answered, "But he is farmore nearly perfect than you yet know him! Excuse me for speaking soconfidently; but if we were half as far on for men, as Memnon is for ahorse, the kingdom of heaven would be a good deal nearer!"

"He seems an old horse!"

"He is an old horse--much older than you can think after seeing himcome over that paling as he did. He is forty. "

"Is it possible!"

"I know and can prove his age as certainly as my own. He is the son ofan Arab mare and an English thoroughbred. --Come here, Memnon!"

The horse, who had been standing behind like a servant in waiting, puthis beautiful head over his master's shoulder. 

"Memnon, " said Mr. Skymer, "go home and tell Mrs. Waterhouse I hope tobring a gentleman with me to lunch. "

The horse walked gently past us, then started at a quick trot, whichalmost immediately became a gallop. 

"The dear fellow, " said his master, "would not gallop like that if hewere on the hard road; he knows I would not like it. "

"But, excuse me, how can the animal convey your message?--howcommunicate what he knows, if he does understand what you say to him?"

"He will at least take care that the housekeeper look in his mane forthe knot which perhaps you did not observe me tie in it. "

"You have a code of signals by knots then?"

"Yes--comprising about half a dozen possibilities. --I hope you do notobject to the message I sent! You will do me the honour of lunchingwith me?"

"You are most kind, " I answered--with a little hesitation, I suppose, fearing to bore my new acquaintance. 

"Don't make me false to horse and housekeeper, Mr. Gowrie, " heresumed. --"I put the horse first, because I could more easily explainthe thing to Mrs. Waterhouse than to Memnon. "

"Could you explain it to Memnon?"

"I should have a try!" he answered, with a peculiar smile. 

"You hold yourself bound then to keep faith with your horse?"

"Bound just as with a man--that is, as far as the horse can understandme. A word understood is binding, whether spoken to horse, or man, orpig. It makes it the more important that we can do so little, mustwork so slowly, for the education of the lower animals. It seems to mean absolute horror that a man should lie to an inferior creature. Justthink--if an angel were to lie to us! What a shock to find we had beenreposing faith in a devil. "

"Excuse me--I thought you said _an angel_!"

"When he lied, would he not be a devil?--But let us follow Memnon, andas we walk I will tell you more about him. "

He turned to the wood. 

"The horse, " I said, pointing, "went that way!"

"Yes, " answered his master; "he knew it was nearer for him to take thelong way round. If I had started him and one of the dogs together, thehorse would have gone that way, and the dog taken the path we are nowfollowing. "

We walked a score or two of yards in silence. 

"You promised to tell me more about your wonderful horse!" I said. 

"With pleasure. I delight in talking about my poor brothers andsisters! Most of them are only savages yet, but there would be farfewer such if we did not treat them as slaves instead of friends. Oneday, however, all will be well for them as for us--thank God. "

"I hope so, " I responded heartily. "But please tell me, " I said, "something more about your Memnon. "

Mr. Skymer thought for a moment. 

"Perhaps, after all, " he rejoined, "his best accomplishment is that hecan fetch and carry like a dog. I will tell you one of his feats thatway. But first you must know that, having travelled a good deal, andin some wild countries, I have picked up things it is well to know, even if not the best of their kind. A man may fail by not knowing thesecond best! I was once out on Memnon, five and twenty miles fromhome, when I came to a cottage where I found a woman lying ill. I sawwhat was wanted. The country was strange to me, and I could not havefound a doctor. I wrote a little pencil-note, fastened it to thesaddle, and told the horse to go home and bring me what thehousekeeper gave him--and not to spare himself. He went off at asteady trot of ten or twelve miles an hour. I went into the cottage, and, awaiting his return, did what I could for the woman. I confess Ifelt anxious!"

"You well might, " I said: "why should you say _confess_?"

"Because I had no business to be anxious. "

"It was your business to do all for her you could. "

"I was doing that! If I hadn't been, I should have had good cause tobe anxious! But I knew that another was looking after her; and to beanxious was to meddle with his part!"

"I see now, " I answered, and said nothing more for some time. 

"What a lather poor Memnon came back in! You should have seen him! Hehad been gone nearly five hours, and neither time nor distanceaccounted for the state he was in. I did not let him do anything for aweek. I should have had to sit up with him that night, if I had notbeen sitting up at any rate. The poor fellow had been caught, and hadmade his escape. His bridle was broken, and there were several longskin wounds in his belly, as if he had scraped the top of a wall setwith bits of glass. How far he had galloped, there was no telling. "

"Not in vain, I hope! The poor woman?"

"She recovered. The medicine was all right in a pocket under the flapof the saddle. Before morning she was much better, and lived manyyears after. Memnon and I did not lose sight of her. --But you shouldhave seen the huge creature lying on the floor of that cabin like aworn-out dog, abandoned and content! I rubbed him down carefully, aswell as I could, and tied my poncho round him, before I let him go tosleep. Then as soon as my patient seemed quieted for the night, I madeup a big fire of her peats, and they slept like two babies, only theyboth snored. --The woman beat, " he added with a merry laugh. "It wasthe first, almost the only time I ever heard a horse snore. --As wewalked home next day he kept steadily behind me. In general we walkedside by side. Either he felt too tired to talk to me, or he was notsatisfied with himself because of something that had happened the daybefore. Perhaps he had been careless, and so allowed himself to betaken. I do not think it likely. "

"What a loss it will be to you when he dies!" I said. 

He looked grave for an instant, then replied cheerfully--

"Of course I shall miss the dear fellow--but not more than he willmiss me; and it will be good for us both. "

"Then, " said I, --a little startled, I confess, "you really think--"and there I stopped. 

"Do _you_ think, Mr. Gowrie, " he rejoined, answering my unpropoundedquestion, "that a God like Jesus Christ, would invent such a delightfor his children as the society and love of animals, and then letdeath part them for ever? I don't. "

"I am heartily willing to be your disciple in the matter, " I replied. 

"I know well, " he resumed, "the vulgar laugh that serves the poorpublic for sufficient answer to anything, and the common-place retort:'You can't give a shadow of proof for your theory!'--to which Ianswer, 'I never was the fool to imagine I could; but as surely as yougo to bed at night expecting to rise again in the morning, so surelydo I expect to see my dear old Memnon again when I wake from what somany Christians call the sleep that knows no waking. '--Think, Mr. Gowrie, just think of all the children in heaven--what asuperabounding joy the creatures would be to them!--There is oneclass, however, " he went on, "which I should like to see wait a whilebefore they got their creatures back;--I mean those foolish women who, for their own pleasure, so spoil their dogs that they make otherpeople hate them, doing their best to keep them from rising in thescale of God's creation. "

"They don't know better!" I said. For every time he stopped, I wantedto hear what he would say next. 

"True, " he answered; "but how much do they want to know the right wayof anything? They have good and lovely instincts--like their dogs, butdo they care that there is a right way and a wrong way of followingthem?"

We walked in silence, and were now coming near the other side of thesmall wood. 

"I hope I shall not interfere with your plans for the day!" I said. 

"I seldom have any plans for the day, " he answered. "Or if I have, they are made to break easily. In general I wait. The hour brings itsplans with it--comes itself to tell me what is wanted of me. It hasdone so now. And see, there is Memnon again in attendance on us!"

There, sure enough, was the horse, on the other side of the palingthat here fenced the wood from a well-kept country-road. His long neckwas stretched over it toward his master. 

"Memnon, " said Mr. Skymer as we issued by the gate, "I want you tocarry this gentleman home. "

I had often enough in my youth ridden without a saddle, but seldomindeed without some sort of bridle, however inadequate: I did not, atthe first thought of the thing, relish mounting without one a horse ofwhich all I knew was that he and his master were on better terms thanI had ever seen man and horse upon before. But even while the thoughtwas passing through my head, Memnon was lying at my feet, flat as hisequine rotundity would permit. Ashamed of my doubt, I lost not amoment in placing myself in the position suggested by Sir JohnFalstaff to Prince Hal for the defence of his own bulkycarcase--astride the body of the animal, namely. At once he rose andlifted me into the natural relation of man and horse. Then he lookedround at his master, and they set off at a leisurely pace. 

"You have me captive!" I said. 

"Memnon and I, " answered Mr. Skymer, "will do what we can to make yourcaptivity pleasant. "

A silence followed my thanks. In this procession of horse and foot, wewent about half a mile ere anything more was said worth settingdown. Then began evidence that we were drawing nigh to a house: thegrassy lane between hedges in which we had been moving, was graduallychanging its character. First came trees in the hedge-rows. Then thehedges gave way to trees--a grand avenue of splendid elms and beechesalternated. The ground under our feet was the loveliest sward, andbetween us and the sun came the sweetest shadow. A glad heave butinstant subsidence of the live power under me, let me know Memnon'sdelight at feeling the soft elastic turf under his feet: he had saidto himself, "Now we shall have a gallop!" but immediately checked thethought with the reflection that he was no longer a colt ignorant ofmanners. 

"What a lovely road the turf makes!" I said. "It is a lowersky--solidified for feet that are not yet angelic. "

My host looked up with a brighter smile than he had shown before. 

"It is the only kind of road I really like, " he said, "--though turfhas its disadvantages! I have as much of it about the place as it willbear. Such roads won't do for carriages!"

"You ride a good deal, I suppose?"

"I do. I was at one time so accustomed to horseback that, withoutthinking, I was not aware whether I was on my horse's feet or my own. "

"Where, may I ask, does my friend who is now doing me the favour tocarry 'this weight and size, ' come from?"

"He was born in England, but his mother was a Syrian--of one of theoldest breeds there known. He was born into my arms, and for a weeknever touched the ground. Next month, as I think I mentioned, he willbe forty years old!"

"It is a great age for a horse!" I said. 

"The more the shame as well as the pity!" he answered. 

"Then you think horses might live longer?"

"Much longer than they are allowed to live in this country, " heanswered. "And a part of our punishment is that we do not knowthem. We treat them so selfishly that they do not live long enough tobecome our friends. At present there are but few men worthy of theirfriendship. What else is a man's admiration, when it is without loveor respect or justice, but a bitter form of despite! It is smallwonder there should be so many stupid horses, when they receive solittle education, have such bad associates, and die so much too youngto have gained any ripe experience to transmit to theirposterity. Where would humanity be now, if we all went beforefive-and-twenty?"

"I think you must be right. I have myself in my possession at thismoment, given me by one who loved her, an ink-stand made from the hoofof a pony that died at the age of at least forty-two, and did her partof the work of a pair till within a year or two of her death. --Poorlittle Zephyr!"

"Why, Mr. Gowrie, you talk of her as if she were a Christian!"exclaimed Mr. Skymer. 

"That's how you talked of Memnon a moment ago! Where is thedifference? Not in the size, though Memnon would make three ofZephyr!"

"I didn't say _poor Memnon_, did I? You said _poor Zephyr_! That isthe way Christians talk about their friends gone home to the grand oldfamily mansion! Why they do, they would hardly like one to tell them!"

"It is true, " I responded. "I understand you now! I don't think I everheard a widow speak of her departed husband without putting _poor_, or_poor dear_, before his name. --By the way, when you hear a woman speakof her _late_ husband, can you help thinking her ready to marryagain?"

"It does sound as if she had done with him! But here we are at thegate!--Call, Memnon. "

The horse gave a clear whinny, gentle, but loud enough to be heard atsome distance. It was a tall gate of wrought iron, but Memnon'ssummons was answered by one who could clear it--though not open it anymore than he: a little bird, which I was not ornithologist enough torecognize--mainly because of my short-sightedness, I hope--camefluttering from the long avenue within, perched on the top of thegate, looked down at our party for a moment as if debating theprudent, dropped suddenly on Memnon's left ear, and thence to hismaster's shoulder, where he sat till the gate was opened. The littleone went half-way up the inner avenue with us, making several flightsand returns before he left us. 

The boy that opened the gate, a chubby little fellow of seven, lookedup in Mr. Skymer's face as if he had been his father and king in one, and stood gazing after him as long as he was in sight. I noticedalso--who could have failed to notice?--that every now and then a birdwould drop from the tree we were passing under, and alight for aminute on my host's head. Once when he happened to uncover it, sevenor eight perched together upon it. One tiny bird got caught in hisbeard by the claws. 

"You cannot surely have tamed _all_ the birds in your grounds!" Isaid. 

"If I have, " he answered, "it has been by permitting them to bethemselves. "

"You mean it is the nature of birds to be friendly with man?"

"I do. Through long ages men have been their enemies, and so havealienated them--they too not being themselves. "

"You mean that unfriendliness is not natural to men?"

"It cannot be human to be cruel!"

"How is it, then, that so many boys are careless what suffering theyinflict?"

"Because they have in them the blood of men who loved cruelty, andnever repented of it. "

"But how do you account for those men loving cruelty--for their beingwhat you say is contrary to their nature?"

"Ah, if I could account for that, I should be at the secret of mostthings! All I meant to half-explain was, how it came that so many whohave no wish to inflict suffering, yet are careless of inflicting it. "

I saw that we must know each other better before he would quite openhis mind to me. I saw that though, hospitable of heart, he threw hisbest rooms open to all, there were others in his house into which hedid not invite every acquaintance. 

The avenue led to a wide gravelled space before a plain, low, longbuilding in whitish stone, with pillared portico. In the middle of thespace was a fountain, and close to it a few chairs. Mr. Skymer beggedme to be seated. Memnon walked up to the fountain, and lay down, thatI might get off his back as easily as I had got on it. Once down, heturned on his side, and lay still. 

"The air is so mild, " said my host, "I fancy you will prefer this tothe house. "

"Mild!" I rejoined; "I should call it hot!"

"I have been so much in real heat!" he returned. "Notwithstanding mylove of turf, I keep this much in gravel for the sake of the desert. "

I took the seat he offered me, wondering whether Memnon wascomfortable where he lay; and, absorbed in the horse, did not see myhost go to the other side of the basin. Suddenly we were "clothedupon" with a house which, though it came indeed from the earth, mightwell have come direct from heaven: a great uprush of water spreadabove us a tent-like dome, through which the sun came with a cool, broken, almost frosty glitter. We seemed in the heart of a hugesoap-bubble. I exclaimed with delight. 

"I thought you would enjoy my sun-shade!" said Mr. Skymer. "Memnon andI often come here of a hot morning, when nobody wants us. Don't we, Memnon?"

The horse lifted his nose a little, and made a low soft noise, a chordof mingled obedience and delight--a moan of pleasure mixed with ahalf-born whinny. 

We had not been seated many moments, and had scarcely pushed off theshore of silence into a new sea of talk, when we were interrupted bythe invasion of half a dozen dogs. They were of all sorts down to nosort. Mr. Skymer called one of them Tadpole--I suppose because he hadthe hugest tail, while his legs were not visible without being lookedfor. 

"That animal, " said his master, "--he looks like a dog, but who wouldbe positive what he was!--is the cleverest in the pack. He seems to mea rare individuality. His ancestors must have been of all sorts, andhe has gathered from them every good quality possessed by each. Thinkwhat a man might be--made up that way!"

"Why is there no such man?" I said. 

"There may be some such men. There must be many one day, " he answered, "--but not for a while yet. Men must first be made willing to benoble. "

"And you don't think men willing to be made noble?"

"Oh yes! willing enough, some of them, to be _made_ noble!"

"I do not understand. I thought you said they were not!"

"They are willing enough _to be made_ noble; but that is verydifferent from being willing _to be_ noble: that takes trouble. Howcan any one become noble who desires it so little as not to fight forit!"

The man drew me more and more. He had a way of talking about thingsseldom mentioned except in dull fashion in the pulpit, as if he caredabout them. He spoke as of familiar things, but made you feel he waslooking out of a high window. There are many who never speak of realthings except in a false tone; this man spoke of such without an atomof assumed solemnity--in his ordinary voice: they came into his mindas to their home--not as dreams of the night, but as facts of the day. 

I sat for a while, gazing up through the thin veil of water at theblue sky so far beyond. I thought how like that veil was to our littlelife here, overdomed by that boundless foreshortening of space. Thelines in Shelley's _Adonais_ came to me:

 "Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments. "

Then I thought of what my host had said concerning the too short livesof horses, and wondered what he would say about those of dogs. 

"Dogs are more intelligent than horses, " I said: "why do they live ayet shorter time?"

"I doubt if you would say so in an Arab's tent, " he returned. "If youhad said, 'still more affectionate, ' I should have known better how toanswer you. "

"Then I do say so, " I replied. 

"And I return, that is just why they live no longer. They do not findthe world good enough for them, die, and leave it. "

"They have a much happier life than horses!"

"Many dogs than some horses, I grant. "

That instant arose what I fancied must be an unusual sound in theplace: two of the dogs were fighting. The master got up. I thoughtwith myself, "Now we shall see his notions of discipline!" nor had Ilong to wait. In his hand was a small riding-whip, which I afterwardfound he always carried in avoidance of having to inflict a heavierpunishment from inability to inflict a lighter; for he held that inall wrong-doing man can deal with, the kindest thing is not only topunish, but, with animals especially, to punish at once. He ran to theconflicting parties. They separated the moment they heard the sound ofhis coming. One came cringing and crawling to his feet; the other--itwas the nondescript Tadpole--stood a little way off, wagging his tail, and cocking his head up in his master's face. He gave the one at hisfeet several pretty severe cuts with the whip, and sent him off. Theother drew nearer. His master turned away and took no notice of him. 

"May I ask, " I said, when he returned to his seat, "why you did notpunish both the animals for their breach of the peace?"

"They did not both deserve it. "

"How could you tell that? You were not looking when the quarrelbegan!"

"Ah, but you see I know the dogs! One of them--I saw at a glance howit was--had found a bone, and dog-rule about finding is, that what youfind is yours. The other, notwithstanding, wanted a share. It wasTadpole who found the bone, and he--partly from his sense ofjustice--cannot endure to have his claims infringed upon. Every dog ofthem knows that Tadpole must be in the right. "

"He looked as if he expected you to approve of his conduct!"

"Yes, that is the worst of Tadpole! he is so self-righteous as toimagine he deserves praise for standing on his rights! He is but adog, you see, and knows no better!"

"I noticed you disregarded his appeal. "

"I was not going to praise him for nothing!"

"You expect them to understand your treatment?"

"No one can tell how infinitesimally small the beginnings ofunderstanding, as of life, may be. The only way to make animalsreasonable--more reasonable, I mean--is to treat them asreasonable. Until you can go down into the abysses of creation, youcannot know when_ a nature begins to see a difference in qualityof action. "

"I confess, " I said, "Mr. Tadpole did seem a little ashamed as he wentaway. "

"And you see Blanco White at my feet, taking care not to touchthem. He is giving time, he thinks, for my anger to pass. "

He laughed the merriest laugh. The dog looked up eagerly, but droppedhis head again. 

If I go on like this, however, I shall have to take another book totell the story for which I began the present! In short, I was drawn tothe man as never to another since the friend of my youth went where Ishall go to seek and find him one day--or, more likely, one solemnnight. I was greatly his inferior, but love is a quick divider ofshares: he that gathers much has nothing over, and he that gatherslittle has no lack. I soon ceased to think of him as my _new_ friend, for I seemed to have known him before I was born. 

I am going to tell the early part of his history. If only I could tellit as it deserves to be told! The most interesting story may be sonarrated as that only the eyes of a Shakspere could spy the shineunderneath its dull surface. 

He never told me any great portion of the tale of his lifecontinuously. One thing would suggest another--generally with noconnection in time. I have pieced the parts together myself. He didindeed set out more than once or twice to give me his history, butalways we got discussing something, and so it was interrupted. 

I will not write what I have set in order as if he were himselfnarrating: the most modest man in the world would that way be put at adisadvantage. The constant recurrence of the capital _I_, is apt torouse in the mind of the reader, especially if he be himselfegotistic, more or less of irritation at the egotism of thenarrator--while in reality the freedom of a man's personal utterance_may_ be owing to his lack of the egotistic. Partly for myfriend's sake, therefore, I shall tell the story as--what indeed itis--a narrative of my own concerning him. 

Chapter II

With his parents. 

The lingering, long-drawn-out _table d'hôte_ dinner was just over inone of the inns on the _cornice_ road. The gentlemen had gone into thegarden, and some of the ladies to the _salotto_, where open windowsadmitted the odours of many a flower and blossoming tree, for it wastoward the end of spring in that region. One had sat down to atinkling piano, and was striking a few chords, more to her ownpleasure than that of the company. Two or three were looking out intothe garden, where the diaphanous veil of twilight had so speedilythickened to the crape of night, its darkness filled with thousands ofsmall isolated splendours--fire-flies, those "golden boats" never seen"on a sunny sea, " but haunting the eves of the young summer, pulsing, pulsing through the dusky air with seeming aimlessness, like sweetthoughts that have no faith to bind them in one. A tall, gracefulwoman stood in one of the windows alone. She had never been in Italybefore, had never before seen fire-flies, and was absorbed in thebeauty of their motion as much as in that of their goldenflashes. Each roving star had a tide in its light that rose and ebbedas it moved, so that it seemed to push itself on by its own radiance, ever waxing and waning. In wide, complicated dance, they wove a huge, warpless tapestry with the weft of an ever vanishing aureateshine. The lady, an Englishwoman evidently, gave a little sigh andlooked round, regretting, apparently, that her husband was not by herside to look on the loveliness that woke a faint-hued fairy-tale inher heart. The same moment he entered the room and came to her. He wasa man above the middle height, and from the slenderness of his figure, looked taller than he was. He had a vivacity of motion, a readiness toturn on his heel, a free swing of the shoulders, and an erect carriageof the head, which all marked him a man of action: one that speculatedon his calling would immediately have had his sense of fitnesssatisfied when he heard that he was the commander of an Englishgun-boat, which he was now on his way to Genoa to join. He wasyoung--within the twenties, though looking two or three and thirty, his face was so browned by sun and wind. His features were regular andattractive, his eyes so dark that the liveliness of their movementseemed hardly in accord with the weight of their colour. His wife wasvery fair, with large eyes of the deepest blue of eyes. She lookeddelicate, and was very lovely. They had been married about fiveyears. A friend had brought them in his yacht as far as Nice, and theywere now going on by land. From Genoa the lady must find her way homewithout her husband. 

The lights in the room having been extinguished that the few presentmight better see the fire-flies, he put his arm round her waist. 

"I'm so glad you're come, Henry!" she said, favoured by the piano. "Iwas uncomfortable at having the lovely sight all to myself!"

"It is lovely, darling!" he rejoined; then, after a moment's pause, added, "I hope you will be able to sleep without the sea to rock you!"

"No fear of that!" she answered. "The stillness will be delightful. Iwas thoroughly reconciled to the motion of the yacht, " she went on, "but there is a satisfaction in feeling the solid earth under you, andknowing it will keep steady all night. "

"I am glad you like the change. I never sleep the first night onshore. --I cannot tell what it is, but somehow I keep wishing Fyviecould have taken us all the way. "

"Never mind, love. I will keep awake with you. "

"It's not that! How could I mind lying awake with you beside me! OhGrace, you don't know, you cannot know, what you are to me! I don'tfeel in the least that you're my other half, as people say. You're notlike a part of myself at all; to think so would be sacrilege! You arequite another, else how could you be mine! You make me forget myselfaltogether. When I look at you, I stand before an enchanted mirrorthat cannot show what is in front of it. "

"No, Harry; I'm a true mirror, for I hold that inside me which remainsoutside me. "

"I fear you've got beyond me!" said her husband, laughing. "You alwaysdo!"

"Yes, at nonsense, Harry. "

"Then your speech was nonsense, was it?"

"No; it was full of sense. But think of something you would like me tosay; I must fetch the boy to see the fire-flies; when I come back Iwill say it. "

She left the room. Her husband stood where he was, gazing out, with atender look in his face that deepened to sadness--whether from thehaunting thought of his wife's delicate health and his having to leaveher, or from some strange foreboding, I cannot tell. When presentlyshe returned with their one child in her arms, he made haste to takehim from her. 

"My darling, " he said, "he is much too heavy for you! How stupid of menot to think of it! If you don't promise me never to do that at home, I will take him to sea with me!"

The child, a fair, bright boy, the sleep in whose eyes had turned towonder, for they seemed to see everything, and be quite satisfied withnothing, went readily to his father, but looked back at hismother. The only sign he gave that he was delighted with thefire-flies was, that he looked now to the one, now to the other of hisparents, speechless, with shining eyes. He knew they were feeling justlike himself. Silent communion was enough. 

The father turned to carry him back to bed. The mother turned to lookafter them. As she did so, her eyes fell upon two or three delicate, small-leaved plants--I do not know what they were--that stood in potson the balcony in front of the open window: they were shivering. Thenight was perfectly still, but their leaves trembled as with anague-fit. 

"Look, Harry! What is that?" she cried, pointing to them. 

He turned and looked, said it must be some loaded wagon passing, andwent off with the child. 

"I hope to-morrow will be just like to-day!" said his wife when hereturned. "What shall we do with it?--our one real holiday, you know!"

"I have a notion in my head, " he answered. "That little town Georginaspoke of, is not far from here--among the hills: shall we go and seeit?"

Chapter III. 

Without his parents. 

The sun in England seems to shine because he cannot help it; the sunin Italy seems to shine because he means it, and wants to meanit. Thus he shone the next morning, including in his attentions acurious little couple, husband and wife, who, attended by a guide, andborne by animals which might be mules and might be donkeys, and werenot lovely to look on except through sympathy with their ugliness, were slowly ascending a steep terraced and zigzagged road, with olivetrees above and below them. They were on the south side of the hill, and the olives gave them none of the little shadow they have in theirpower, for the trees next the sun were always below the road. The manoften wiped his red, innocent face, and looked not a littledistressed; but the lady, although as stout as he, did not seem tosuffer, perhaps because she was sheltered by a very large bonnet Aftera silence of a good many minutes, she was the first to speak. 

"I can't say but I'm disappointed in the olives, Thomas, " sheremarked. "They ain't much to keep the sun off you!"

"They wouldn't look bad along a brookside in Essex!" returned herhusband. "Here they do seem a bit out of place!"

"Well, but, poor things! how are they to help it--with only a trayfulof earth under their feet! If you planted a priest on a terrace hewould soon be as thin as they!"

They had just passed a very stout priest, in a low broad hat, andcassock, and she laughed merrily at her small joke. They were anEnglish country parson and his wife, abroad for the first time intheir now middle-aged lives, and happy as children just out ofschool. Incapable of disliking anybody, there was no unkindness inMrs. Porson's laughter. 

"I don't see, " she resumed, "how they ever can have a picnic in such acountry!"

"Why not?"

"There's no place to sit down!"

"Here's a whole hill-side!"

"But so hard!" she answered. "There's not an inch of turf or grass inany direction!"

The pair--equally plump, and equally good-natured--laughed together. 

I need not give more of their talk. It was better than most talk, yetnot worth recording. Their guide, perceiving that they knew no more ofItalian than he did of English, had withdrawn to the rear, and stumpedalong behind them all the way, holding much converse with his donkeyshowever, admonishing now this one, now that one, and seeming not alittle hurt with their behaviour, to judge from the expostulationsthat accompanied his occasionally more potent arguments. Assuredly thespeed they made was small; but it was a festa, and hot. 

They were on the way to a small town some distance from the shore, onthe crest of the hill they were now ascending. It would, from thenumber of its inhabitants, have been in England a village, but thereare no villages in the Riviera. However insignificant a place may be, it is none the less a town, possibly a walled town. Somebody had toldMr. And Mrs. Person they ought to visit Graffiacane, and toGraffiacane they were therefore bound: why they ought to visit it, andwhat was to be seen there, they took the readiest way to know. 

The place was indeed a curious one, high among the hills, and on thetop of its own hill, with approaches to it like the trenches of asiege. All the old towns in that region seem to have climbed up tolook over the heads of other things. Graffiacane saw over hills andvalleys and many another town--each with its church standing highest, the guardian of the flock of houses beneath it; saw over many awater-course, mostly dry, with lovely oleanders growing in the middleof it; saw over multitudinous oliveyards and vineyards; saw over millswith great wheels, and little ribbons of water to drive them--runningsometimes along the tops of walls to get at their work; saw overrugged pines, and ugly, verdureless, raw hillsides--away to the sea, lying in the heat like a heavenly vat in which all the tails of allthe peacocks God was making, lay steeped in their proper dye. Numerouswere the sharp turns the donkeys made in their ascent; and at thiscorner and that, the sweetest life-giving wind would leap out upon thetravellers, as if it had been lying there in wait to surprise themwith the heavenliest the old earth, young for all her years, couldgive them. But they were getting too tired to enjoy anything, and wereboth indeed not far from asleep on the backs of their humble beasts, when a sudden, more determined yet more cheerful assault of theirguide upon his donkeys, roused both them and their riders; and lookingsleepily up, with his loud _heeoop_ ringing in their ears, and a senseof the insidious approach of two headaches, they saw before them thelittle town, its houses gathered close for protection, like a brood ofchickens, and the white steeple of the church rising above them, likethe neck of the love-valiant hen. 

Passing through the narrow arch of the low-browed gateway, hot as wasthe hour, a sudden cold struck to their bones. For not a ray of lightshone into the narrow street. The houses were lofty as those of acity, and parted so little by the width of the street that friends onopposite sides might almost from their windows have shakenhands. Narrow, rough, steep old stone-stairs ran up between and insidethe houses, all the doors of which were open to the air--here, however, none of the sweetest. Everywhere was shadow; everywhere oneor another evil odour; everywhere a look of abject and dirtypoverty--to an English eye, that is. Everywhere were pretty children, young, slatternly mothers, withered-up grandmothers, the gleam ofglowing reds and yellows, and the coolness of subdued greens and fineblues. Such at least was the composite first impression made on Mr. And Mrs. Porson. As it was a festa, more men than usual were lookingout of cavern-like doorways or over hand-wrought iron balconies, wereleaning their backs against door-posts, and smoking as if too lazy tostop. Many of the women were at prayers in the church. All wasorderly, and quieter than usual for a festa. None could have told thereason; the townsfolk were hardly aware that an undefinable oppressionwas upon them--an oppression that lay also upon their visitors, andthe donkeys that had toiled with them up the hills and slow-climbingvalleys. 

It added to the gloom and consequent humidity of the town that thesides of the streets were connected, at the height of two or perhapsthree stories, by thin arches--mere jets of stone from the one houseto the other, with but in rare instance the smallest superstructure tokeep down the key of the arch. Whatever the intention of them, theymight seem to serve it, for the time they had straddled thereundisturbed had sufficed for moss and even grass to grow upon thosewhich Mr. Porson now regarded with curious speculation. A bit of anarchitect, and foiled, he summoned at last what Italian he could, supplemented it with Latin and a terminational _o_ or _a_ tacked toany French or English word that offered help, and succeeded, as hebelieved, in gathering from a by-stander, that the arches were therebecause of the earthquakes. 

He had not language enough of any sort to pursue the matter, else hewould have asked his informant how the arch they were looking at couldbe of any service, seeing it had no weight on the top, and but aslight endlong pressure must burst it up. Turning away to tell hiswife what he had learned, he was checked by a low rumbling, likedistant thunder, which he took for the firing of festa guns, havingdiscovered that Italians were fond of all kinds of noises. The nextinstant they felt the ground under their feet move up and down andfrom side to side with confused motion. A sudden great cry arose. Onemoment and down every stair, out of every door, like animals fromtheir holes, came men, women, and children, with a rush. Theearthquake was upon them. 

But in such narrow streets, the danger could hardly be less thaninside the houses, some of which, the older especially, were illconstructed--mostly with boulder-stones that had neither angles noredges, hence little grasp on each other beyond what the friction oftheir weight, and the adhesion of their poor old friable cement, gavethem; for the Italians, with a genius for building, are careless ofcertain constructive essentials. After about twenty seconds ofshaking, the lonely pair began to hear, through the noise of the criesof the people, some such houses as these rumbling to the earth. 

They were far more bewildered than frightened. They were both of goodnerve, and did not know the degree of danger they were in, while thestrangeness of the thing contributed to an excitement that helpedtheir courage. I cannot say how they might have behaved in an hotelfull of their countrymen and countrywomen, running and shrieking, andaltogether comporting themselves as if they knew there was no God. Thefear on all sides might there have infected them; but the terror ofthe inhabitants who knew better than they what the thing meant, didnot much shake them. For one moment many of the people stood in thestreet motionless, pale, and staring; the next they all began to run, some for the gateway, but the greater part up the street, staggeringas they ran. The movement of the ground was indeed small--not more, perhaps, than half an inch in any direction--but fear and imaginationweakened all their limbs. They had not run far, however, before theterrible unrest ceased as suddenly as it had begun. 

The English pair drew a long breath where they stood--for they had notstirred a step, or indeed thought whither to run--and imagining itover for a hundred years, looked around them. Their guide haddisappeared. The two donkeys stood perfectly still with their headshanging down. They seemed in deep dejection, and incapable ofmovement. A few men only were yet to be seen. They were running up thestreet. In a moment more it would be empty. They were the last ofthose that had let the women go to church without them. They werehurrying to join them in the sanctuary, the one safe place: the restof the town might be shaken in heaps on its foundations, but thechurch would stand! Guessing their goal, the Porsons followedthem. But they were neither of a build nor in a condition to makehaste, and the road was uphill. No one place, however, was far fromanother within the toy-town, and they came presently to an open_piazza_, on the upper side of which rose the great church. It had asquare front, masking with its squareness the triangular gable of thebuilding. Upon this screen, in the brightest of colours, magenta andsky-blue predominating, was represented the day of judgment--themother seated on the right hand of the judge, and casting a pitifullook upon the miserable assembly on her left. The square was a gooddeal on the slope, and as they went slowly up to the church, they keptlooking at the picture. The last tatters of the skirt of the crowd haddisappeared through the great door, and but for themselves the squarewas empty. All at once the picture at which they were gazing, thespread of wall on which it was painted, the whole bulk of the hugebuilding began to shudder, and went on shuddering--"just, " Mr. Porsonused to say when describing the thing to a friend, "like the skin of ahorse determined to get rid of a gad-fly. " The same moment the tileson the roof began to clatter like so many castanets in the hands ofgiants, and the ground to wriggle and heave. But they were too muchabsorbed in what was before their eyes to heed much what went on undertheir feet. The oscillatory displacement of the front of the churchdid not at most seem to cover more than a hand-breadth, but it wasenough. Down came the plaster surface, with the judge and his mother, clashing on the pavement below, while the good and the bad yet stoodtrembling. A few of the people came running out, thinking the opensquare after all safer than the church, but there was no rush to theopen air. The shaking had lasted about twenty seconds, or at most halfa minute, when, without indication to the eyes watching the front, there came a roaring crash and a huge rumbling, through and far abovewhich, rose a multitudinous shriek of terror, dismay, and agony, and anumber of men and women issued as if shot from a catapult. Then a fewcame straggling out, and then--no more. The roof had fallen upon therest. 

With the first rush from the church, the shaking ceased utterly, andthe still earth seemed again the immovable thing the Englishspectators had conceived her. Of what had taken place there was littlesign on the earth, no sign in the blue sun-glorious heaven; only inthe air there was a cloud of dust so thick as to look almost solid, and from the cloud, as it seemed, came a ghastly cry, mingled ofshrieks and groans and articulate appeals for help. The cry kept onissuing, while the calm front of the church, dominated by thatfrightful canopy, went on displaying the assembled nations deliveredfrom their awful judge. While the multitude groaned within, it spreaditself out to the sun in silent composure, welcoming and cherishinghis rays in what was left of its gorgeous hues. 

The Porsons stood for a moment stunned, came to their senses, and madehaste to enter the building. With white faces and trembling hands, they drew aside the heavy leather curtain that hung within the greatdoor, but could for a moment see nothing; the air inside seemed filledwith a solid yellow dust As their eyes recovered from the suddenchange of sunlight for gloom, however, they began to distinguish thelarger outlines, and perceived that the floor was one confused heap ofrafters and bricks and tiles and stones and lime. The centre of theroof had been a great dome; now there was nothing between their eyesand the clear heaven but the slowly vanishing cloud of ruin. In themound below they could at first distinguish nothing human--could nothave told, in the dim chaos, limbs from broken rafters. Eager to help, they dared not set their feet upon the mass--not that they feared thewalls which another shock might bring upon their heads, but that theyshuddered lest their own added weight should crush some live humancreature they could not descry. Three or four who had received littleor no hurt, were moving about the edges of the heap, vaguely trying tolift now this, now that, but yielding each attempt in despair, eitherfrom its evident uselessness, or for lack of energy. They would give apull at a beam that lay across some writhing figure, find itimmovable, and turn with a groan to some farther cry. How or wherewere they to help? Others began to come in with white faces andterror-stricken eyes; and before long the sepulchral ruin had littlegroups all over it, endeavouring in shiftless fashion to bring rescueto the prisoned souls. 

The Porsons saw nothing they could do. Great beams and rafters whichit was beyond their power to move an inch, lay crossed in alldirections; and they could hold little communication with those whowere in a fashion at work. Alas, they were little better than vainlybusy, while the louder moans accompanying their attempts revealed thatthey added to the tortures of those they sought to deliver! The twosaw more plainly now, and could distinguish contorted limbs, and hereand there a countenance. The silence, more and more seldom broken, wasgrowing itself terrible. Had they known how many were buried there, they would have wondered so few were left able to cry out. At momentsthere was absolute stillness in the dreadful place. The heart ofMrs. Porson began to sink. 

"Do come out, " she whispered, afraid of her own voice. "I feel so sickand faint, I fear I shall drop. "

As she spoke something touched her leg. She gave a cry and startedaside. It was a hand, but of the body to which it belonged nothingcould be seen. It must have been its last movement; now it stuck theremotionless. Then they spied amid sad sights a sadder still. Upon theheap, a little way from its edge, sat a child of about three, dressedlike a sailor, gazing down at something--they could not seewhat. Going a little nearer, they saw it--the face of a fair woman, evidently English, who lay dead, with a great beam across herheart. The child showed no trace of tears; his white face seemedfrozen. The stillness upon it was not despair, but suggested a worldin which hope had never yet been born. Pity drove Mrs. Porson'ssickness away. 

"My dear!" she said; but the child took no heed. Her voice, however, seemed to wake something in him. He started to his feet, and rushingat the beam, began to tug at it with his tiny hands. Mrs. Porson burstinto tears. 

"It's no use, darling!" she cried. 

"Wake mamma!" he said, turning, and looking up at her. 

"She will not wake, " sobbed Mrs. Porson. 

Her husband stood by speechless, choking back the tears of which, being an Englishman, he was ashamed. 

"She _will_ wake, " returned the boy. "She always wakes when I kissher. "

He knelt beside her, to prove upon her white face the efficacy of themeasure he had never until now known to fail. That he had alreadytried it was plain, for he had kissed away much of the dust, thoughnone of the death. When once more he found that she did not even closeher lips to return his passionate salute, he desisted. With thatsaddest of things, a child's sigh, and a look that seemed to Mrs. Porson to embody the riddle of humanity, he reseated himself on thebeam, with his little feet on his mother's bosom, where so often shehad made them warm. He did not weep; he did not fix his eyes on hismother; his look was level and moveless and set upon nothing. Heseemed to have before him an utter blank--as if the outer wall ofcreation had risen frowning in front, and he knew there was nothingbehind it but chaos. 

"Where is your papa?" asked Mr. Porson. 

The boy looked round bewildered. 

"Gone, " he answered; nor could they get anything more from him. 

"Was your papa with you here?" asked Mrs. Porson. 

He answered only with the word _Gone_, uttered in a dazed fashion. 

By this time all the men left in the town were doing their best, underthe direction of an intelligent man, the priest of a neighbouringparish. They had already got one or two out alive, and their ownpriest dead. They worked well, their terror of the lurking earthquakeforgotten in their eagerness to rescue. From their ignorance of thelanguage, however, Mr. Porson saw they could be of little use; and indread of doing more harm than good, he judged it better to go. 

They stood one moment and looked at each other in silence. The childhad dropped from the beam, and lay fast asleep across his mother'sbosom, with his head on a lump of mortar. Without a word spoken, Mrs. Person, picking her way carefully to the spot, knelt down by thedead mother, tenderly kissed her cheek, lifted the sleeping child, andwith all the awe, and nearly all the tremulous joy of firstmotherhood, bore him to her husband. The throes of the earthquake hadslain the parents, and given the child into their arms. Without lookof consultation, mark of difference, or sign of agreement, they turnedin silence and left the terrible church, with the clear summer skylooking in upon its dead. 

As they passed the door, the sun met them shining with all hismight. The sea, far away across the tops of hills and the clefts ofvalleys, lay basking in his glory. The hot air quivered all over thewide landscape. From the flight of steps in front of the church theylooked down on the streets of the town, and beyond them into space. Itlooked the best of all possible worlds--as neither plague, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, nor human wrongs, persuade me it is not, judged by the high intent of its existence. When a man knows thatintent, as I dare to think I do, _then_ let him say, and not tillthen, whether it be a good world or not. That in the midst of thesplendour of the sunny day, in the midst of olives and oranges, grapesand figs, ripening swiftly by the fervour of the circumambient air, should lie that charnel-church, is a terrible fact, neither to beignored, nor to be explained by the paltry theory of the greatest goodto the greatest number; but the end of the maker's dream is not this. 

When they turned into the street that led to the gate, they found thedonkeys standing where they had left them. Their owner was not withthem. He had gone into the church with the rest, and was killed. Whenthey caught sight of the patient, dejected animals, unheeded andunheeding, then first they spoke, whispering in the awful stillness ofthe world: they must take the creatures, and make the best of theirway back without a guide! They judged that, as the road was chieflydown hill, and the donkeys would be going home, they would not havemuch difficulty with them. At the worst, short and stout as they were, they were not bad walkers, and felt more than equal to carrying thechild between them. Not a person was in the street when they mounted;almost all were in the church, at its strange, terrible service. Mrs. Porson mounted the strongest of the animals, her husband placed thesleeping child in her arms, and they started, he on foot by the sideof his wife, and his donkey following. No one saw them pass throughthe gate of the town. 

They were not sure of the way, for they had been partly asleep as theycame, but so long as they went downward, and did not leave the road, they could hardly go wrong! The child slept all the way. 

Chapter IV. 

The new family. 

How shall a man describe what passed in the mind of a childless wife, with a motherless boy in her arms! It is the loveliest provision, doubtless, that every child should have a mother of his own; but thereis a mother-love--which I had almost called more divine--the love, namely, that a woman bears to a child because he is a child, regardless of whether he be her own or another's. It is that they maylearn to love thus, that women have children. Some women love sowithout having any. No conceivable treasure of the world could haveonce entered into comparison with the burden of richness Mrs. Porsonbore. She told afterward, with voice hushed by fear of irreverence, how, as they went down one of the hills, she slept for a moment, anddreamed that she was Mary with the holy thing in her arms, fleeing toEgypt on the ass, with Joseph, her husband, walking by her side. Foryears and years they had been longing for a child--and here lay thedivinest little one, with every mark of the kingdom upon him! Hisfather and mother lying crushed under the fallen dome of that fearfulchurch, was it strange he should seem to belong to her?

But there might be some one somewhere in the world with a betterclaim; possibly--horrible thought!--with more need of him than she! Upstarted a hideous cupidity, a fierce temptation to dishonesty, such asshe had never imagined. We do not know what is in us until thetemptation comes. Then there is the devil to fight. And Mrs. Porsonfought him. 

Mr. Porson was, in a milder degree, affected much as his wife. Hecould not help wishing, nor was he wrong in wishing, that, since thechild's father and mother were gone, they might take their place, andlove their orphan. They were far from rich, but what was one child!They might surely manage to give him a good education, and set himdoing for himself! But, alas, there might be others--others withlove-property in the child! The same thoughts were working in each, but neither dared utter them in the presence of the sleeping treasure. 

As they descended the last slope above the town, with the widesea-horizon before them, they beheld such a glory of after-sunset as, even on that coast, was unusual. A chord of colour that might havebeen the prostrate fragment of a gigantic rainbow, lay along a largearc of the horizon. The farther portion of the sea was an indigo blue, save for a grayish line that parted it from the dusky red of thesky. This red faded up through orange and dingy yellow to a pale greenand pale blue, above which came the depth of the blue night, in whichrayed resplendent the evening star. Below the star and nearer to thewest, lay, very thin and very long, the sickle of the new moon. Ifdeath be what it looks to the unthinking soul, and if the heavensdeclare the glory of God, as they do indeed to the heart that knowshim, then is there discord between heaven and earth such as noargument can harmonize. But death is not what men think it, for"Blessed are they that mourn for the dead. "

The sight enhanced the wonder and hope of the two honest good souls inthe treasure they carried. Out of the bosom of the skeleton Deathhimself, had been given them--into their very arms--a germ of life, ajewel of heaven! At the thought of what lay up the hill behind them, they felt their joy in the child almost wicked; but if God had takenthe child's father and mother, might they not be glad in the hope thathe had chosen them to replace them? That he had for the moment atleast, they were bound to believe!

They travelled slowly on, through the dying sunset, and an hour or twoof the star-bright night that followed, adorned rather than lighted bythe quaint boat of the crescent moon. Weary, but lapt in a voicelesstriumph, they came at last, guided by the donkeys, to their hotel. 

All were talking of the earthquake. A great part of the English hadfled in a panic terror, like sheep that had no shepherd--hunted bytheir own fears, and betrayed by their imagined faith. The steadiestchurch-goer fled like the infidel he reviled. The fool said in hisheart, "There is no God, " and fled. The Christian said with his mouth, "Verily there is a God that ruleth in the earth!" and fled--far as hecould from the place which, as he fancied, had shown signs of aspecial presence of the father of Jesus Christ. 

After the Persons were in the house, there came two or three smallshocks. Every time, out with a cry rushed the inhabitants into thestreets; every time, out into the garden of the hotel swarmed such aswere left in it of Germans and English. But our little couple, who hadthat day seen so much more of its terrors than any one else in theplace, and whose chamber was at the top of the house where the swayingwas worst, were too much absorbed in watching and tending their lovelyboy to heed the earthquake. Perhaps their hearts whispered, "Can thatwhich has given us such a gift be unfriendly?"

"If his father and mother, " said Mrs. Person, as they stood regardinghim, "are permitted to see their child, they shall see how we lovehim, and be willing he should love us!"

As they went up the stairs with him, the boy woke When he looked andsaw a face that was not his mother's, a cloud swept across the heavenof his eyes. He closed them again, and did not speak. The first of theshocks came as they were putting him to bed: he turned very white andlooked up fixedly, as if waiting another fall from above, but satmotionless on his new mother's lap. The instant the vibration androcking ceased, he drank from the cup of milk she offered him, asquietly as if but a distant thunder had rolled away. When she put himin the bed, he looked at her with such an indescribable expression ofbewildered loss, that she burst into tears. The child did not cry. Hehad not cried since they took him. The woman's heart was like to breakfor him, but she managed to say, "God has taken her, my darling. He is keeping her for you, and I amgoing to keep you for her;" and with that she kissed him. 

The same moment came the second shock. 

Need wakes prophecy: the need of the child made of the parson aprophet. 

"It is God that does the shaking, " he said. "It's all right. Nobodywill be the worse--not much, at least!"

"Not at all, " rejoined the boy, and turned his face away. 

From the lips of such a tiny child, the words seemed almost awful. 

He fell fast asleep, and never woke till the morning. Mrs. Porson laybeside him, yielding him, stout as she was, a good half of the littleItalian bed. She scarcely slept for excitement and fear of smotheringhim. 

The Persons were honest people, and for all their desire to possessthe child, made no secret of how and where they had found him, or ofas much of his name as he could tell them, which was only _Clare_. Butthey never heard of inquiry after him. On the gunboat at Genoa theyknew nothing of their commander's purposes, or where to seek him. Dayspassed before they began to be uneasy about him, and when they didmake what search for him they could, it was fruitless. 

Chapter V. 

His new home. 

The place to which the good people carried the gift of theearthquake--carried him with much anxiety and more exultation--had novery distinctive features. It had many fields in grass, many in crop, and some lying fallow--all softly undulating. It had some trees, andeverywhere hedges dividing fields whose strange shapes witnessed to acomplicated history, of which few could tell anything. Here and therein the hollows between the motionless earth-billows, flowed, but didnot seem to flow, what they called a brook. But the brooks there werelike deep soundless pools without beginning or end. There was no life, no gaiety, no song in them, only a sullen consent to exist. That atleast is how they impress one accustomed to real brooks, lark-like, always on the quiver, always on the move, always babbling and gabblingand gamboling, always at their games, always tossing their pebblesabout, and telling them to talk. A man that loved them might say therewas more in the silence of these, than in the speech of those; butwhat silence can be better than a song of delight that we are, that wewere, that we are to be! The stillness may be full of solemn fish, mysterious as itself, and deaf with secrets; but blessed is the brookthat lets the light of its joy shine. 

Dull as the place must seem in this my description, it was the verycountry for the boy. He would come into more contact with its modestbeauty in a day than some of us would in a year. Nobody quite knowsthe beauty of a country, especially of a quiet country, except one whohas been born in it, or for whom at least childhood and boyhood andyouth have opened door after door into the hidden phases of itslife. There is no square yard on the face of the earth but some onecan in part understand what God meant in making it; while the samechangeful skies canopy the most picturesque and the dullestlandscapes; the same winds wake and blow over desert and pasture land, making the bosoms of youth and age swell with the delight of theirblowing. The winds are not all so full as are some of delicious odoursgathered as they pass from gardens, fields, and hill-sides; but allhave their burden of sweetness. Those that blew upon little Clare wereoftener filled with the smell of farmyards, and burning weeds, andcottage-fires, than of flowers; but never would one of such odoursrevisit him without bringing fresh delight to his heart. Its merememorial suggestion far out on the great sea would wake the old childin the man. The pollards along the brooks grew lovely to his heart, and were not the less lovely when he came to understand that they werenot so lovely as God had meant them to be. He was one of those who, regarding what a thing _is_, and not comparing it with other things, descry the thought of God in it, and love it; for to love what isbeautiful is as natural as to love our mothers. 

The parsonage to which his new father and mother brought him was likethe landscape--humble. It was humble even for a parsonage--which hasno occasion to be fine. For men and women whose business it is toteach their fellows to be true and fair, and not covet fine things, are but hypocrites, or at best intruders and humbugs, if they wantfine things themselves. Jesus Christ did not care about finethings. He loved every lovely thing that ever his father made. If anyone does not know the difference between fine things and lovelythings, he does not know much, if he has all the science in the worldat his finger-ends. 

One good thing about the parsonage was, that it was aid, and theswallows had loved it for centuries. That way Clare learned to lovethe swallows--and they are worth loving. Then it had a very oldgarden, nearly as old-fashioned as it was old, and many flowers thathave almost ceased to be seen grew in it, and did not enjoy theirlives the less that they were out of fashion. All the furniture in thehouse was old, and mostly shabby; it was possible, therefore, to loveit a little. Who on earth could be such a fool as to love a new pieceof furniture! One might prize it; one might admire it; one might likeit because it was pretty, or because it was comfortable; but only asilly woman whose soul went to bed on her new sideboard, could say sheloved it. And then it would not be true. It is impossible that any butan _old_ piece of furniture should be loved. 

His father and mother had a charming little room made for him in thegarret, right up among the swallows, who soon admitted him a member oftheir society--an honorary member, that is, who was not expected tofly with them to Africa except he liked. His new parents did thisbecause they saw that, when he could not be with them, he preferredbeing by himself; and that moods came upon him in which he would stealaway even from them, seized with a longing for loneliness. In general, next to being with his mother anywhere, he liked to be with his fatherin the study. If both went out, and could not take him with them, hewould either go to his own room, or sit in the study alone. It was avery untidy room, crowded with books, mostly old and dingy, and intorn bindings. Many of them their owner never opened, and theysuffered in consequence; a few of them were constantly in his hands, and suffered in consequence. All smelt strong of stale tobacco, butthat hardly accounts for the fact that Clare never took to smoking. Another thing perhaps does--that he was always too much of a man towant to look like a man by imitating men. That is unmanly. A boy whowants to look like a man is not a manly boy, and men do not care forhis company. A true boy is always welcome to a true man, but awould-be man is better on the other side of the wall. 

His mother oftenest sat in a tiny little drawing-room, which smelt ofwithered rose-leaves. I think it must smell of them still. I believeit smelt of them a hundred years before she saw the place. Clare lovedthe smell of the rose-leaves and disliked the smell of the tobacco;yet he preferred the study with its dingy books to the prettydrawing-room without his mother. 

There was a village, a very small one, in the parish, and a good manyfarm-houses. 

Such was the place in which Clare spent the next few years of hislife, and there his new parents loved him heartily. The only thingabout him that troubled them, besides the possibility of losing him, was, that they could not draw out the tiniest smile upon his sweet, moonlight-face. 

Chapter VI. 

What did draw out his first smile. 

Mr. Porson was a man about five and forty; his wife was a few yearsyounger. His theories of religion were neither large nor lofty; heaccepted those that were handed down to him, and did not troublehimself as to whether they were correct. He did what was better: hetried constantly to obey the law of God, whether he found it in theBible or in his own heart. Thus he was greater in the kingdom ofheaven than thousands that knew more, had better theories about God, and could talk much more fluently concerning religion than he. Byobeying God he let God teach him. So his heart was always growing; andwhere the heart grows, there is no fear of the intellect; there italso grows, and in the best fashion of growth. He was very good to hispeople, and not foolishly kind. He tried his best to help them to bewhat they ought to be, to make them bear their troubles, be true toone another, and govern themselves. He was like a father to them. Forsome, of course, he could do but little, because they were lockedboxes with nothing in them; but for a few he did much. Perhaps it wasbecause he was so good to his flock that God gave him little Clare tobring up. Perhaps it was because he and his wife were so good toClare, that by and by a wonderful thing took place. 

About three years after the earthquake, Mrs. Porson had a baby-girlsent her for her very own. The father and mother thought themselvesthe happiest couple on the face of the earth--and who knows but theywere! If they were not, so much the better! for then, happy as theywere, there were happier yet than they; and who, in his greatesthappiness, would not be happier still to know that the earth heldhappier than he!

When Clare first saw the baby, he looked down on her with solemn, unmoved countenance, and gazed changeless for a whole minute. Hethought there had been another earthquake, that another church-domehad fallen, and another child been found and brought home from theruin. Then light began to grow somewhere under his face. His mother, full as was her heart of her new child, watched his countenanceanxiously. The light under his face grew and grew, till his face wasradiant. Then out of the midst of the shining broke the heavenliestsmile she had ever seen on human countenance--a smile that was aclearer revelation of God than ten thousand books about him. For whatmust not that God be, who had made the boy that smiled such a smileand never knew it! After this he smiled occasionally, though it wasbut seldom. He never laughed--that is, not until years after thistime; but, on the other hand, he never looked sullen. A quiet peace, like the stillness of a long summer twilight in the north, dwelt uponhis visage, and appeared to model his every motion. Part of his lifeseemed away, and he waiting for it to come back. Then he would bemerry!

He was never in a hurry, yet always doing something--always, that is, when he was not in his own room. There his mother would sometimes findhim sitting absolutely still, with his hands on his knees. Nor was shesorry to surprise him thus, for then she was sure of one of his raresmiles. She thought he must then be dreaming of his own mother, and apang would go through her at the thought that he would one day loveher more than herself. "He will laugh then!" she said. She did notthink how the gratitude of that mother would one day overwhelm herwith gladness. 

He never sought to be caressed, but always snuggled to one that drewhim close. Never once did he push any one away. He learned whatlessons were set him--not very fast, but with persistent endeavour tounderstand. He was greatly given to reading, but not particularlyquick. He thus escaped much, fancying that he knew when he did notknow--a quicksand into which fall so many clever boys and girls. Giveme a slow, steady boy, who knows when he does not know a thing! Toknow that you do not know, is to be a small prophet. Such a boy has aglimmer of the something he does not know, or at least of the placewhere it is; while the boy who easily grasps the words that stand fora thing, is apt to think he knows the thing itself when he sees butthe wrapper of it--thinks he knows the church when he has caught sightof the weather-cock. Mrs. Porson could see the understanding of athing gradually burst into blossom on the boy's face. It did notsmile, it only shone. Understanding is light; it needs love to changelight into a smile. 

There was something in the boy that his parents hardly hoped tounderstand; something in his face that made them long to know what wasgoing on in him, but made them doubt if ever in this life theyshould. He was not concealing anything from them. He did not know thathe had anything to tell, or that they wanted to know anything. Henever doubted that everybody saw him just as he felt himself; his soulseemed bare to all the world. But he knew little of what was passingin him: child or man never knows more than a small part of that. 

When first he was allowed to take the little one in his arms, hesitting on a stool at his mother's feet, it was almost a new start inhis existence. A new confidence was born in his spirit. Mrs. Personcould read, as if reflected in his countenance, the pride andtenderness that composed so much of her own conscious motherhood. Acertain staidness, almost sternness, took possession of his face as hebent over the helpless creature, half on his knees, half in hisarms--the sternness of a protecting divinity that knew danger notafar. He had taken a step upward in being; he was aware in himself, without knowing it, of the dignity of fatherhood. Even now he knewwhat so many seem never to learn, that a man is the defender of theweak; that, if a man is his brother's keeper, still more is he hissister's. She belonged to him, therefore he was hers in the slavery oflove, which alone is freedom. So reverential and so careful did heshow himself, that soon his mother trusted him, to the extent of hispower, more than any nurse. 

By and by she made the delightful discovery that, when he was alonewith the baby, the silent boy could talk. Where was no need or hope ofbeing understood, his words began to flow--with a rhythmical cadencethat seemed ever on the verge of verse. When first his mother heardthe sweet murmur of his voice, she listened; and then first shelearned what a hold the terrible thing that had given him into herarms had upon him. For she heard him half singing, half saying--

"Baby, baby, do not grow. Keep small, and lie on my lap, and dream ofwalking, but never walk; for when you walk you will run, and when yourun you will go away with father and mother--away to a big place wherethe ground goes up to the sky; and you will go up the ground that goesup to the sky, and you will come to a big church, and you will go intothe church; and the ground and the church and the sky will go _hurr, hurr, hurr_; and the sky, full of angels, will come down with a greatroar; and all the yards and sails will drop out of the sky, and tumbledown father and mother, and hold them down that they cannot get upagain; and then you will have nobody but me. I will do all I can, butI am only brother Clare, and you will want, want, want mother andfather, mother and father, and they will be always coming, and neverbe come, not for ever so long! Don't grow a big girl, Maly!"

The mother could not think what to say. She went in, and, in the hopeof turning his thoughts aside, took the baby, and made haste toconsult her husband. 

"We must leave it, " said Mr. Person. "Experience will soon correctwhat mistake is in his notion. It is not so very far wrong. You and Imust go from them one day: what is it but that the sky will fall downon us, and our bodies will get up no more! He thinks the time nearerat hand than for their sakes I hope it is; but nobody can tell. "

Clare never associated the church where the awful thing took place, with the church to which he went on Sundays. The time for it, heimagined, came to everybody. To Clare, nothing ever _happened_. Theway out of the world was a church in a city set on a hill, and therean earthquake was always ready. 

The heart of his adoptive mother grew yet more tender toward him afterthe coming of her own child. She was not quite sure that she did notlove him even more than Mary. She could not help the feeling that hewas a child of heaven sent out to nurse on the earth; and that it wasin reward for her care of him that her own darling was sent her. Thattheir love to the boy had something to do with the coming of the girl, I believe myself, though what that something was, I do not preciselyunderstand. 

She left him less often alone with the child. She would not have histhoughts drawn to the church of the earthquake; neither would she havethe mournfulness of his sweet voice much in the ears of her baby. Henever sang in a minor key when any one was by, but always and solelywhen the baby and he were alone together. 

Chapter VII. 

Clare and his brothers. 

After a year or two, Mr. Person became anxious lest the boy shouldgrow up too unlike other boys--lest he should not be manly, but of atoo gently sad behaviour. He began, therefore, to take him with himabout the parish, and was delighted to find him show extraordinaryendurance. He would walk many miles, and come home less fatigued thanhis companion. To be sure, he had not much weight to carry; but itseemed to Mr. Porson that his utter freedom from thought about himselfhad a large share in his immunity from weariness. He continued slightand thin--which was natural, for he was growing fast; but the musclesof his little bird-like legs seemed of steel. The spindle-shanks wentstriding, striding without a check, along the roughest roads, the paleface shining atop of them like a sweet calm moon. To Mr. Person'seyes, the moon, stooping, as she sometimes seems to do, downward fromthe sky, always looked like him. The child woke something new in theheart and mind of every one that loved him, but was himselfunconscious of his influence. His company was no check to his fatherwhen meditating, after his habit as he walked, what he should say tohis people the next Sunday. For the good man never wrote or read asermon, but talked to his people as one who would meet what was inthem with what was in him. Hence they always believed "the parsonmeant it. " He never said anything clever, and never said anythingunwise; never amused them, and never made them feel scornful, eitherof him or of any one else. 

Instead of finding the presence of Clare distract his thoughts, he hadat times a curious sense that the boy was teaching him--that hissermon was running before, or walking sedately on this side of him orthat. For Clare could run like the wind; and did run afterbutterflies, dragon-flies, or anything that offered a chance of seeingit nearer; but he never killed, and seldom tried to catch anything, ifbut for a moment's examination. The swiftest run would scarcelyheighten the colour of his pale cheeks. 

He soon came to be known in the farm-houses of the parish. Thefarmer-families were a little shy of him at first, fancying him toofine a little gentleman for them; but as they got to know him, theygrew fond of him. They called him "the parson's man, " which pleasedClare. But one old woman called him "the parson's cherubim. "

One day Mr. Porson was calling at the house of the largest farm in theparish, the nearest house to the parsonage. The farmer's wife was ill, and having to go to her room to see her, he said to the boy--

"Clare, you run into the yard. Give my compliments to any one youmeet, and ask him to let you stay with him. "

When the time came for their departure, Mr. Porson went to findhim. He did not call him; he wanted to see what he was about. Unableto discover him, and coming upon no one of whom he might inquire, forit was hay-time and everybody in the fields, he was at last driven touse his voice. 

He had not to call twice. Out of the covered part of the pigsty, notfar from which the parson stood, the boy came creeping on all fours, followed by a litter of half-grown, grunting, gamboling pigs. 

"Here I am, papa!" he cried. 

"Clare, " exclaimed his father, "what a mess you have made ofyourself!"

"I gave them your compliments, " answered the boy, as he scrambled overthe fence with his father's assistance, "and asked them if I mightstay with them till you were ready. They said yes, and invited mein. I went in; and we've been having such games! They were very kindto me. "

His father turned involuntarily and looked into the sty. There stoodall the pigs in a row, gazing after the boy, and looking as sorry astheir thick skins and bony snouts would let them. Their mother rose ina ridge behind them, gazing too. Mr. Skymer always spoke of pigs asabout the most intelligent animals in the world. 

I do not know when or where or how his love of the animals began, forhe could not tell me. If it began with the pigs, it was far fromending with them. 

The next day he asked his father if he might go and call upon thepigs. 

"Have you forgotten, Clare, " said his mother, "what a job Susan and Ihad with your clothes? I wonder still how you could have done such athing! They were quite filthy. When I saw you, I had half a mind toput you in a bath, clothes and all. I doubt if they are sweet yet!"

"Oh, yes, they are, indeed, mamma!" returned Clare; "and you know Ishall be careful after this! I shall not go into their house, but getthe farmer to let them out. I've thought of a new game with them!"

His mother consented; the farmer did let the pigs out; and Clare andthey had a right good game together among the ricks in the yard. 

His growing nature showed itself in a swiftly widening friendship forlive things. The spreading ripples of his affection took in the cowsand the horses, the hens and the geese, and every creature about theplace, till at length it had to pull up at the moles, because he couldnot get at them. I doubt if he would have liked them if he had seenone eat a frog! He called the pigs little brothers, and the horses andcows big brothers, and was perfectly at home with them before peopleknew he cared for their company. I think his absolute simplicitybrought him near to the fountain of life, or rather, prevented himfrom straying from it; and this kept him so alive himself, that he wasdelicately sensitive to all life. He felt himself pledged to all otherlife as being one with it. Its forms were therefore so open to him asto seem familiar from the first. He knew instinctively what went on inregions of life differing from his own--knew, without knowing how, what the animals were thinking and feeling; so was able to interprettheir motions, even the sudden changes in their behaviour. 

There was one dangerous animal on the place--a bull, of which thefarmer had often said he must part with him, or he would be the deathof somebody. One morning he was struck with terror to find Clare inthe stall with Nimrod. The brute was chained up pretty short, but wasfree enough for terrible mischief: Clare was stroking his nose, andthe beast was standing as still as a bull of bronze, with one curvedand one sharp, forward-set, wicked-looking horn in alarming proximityto the angelic face. The farmer stood in dismay, still as the bull, afraid to move. Clare looked up and smiled, but his delicate littlehand went on caressing the huge head. It was one of God's small highcreatures visiting with good news of hope one of his big lowcreatures--a little brother of Jesus Christ bringing a taste of hisfather's kingdom to his great dull bull of a brother. The farmercalled him. The boy came at once. Mr. Goodenough told him he must notgo near the bull; he was fierce and dangerous. Clare informed him thathe and the bull had been friends for a long time; and to prove it ranback, and before the farmer could lay hold of him, was perched on theanimal's shoulders. The bull went on eating the grass in the mangerbefore him, and took as little heed of the boy as if it were but a flythat had lighted on him, and neither tickled nor stung him. 

By degrees he grew familiar with all the goings on at the farm, anddrew nearer to a true relation with the earth that nourishesall. Where the soil was not too heavy, the ploughman would set him onthe back of the near horse, and there he would ride in triumph to themusic of the ploughman's whistle behind. His was not the pomp of thedestroyer who rides trampling, but the pomp of the saviour drawingforth life from the earth. In the summer the hayfield knew him, and inthe autumn the harvest-field, where busily he gathered what the earthgave, and for himself strength, a sense of wide life and largerelations. The very mould, not to say the grass-blades and thedaisies, was dear to him. He was more sympathetic with the daisiesploughed down than was even Burns, for he had a strong feeling thatthey went somewhere, and were the better for going; that this was theway their sky fell upon them. 

All the people on the farm, all the people of the village, every onein the parish knew the boy and his story. From his gentleness andlovingkindness to live things, there were who said he was half-witted;others said he saw ghosts. The boys of the village despised, and somehated him, because he was so unlike them. They called him a girlbecause where they tormented he caressed. At this he would smile, andthey durst not lay hands on him. 

The days are long in boyhood, and Clare could do a many things inone. There was the morning, the forenoon, and the long afternoon andevening! He could help on the farm; he could play with ever so manyanimals; he could learn his lessons, which happily were not heavy; hecould read any book he pleased in his father's library, where_Paradise Lost_ was his favourite; he could nurse little Maly. He hadthe more time for all these that he had no companion of his own age, no one he wanted to go about with after school-hours. His father wasstill his chief human companion, and neither of them grew tired of theother. 

The most remarkable thing in the child was the calm and gentlegreatness of his heart. You often find children very fond of one ortwo people, who, perhaps, in evil return, want to keep them all tothemselves, and reproach them for loving others. Many persons count ita sign of depth in a child that he loves only one or two. I doubt itgreatly. I think that only the child who loves all life can love rightwell, can love deeply and strongly and tenderly the lives that comenearest him. Low nurses and small-hearted mothers dwarf and perverttheir children, doing their worst to keep them from having big heartslike God. Clare had other teaching than this. He had lost his fatherand mother, but many were given him to love; and so he was helped towait patiently till he found them again. God was keeping them for himsomewhere, and keeping him for them here. 

The good for which we are born into this world is, that we may learnto love. I think Clare the most enviable of boys, because he lovedmore than any one of his age I have heard of. There are people--oh, such silly people they are!--though they may sometimes bepleasing--who are always wanting people to love them. They think somuch of themselves, that they want to think more; and to know thatpeople love them makes them able to think more of themselves. Theyeven think themselves loving because they are fond of being loved!You might as soon say because a man loves money he is generous;because he loves to gather, therefore he knows how to scatter; becausehe likes to read a story, therefore he can write one. Such lovers areonly selfish in a deeper way, and are more to blame than other selfishpeople; for, loving to be loved, they ought the better to know what anevil thing it is not to love; what a mean thing to accept what theyare not willing to give. Even to love only those that love us, is, asthe Lord has taught us, but a pinched and sneaking way ofloving. Clare never thought about being loved. He was too busy loving, with so many about him to love, to think of himself. He was not thecontemptible little wretch to say, "What a fine boy I am, to makeeverybody love me!" If he had been capable of that, not many wouldhave loved him; and those that did would most of them have got tiredof loving a thing that did not love again. Only great lovers like Godare able to do that, and they help God to make love grow. But there islittle truth in love where there is no wisdom in it. Clare's fatherand mother were wise, and did what they could to make Clare wise. 

Also the animals, though they were not aware of it, did much to savehim from being spoiled by the humans whom the boy loved more thanthem. For Clare's charity began at home. Those who love their ownpeople will love other people. Those who do not love children willnever love animals right. 

Here I will set down a strange thing that befell Clare, and caused hima sore heart, making him feel like a traitor to the whole animal race, and influencing his life for ever. I was at first puzzled to accountfor the thing without attributing more imagination to the animals--orsome of them--than I had been prepared to do; but probably the mainfactor in it was heart-disease. 

He had seen men go out shooting, but had never accompanied anykillers. I do not quite understand how, as in my story, he came evento imitate using a gun. There was nothing in him that belonged tokilling; and that is more than I could say for myself, or any otherman I know except Clare Skymer. 

He was at the bottom of the garden one afternoon, where nothing but alow hedge came between him and a field of long grass. He had in hishand the stick of a worn-out umbrella. Suddenly a half-grown rabbitrose in the grass before him, and bolted. From sheer unconsciousimitation, I believe, he raised the stick to his shoulder, and said_Bang_. The rabbit gave a great bound into the air, fell, and laymotionless. With far other feelings than those of a sportsman, Clareran, got through the hedge, and approached the rabbit trembling. Hecould think nothing but that the creature was playing him a trick. Yethe was frightened. Only how could he have hurt him!

"I dare say the little one knows me, " he said to himself, "and wantedto give me a start! He couldn't tell what a start it would be, or hewouldn't have done it. "

When he drew near, however, "the little one" did not, as he had hopedand expected, jump up and run again. With sinking heart Clare wentclose up, and looked down on it. It lay stretched out, motionless. With death in his own bosom he stooped and tenderly lifted it. Therabbit was stone-dead! The poor boy gazed at it, pressed it tenderlyto his heart, and went with it to find his mother. The tears keptpouring down his face, but he uttered no cry till he came to her. Thena low groaning howl burst from him; he laid the dead thing in her lap, and threw himself on the floor at her feet in an abandonment ofself-accusation and despair. 

It was long before he was able to give her an intelligible account ofwhat had taken place. She asked him if he had found it dead. In answerhe could only shake his head, but that head-shake had a whole tragedyin it. Then she examined "the little one, " but could find no mark ofany wound upon it. When at length she learned how the case was, shetried to comfort him, insisting he was not to blame, for he did notmean to kill the little one. He would not hearken to her lovingsophistry. 

"No, mother!" he said through his sobs; "I wouldn't have blamedmyself, though I should have been very sorry, if I had killed him byaccident--if I had stepped upon him, or anything of that kind; but Imeant to frighten him! I looked bad at him! I made him think I was anenemy, and going to kill him! I shammed bad--and so was real bad. "

He stopped with a most wailful howl. 

"Perhaps he knew me, " he resumed, "and couldn't understand it. It wasmuch worse than if I had shot him. He wouldn't have known then till hewas dead. But to die of terror was horrible. Oh, why didn't I thinkwhat I was doing?"

"Nobody could have thought of such a thing happening. "

"No; but I ought to have thought, mother, of what I was doing. I wastrying to frighten him! I must have been in a cruel mood. Why didn't Ithink love to the little one when I saw him, instead of thinking deathto him? I shall never look a rabbit in the face again! My heart musthave grown black, mother!"

"I don't believe there is another rabbit in England would die fromsuch a cause, " persisted his mother thoughtfully. 

"Then what a superior rabbit he must have been!" said Clare. "To thinkthat I pulled down the roof of his church upon him!"

He burst into a torrent of tears, and ran to his own room. There hismother thought it better to leave him undisturbed. She wisely judgedthat a mind of such sensibility was alone capable of finding thecomfort to fit its need. 

Such comfort he doubtless did find, for by the time his mother calledhim to tea, calmness had taken the place of the agony on hiscountenance. His mother asked him no questions, for she as well as herhusband feared any possible encouragement to self-consciousness. Iimagine the boy had reflected that things could not go so wrong thatnobody could set them right. I imagine he thought that, if he had donethe rabbit a wrong, as he never for a moment to the end of his lifedoubted he had, he who is at the head of all heads and the heart ofall hearts, would contrive to let him tell the rabbit he was sorry, and would give him something to do for the rabbit that would make upfor his cruelty to him. He did once say to his mother, and neither ofthem again alluded to the matter, that he was sure the rabbit hadforgiven him. 

"Little ones are _so_ forgiving, you know, mother!" he added. 

Is it any wonder that my friend Clare Skymer should have been nosportsman?

Chapter VIII. 

Clare and his human brothers

Another anecdote of him, that has no furtherance of the story in it, Imust yet tell. 

One cold day in a stormy March, the wind was wildly blowing brokenclouds across the heavens, and now rain, now sleet, over the shiveringblades of the young corn, whose tender green was just tinging the darkbrown earth. The fields were now dark and wintry, heartless and cold;now shining all over as with repentant tears; one moment refusing tobe comforted, and the next reviving with hope and a sense of newlife. Clare was hovering about the plough. Suddenly he spied, from amound in the field, a little procession passing along thehighway. Those in front carried something on their shoulders whichmust be heavy, for it took six of them to carry it. He knew it was acoffin, for his home was by the churchyard, and a funeral was nounfamiliar sight. Behind it one man walked alone. For a moment Clarewatched him, and saw his bowed head and heavy pace. His heart filledfrom its own perennial fount of pity, which was God himself in him. Heran down the hill and across the next field, making for a spot somedistance ahead of the procession. As it passed him, he joined thechief mourner, who went plodding on with his arms hanging by hissides. Creeping close up to him, he slid his little soft hand into thegreat horny hand of the peasant. Instinctively the big hand closedupon the small one, and the weather-beaten face of a man of fiftylooked down on the boy. Not a word was said between them. They walkedon, hand in hand. 

Neither had ever seen the other. The man was following his wife andhis one child to the grave. "Nothing almost sees miracles but misery, "says Kent in _King Lear_. Because this man was miserable, he saw amiracle where was no miracle, only something very good. The thing wastrue and precious, yea, a message from heaven. Those deep, upturned, silent eyes; the profound, divine sympathy that shone in them; thegrasp of the tiny hand upon his large fingers, made the heart of theman, who happened to be a catholic, imagine, and for a few momentsbelieve, that he held the hand of the infant Saviour. The cloud liftedfrom his heart and brain, and did not return when he came tounderstand that this was not _the_ lamb of God, only another lamb fromthe same fold. 

When they had walked about two miles, the boy began to fear he mightbe intruding, and would have taken his hand from the other, but theman held it tight, and stooping whispered it was not far now. Thechild, who, without knowing it, had taken the man under theprotection of his love, yielded at once, went with him to the grave, joined in the service, and saw the grave filled. They went again asthey had come. Not a word was spoken. The man wept a little now andthen, drew the back of his brown hand across his eyes, and pressed alittle closer the hand he held. At the gate of the parsonage the boytook his leave. He said they would be wondering what had become ofhim, or he would have gone farther. The man released him without aword. 

His mother had been uneasy about him, but when he told her how it was, she said he had done right. 

"Yes, " returned the boy; "I belong there myself. "

The mother knew he was not thinking of the grave. 

One more anecdote I will give, serving to introduce the narrative ofthe following chapter, and helping to show the character of theboy. He was so unlike most boys, that one must know all he may abouthim, if he would understand him. 

Never yet, strange as the assertion must seem, had the boy shown anyanger. His father was a little troubled at the fact, fearing suchabsence of resentment might indicate moral indifference, or, if not, might yet render him incapable of coping with the world. He hadhimself been brought up at a public school, and had not, with all hisexperience of life, come to see, any more than most of the readers ofthis story now see, or for a long time will see, that there lies nonobility, no dignity in evil retort of any kind; that evil is evilwhen returned as much as when given; that the only shining thing isgood--and the most shining, good for evil. 

One day a coarse boy in the village gave him a sharp blow on theface. It forced water from his eyes and blood from his nose. He waswiping away both at once with his handkerchief, when a kindly girlstopped and said to him--

"Never mind; don't cry. "

"Oh, no!" answered Clare; "it's only water, it's not crying. It wouldbe cowardly to cry. "

"That's a brave boy! You'll give it him back one of these days. "

"No, " he returned, "I shall not I couldn't. "

"Why?"

"Because it hurts so. My nose feels as if it were broken. I know it'snot broken, but it feels like it. "

The girl, as well as the boys who stood around him, burst intolaughter. They saw no logic in his reasoning. Clare's was the divinereasoning that comes of loving your neighbour; theirs was the earthlyreasoning that came of loving themselves. They did not see that toClare another boy was another of himself; that he was carrying out thedesign of the Father of men, that his creatures should come togetherinto one, not push each other away. 

The next time he met the boy who struck him, so far was he both fromresentment and from the fear of being misunderstood, that he offeredhim a rosy-cheeked apple his mother had given him as he left forschool. The boy was tyrant and sneak together--a combination to beseen sometimes in a working man set over his fellows, and in a richman grown poor, and bent upon making money again. The boy took theapple, never doubted Clare gave it him to curry favour, ate it upgrinning, and threw the core in his face. Clare turned away with asigh, and betook himself to his handkerchief again, The boy burst intoa guffaw of hideous laughter. 

Chapter IX. 

Clare the defender. 

This enemy was a trouble, more or less, to every decent person in theneighbourhood. It was well his mother was a widow, for where she wasonly powerless to restrain, the father would have encouraged. He was abig, idle, sneering, insolent lad--such that had there been two moreof the sort, they would have made the village uninhabitable. It wasall the peaceable vicar could do to keep his hands off him. 

One day, little Mary being then about five years old, Clare had herout for a walk. They were alone in a narrow lane, not far from thefarm where Clare was so much at home. To his consternation, for he hadhis sister in charge, down the lane, meeting them, came the villagetyrant. He strolled up with his hands in his pockets, and barred theirway. But while, his eye chiefly on Clare, he "straddled" likeApollyon, but not "quite over the whole breadth of the way, " Maryslipped past him. The young brute darted after the child. Clare putdown his head, as he had seen the rams do, and as Simpson, who illdeserved the name of the generous Jewish Hercules, was on the point oflaying hold of her, caught him in the flank, butted him into theditch, and fell on the top of him. 

"Run, Maly!" he cried; "I'll be after you in a moment. "

"Will you, you little devil!" cried the bully; and taking him by thethroat, so that he could not utter even a gurgle, got up and began tobeat him unmercifully. But the sounds of their conflict had reachedthe ears of the bull Nimrod, who was feeding within the hedge. Herecognized Clare's voice, perhaps knew from it that he was in trouble;but I am inclined to think pure bull-love of a row would alone havesent him tearing to the quarter whence the tyrant's brutal bellowingstill came. There, looking over the hedge, he saw his friend in theclutches of an enemy of his own, for Simpson never lost a chance ofteasing Nimrod when he could do so with safety. Over he came with ashort roar and a crash. Looking up, the bully saw a bigger bully thanhimself, with his head down and horns level, retreating a step or twoin preparation for running at him. Simpson shoved the helpless Claretoward the enemy and fled. Clare fell. Nimrod jumped over hisprostrate friend and tore after Simpson. Clare got up and would atonce have followed to protect his enemy, but that he must first seehis sister safe. He ran with her to a cottage hard by, handed her tothe woman at the door of it, and turning pursued Simpson and the bull. 

Nimrod overtook his enemy in the act of scrambling over a five-barredgate. Simpson saw the head of the bull coming down upon him like thebows of a Dutchman upon a fishing-boat, and, paralyzed with terror, could not move an inch further. Crash against the gate came the hornsof Nimrod, with all the weight and speed of his body behind them. Awaywent the gate into the field, and away went Simpson and the bull withit, the latter nearly breaking his neck, for his horns were entangledin the bars, one of them by the diagonal bar. Simpson's right leg wasjammed betwixt the gate and the head and horns of the bull. He roared, and his roars maddened Nimrod, furious already that he could not gethis horns clear. Shake and pull as he might, the gate stuck to them;and Simpson fared little the better that the bull's quarrel was forthe moment with the gate, and not with the leg between him and it. 

Clare had not seen the catastrophe, and did not know what had becomeof pursuer or pursued, until he reached the gap where the gate hadbeen. He saw then the odd struggle going on, and ran to the aid of hisfoe, in terror of what might already have befallen him. The moment helaid hold of one of the animal's horns, infuriated as Nimrod was withhis helpless entanglement, he knew at once who it was, and was quiet;for Clare always took him by the horn when first he went up tohim. Without a moment's demur he yielded to the small hands as theypushed and pulled his head this way and that until they got it clearof the gate. But then they did not let him go. Clare proceeded to takehim home, and Nimrod made no objection. Simpson lay groaning. 

When Clare returned, his enemy was there still. He had got clear ofthe gate, but seemed in much pain, for he lay tearing up the grass andsod in handfuls. When Clare stooped to ask what he should do for him, he struck him a backhanded blow on the face that knocked himover. Clare got up and ran. 

"Coward!" cried Simpson; "to leave a man with a broken leg to get homeby himself!"

"I'm going to find some one strong enough to help you, " said Clare. 

But Simpson, after his own evil nature, imagined he was going to letthe bull into the field again, and fell to praying him not to leavehim. Clare knew, however, that, if his leg was broken, he could notget him home, neither could he get home by himself; so he made hasteto tell the people at the farm, and Simpson lay in terror of the bulltill help came. 

From that hour he hated Clare, attributing to him all the ill he hadbrought on himself. But he was out of mischief for a while. Thetrouble fell on his mother--who deserved it, for she would believe noill of him, because he was _hers_. One good thing of the affair was, that the bully was crippled for life, and could do the less harm. 

It was a great joy to Mr. Person to learn how Clare had defended hissister. Clergyman as he was, and knowing that Jesus Christ would neverhave returned a blow, and that this spirit of the Lord was what savedthe world, he had been uneasy that his adopted child behaved just likeJesus. That a man should be so made as not to care to return a blow, never occurred to Mr. Porson as possible. It was therefore animmeasurable relief to his feelings as an Englishman, to find that theboy was so far from being destitute of pluck, that in defence of hissister he had attacked a fellow twice his size. 

"Weren't you afraid of such a big rascal?" he said. 

"No, papa, " answered the boy. "Ought I to have been?"

He put his hand to his forehead, as if trying to understand. Hisfather found he had himself something to think about. 

There was a certain quiescence about Clare, ill to describe, impossible to explain, but not the less manifest. Like an infant, henever showed surprise at anything. Whatever came to him he received, questioning nothing, marvelling at nothing, disputing nothing. What hewas told to do he went to do, never with even a momentary show ofdisinclination, leaving book or game with readiness but noeagerness. He would do deftly what was required of him, and return tohis place, with a countenance calm and sweet as the moon in highestheaven. He seldom offered a caress except to little Mary; yet wouldchoose, before anything else, a place by his mother's knee. The momentshe, or his father in her absence, entered the room and sat down, hewould rise, take his stool, and set it as near as he thought hemight. When caressed he never turned away, or looked as if he wouldrather be let alone; at the same time he received the caress soquietly, and with so little response, that often, when his heavenlylook had drawn the heart of some mother, or spinster with motherlyheart, he left an ache in the spirit he would have gone to the world'send to comfort. He never sought love--otherwise than by getting nearthe loved. When anything was given him, he would look up and smile, but he seldom showed much pleasure, or went beyond the regulationthanks. But if at such a moment little Mary were by, he had a curiousway of catching her up and presenting her to the giver. Whether thiswas a shape his thanks took, whether Mary was to him an incorporategratitude, or whether he meant to imply that she was the fitter onwhom to shower favour, it were hard to say. His mother observed, andin her mind put the two things together, that he did not seem to prizemuch any mere possession. He looked pleased with a new suit ofclothes, but if any one remarked on his care of them, he would answer, "I mustn't spoil what's papa and mamma's!" He made no hoard of anykind. He did once hoard marbles till he had about a hundred; then itwas discovered that they were for a certain boy in the village who wascounted half-witted--as indeed was Clare himself by many. When helearned that the boy had first been accused of stealing them--for noone would believe that another boy had given them to him--and afterthat robbed of them by the other boys, on the ground that he did notknow how to play with them, Clare saw that it was as foolish to hoardfor another as for himself. 

He was a favourite with few beyond those that knew him well. Many whosaw him only at church, or about the village, did not take to him. Hisstill regard repelled them. In Naples they would have said he had theevil eye. I think people had a vague sense of rebuke in hispresence. Even his mother, passionately loving her foundling, wasaware of a film between them through which she could not quite seehim, beyond which there was something she could not get at, Clare knewnothing of such a separation. He seemed to himself altogether close tohis mother, was aware of nothing between to part them. The cause ofthe thing was, that Clare was not yet in flower. His soul was a whitehalf-blown bud, not knowing that it was but half-blown. It basked inthe glory of the warm sun, but only with the underside of itsflower-leaves; it had not opened its heart, the sun-side of itspetals, to the love in which it was immerged. He received the love asa matter of course, and loved it as a matter of course. But for thecruel Simpson he would not have known there could be any other way ofthings. He did not yet know that one must not only love but mean tolove, must not only bask in the warmth of love, but know it as love, and where it comes from--love again the fountain whence it flows. 

Chapter X. 

The black aunt. 

Clare was yet in his tenth year when an unhealthy summer came. The sunwas bright and warm as in other summers, and the flowers in field andgarden appeared as usual when the hour arrived for them to wake andlook abroad; but the children of men did not fare so well as thechildren of the earth. A peculiar form of fever showed itself in thevillage. It was not very fatal, yet many were so affected as to belong unable to work. There was consequently much distress beyond thesuffering of the fever itself. The parson and his wife went about frommorning to night among the cottagers, helping everybody that neededhelp. They had no private fortune, but the small blanket of thebenefice they spread freely over as many as it could be stretched tocover, depriving themselves of a good part of the food to which theyhad been accustomed, and of several degrees of necessary warmth. Whenat last the strength of the parson gave way, and the fever laid holdof him, he had to do without many comforts his wife would gladly havegot for him. They were both of rather humble origin, having but onerelative well-to-do, a sister of Mrs. Porson, who had married a richbut very common man. From her they could not ask help. She had neversent them any little present, and had been fiercely indignant withthem for adopting Clare. 

Neither of them once complained, though Mrs. Person, whose strengthwas much spent, could not help weeping sometimes when she was aloneand free to weep. They knew their Lord did not live in luxury, and asecret gladness nestled in their hearts that they were allowed tosuffer a little with him for the sake of the flock he had given intotheir charge. 

The children of course had to share in the general gloom, but it didnot trouble them much. For Clare, he was not easily troubled withanything. Always ready to help, he did not much realize what sufferingwas; and he had Mary to look after, which was labour and pleasure, work and play and pay all in one. His mother was at ease concerningher child when she knew her in Clare's charge, and was free to attendto her husband. She often said that if ever any were paid for beinggood to themselves, she and her husband were vastly overpaid fortaking such a child from the shuddering arms of the earthquake. 

But John Porson's hour was come. He must leave wife and children andparish, and go to him who had sent him. If any one think it hard heshould so fare in doing his duty, let him be silent till he learn whatthe parson himself thought of the matter when he got home. People talkabout death as the gosling might about life before it chips itsegg. Take up their way of lamentation, and we shall find it anendless injustice to have to get up every morning and go to bed everynight. Mrs. Porson wept, but never thought him or herselfill-used. And had she been low enough to indulge in self-pity, itwould have been thrown away, for before she had time to wonder how shewas to live and rear her children, she too was sent for. In this worldshe was not one of those mothers of little faith who trust God forthemselves but not for their children, and when again with herhusband, she would not trust God less. 

Clare was in the garden when Sarah told him she was dead. He stoodstill for a moment, then looked up, up into the blue. Why he lookedup, he could not have told; but ever since that terrible morning ofwhich the vague burning memory had never passed, when the great domeinto which he was gazing, burst and fell, he had a way every now andthen of standing still and looking up. His face was white. Two slowtears gathered, rolled over, and dried upon his face. He turned toMary, lifted her in his arms, and, carrying her about the garden, oncemore told her his strange version of what had happened in hischildhood. Then he told her that her papa and mamma had gone to lookfor his papa and mamma--"somewhere up in the dome, " he said. 

When they wanted to take Mary to see what was left of her mother, theboy contrived to prevent them. From morning till night he never lostsight of the child. 

One cold noon in October, when the clouds were miles deep in front ofthe sun, when the rain was falling thick on the yellow leaves, and allthe paths were miry, the two children sat by the kitchen fire. Sarahwas cooking their mid-day meal, which had come from her ownpocket. She was the only servant either of them had known in thehouse, and she would not leave it until some one should take charge ofthem. The neighbours, dreading infection, did not come nearthem. Clare sat on a little stool with Mary on his knees, nestling inhis bosom; but he felt dreary, for he saw no love-firmament over him;the cloud of death hid it. 

With a sudden jingle and rattle, up drove a rickety post-chaise to thedoor of the parsonage. Out of it, and into the kitchen, came stalkinga tall middle-aged woman, in a long black cloak, black bonnet, andblack gloves, with a face at once stern and peevish. 

"I am the late Mrs. Porson's sister, " she said, and stood. 

Sarah courtesied and waited. Clare rose, with Mary in his arms. 

"This is little Maly, ma'am, " he said, offering her the child. 

"Set her down, and let me see her, " she answered. 

Clare obeyed. Mary put her finger in her mouth, and began to cry. Shedid not like the look of the black aunt, and was not used to a harshvoice. 

"Tut! tut!" said the black aunt. "Crying already! That will never do!Show me her things. "

Sarah felt stunned. This was worse than death! "If only the mistresshad taken them with her!" she said to herself. 

Mary's things--they were not many--were soon packed. Within an hourshe was borne off, shrieking, struggling, and calling Clay. The blackaunt, however, --as the black aunt Clare always thought of her--carednothing for her resistance; and Clare, who at her first cry wasrushing to the rescue, ready once more to do battle for her, wasseized and held back by Farmer Goodenough. Sarah had sent for him, andhe had come--just in time to frustrate Clare's valour. 

The carriage was not yet out of sight, when Farmer Goodenough began torepent that he had come: his presence was an acknowledgment ofresponsibility! Something must be done with the foundling! There wasnobody to claim him, and nobody wanted him! He had always liked theboy, but he did not want him! His wife was not fond of the boy, nor ofany boy, and did not want him! He had said to her that Clare could notbe left to starve, and she had answered, "Why not?"! What was to bedone with him? Nobody knew--any more than Clare himself. But which ofus knows what is going to be done with him?

Clare was nobody's business. English farmers no more than French areproverbial for generosity; and Farmer Goodenough, no bad type of hisclass, had a wife in whose thoughts not the pence but the farthingsdominated. She was one who at once recoiled and repelled--one of thosewhose skin shrinks from the skin of their kind, and who are speciallyapt to take unaccountable dislikes--a pitiable human animal of theleprous sort. She "never took to the foundling, " she said. To haveneither father nor mother, she counted disreputable. But I believe themain source of her dislike to Clare was a feeling of undefined reproofin the very atmosphere of the boy's presence, his nature was sodifferent from hers. What urged him toward his fellow-creatures, madeher draw back from him. In truth she hated the boy. The very look ofhim made her sick, she said. It was only a certain respect for theparson, and a certain fear of her husband, who, seldom angry, was yetcapable of fury, that had prevented her from driving the child, "withhis dish-clout face, " off the premises, whenever she saw him from dooror window. It was no wonder the farmer should he at his wits' end toknow what, as churchwarden, guardian of the poor, and friend of thelate vicar--as friendly also to the boy himself, he was bound to do. 

"Where are _you_ going?" he asked Sarah. 

"Where the Lord wills, " answered the old woman. Her ark had gone topieces, and she hardly cared what became of her. 

"We've got to look to ourselves!" said the farmer. 

"Parson used to say there was One as took that off our hands!" repliedSarah. 

"Yes, yes, " assented Mr. Goodenough, fidgeting a little; "but theAlmighty helps them as helps themselves, and that's sounddoctrine. You really must do something, Sarah! We can't have you onthe parish, you know!"

"I beg your pardon, sir, but until the child here is provided for, oruntil they turn us out of the parsonage, I will not leave the place. "

"The furniture is advertised for sale. You'll have nothing but thebare walls!"

"We'll manage to keep each other warm!--Shan't we, Clare?"

"I will try to keep you warm, Sarah, " responded the boy sadly. 

"But the new parson will soon be here. Our souls must be cared for!"

"Is the Lord's child that came from heaven in an earthquake to beturned out into the cold for fear the souls of big men should perish?"

"Something must be done about it!" said the farmer. 

"What it's to be I can't tell! It's no business o' mine any way!"

"That's what the priest, and the Levite, and the farmer says!"returned Sarah. 

"Won't you ask Mr. Goodenough to stay to dinner?" said Clare. 

He went up to the farmer, who in his perplexity had seated himself, and laid his arm on his shoulder. 

"No, I can't, " answered Sarah. "He would eat all we have, and not haveenough!"

"Now Maly is gone, " returned Clare, "I would rather not have anydinner. "

The farmer's old feeling for the boy, which the dread of having himleft on his hands had for the time dulled, came back. 

"Get him his dinner, Sarah, " he said. "I've something to see to in thevillage. By the time I come back, he'll be ready to go with me, perhaps. "

"God bless you, sir!" cried Sarah. "You meant it all the time, an' Ibeen behavin' like a brute!"

The farmer did not like being taken up so sharply. He had promisednothing! But he had nearly made up his mind that, as the friend of thelate parson, he could scarcely do less than give shelter to the childuntil he found another refuge. True, he was not the parson's child, but he had loved him as his own! He would make the boy useful, and soshut his wife's mouth! There were many things Clare could do about theplace!

Chapter XI. 

Clare on the farm. 

When Mr. Goodenough appeared at the house-door with the boy, hiswife's face expressed what her tongue dared not utter without someheating of the furnace behind it. But Clare never saw that he wasunwelcome. He had not begun to note outward and visible signs inregard to his own species; his observation was confined to theanimals, to whose every motion and look he gave heed. But he washardly aware of watching even them: his love made it so natural towatch, and so easy to understand them! He was not drawn to studyMrs. Goodenough, or to read her indications; he was content to hearwhat she said. 

True to her nature, Mrs. Goodenough, seeing she could not at once getrid of the boy, did her endeavour to make him pay for hiskeep. Nominally he continued to attend the village school, where theold master was doing his best for him; but, oftener than not, sheinterposed to prevent his going, and turned him to use about thehouse, the dairy, and the poultry-yard. 

His new mode of life occasioned him no sense of hardship. I do notmean because of his patient acceptance of everything that came; butbecause he had been so long accustomed to the ways of a farm, to allthe phases of life and work in yard and field, that nothing there camestrange to him--except having to stick to what he was put to, andhaving next to no time to read. Many boys who have found muchamusement in doing this or that, find it irksome the moment it isrequired of them: Clare was not of that mean sort; he was agentleman. Happily he was put to no work beyond his strength. 

At first, and for some time, he had to do only with the creatures moreimmediately under the care of "the mistress, " whence his acquaintancewith the poultry and the pigs, the pigeons and the calves--andspecially with such as were delicate or had been hurt--with their waysof thinking and their carriage and conduct, rapidly increased. 

By and by, however, having already almost ceased to attend school, thefarmer, requiring some passing help a boy could give, took him fromhis wife--not without complaint on her part, neither without sense ofrelief, and would not part with him again. He was so quick in doingwhat was required, so intelligent to catch the meaning not alwaysthoroughly expressed, so cheerful, and so willing, that he was apleasure to Mr. Goodenough--and no less a pleasure to the farmer thatdwelt in Mr. Goodenough, and seemed to most men all there was of him;for, instead of an expense, he found him a saving. 

It was much more pleasant for Clare to be with his master than withhis mistress, but he fared the worse for it in the house. The woman'sdislike of the boy must find outlet; and as, instead of flowing allday long, it was now pent up the greater part of it, the stronger itissued when he came home to his meals. I will not defile my page witha record of the modes in which she vented her spite. It sought attimes such minuteness of indulgence, that it was next to impossiblefor any one to perceive its embodiments except the boy himself. 

He now came more into contact with the larger animals about the place;and the comfort he derived from them was greater than most peoplewould readily or perhaps willingly believe. He had kept up hisrelations with Nimrod, the bull, and there was never a breach of thefriendship between them. The people about the farm not unfrequentlysought his influence with the animal, for at times they dared hardlyapproach him. Clare even made him useful--got a little work out of himnow and then. But his main interest lay in the horses. He had up tothis time known rather less of them than of the other creatures on theplace; now he had to give his chief attention to them, laying in lovethe foundation of that knowledge which afterward stood him in suchstead when he came to dwell for a time among certain eastern tribeswhose horses are their chief gladness and care. He used, when alonewith them, to talk to this one or that about the friends he hadlost--his father and mother and Maly and Sarah--and did not mind ifthey all listened. He would even tell them sometimes about his ownfather and mother--how the whole sky full of angels fell down uponthem and took them away. But he said most about his sister. For her hemourned more than for any of the rest. Her screams as the black auntcarried her away, would sometimes come back to him with suchverisimilitude of nearness, that, forgetting everything about him, hewould start to run to her. He felt somehow that it was well with theothers, but Maly had always needed _him_, and more than ever in thelast days of their companionship. He wept for nobody but Maly. In thenight he would wake up suddenly, thinking he heard her crying out forhim. Then he would get out of bed, creep to the stable, go toJonathan, and to him pour out his low-voiced complaint. Jonathan wasthe biggest and oldest horse on the farm. 

How much he thought they understood of what he told them, I cannotsay. He was never silly; and where we cannot be sure, we may yet havereason to hope. He believed they knew when he was in trouble, andsympathized with him, and would gladly have relieved him of hispain. I suspect most animals know something of the significance oftears. More animals shed tears themselves than people think. 

For dogs, bless them, they are everywhere, and the boy had known themfrom time immemorial. 

In the village, some of Clare's old admirers began to remark that heno longer "looked the little gentleman. " This was caused chiefly bythe state of his clothes. They were not fit for the work to which hewas put, and within a few weeks were very shabby. Besides, he wasgrowing rapidly, so that he and his garments were in too evidentprocess of parting company. Accustomed to a mother's attentions, hehad never thought of his clothes except to take care of them for hersake; now he tried to mend them, but soon found his labour of littleuse. He had no wages to buy anything with. His clothes or his healthor his education were nothing to Mrs. Goodenough. It was no concern ofhers whether he looked decent or not. What right had such as he tolook decent? It was more than enough that she fed him! The shabbinessof the beggarly creature was a consolation to her. 

But Clare's toil in the open air, and his constant and willingassociation with the animals, had begun to give him a bucolicappearance. He grew a trifle browner, and showed here and there afreckle. His health was splendid. Nothing seemed to hurt him. Hardshipwas wholesome to him. To the eyes that hated him, and grudged the hireof the mere food by which he grew, he seemed every day to enlargevisibly. Already he gave promise of becoming a man of more thanordinary strength and vigour. Possibly the animals gave him something. 

What may have been his outlook and hope all this time, who shall tell!He never grumbled, never showed sign of pain or unwillingness, gavehis mistress no reason for fault-finding. She found it hard even todiscover a pretext. She seemed always ready to strike him, but wasprobably afraid to do so without provocation her husband would countsufficient. Clare never showed discomfort, never even sighed except hewere alone. Chequered as his life had been, if ever he looked forwardto a fresh change, it was but as a far possibility in the slow currentof events. But he was constantly possessed with a large dim sense ofsomething that lay beyond, waiting for him; something toward which thetide of things was with certainty drifting him, but with which he hadnothing more to do than wait. He did not see that to do the thingsgiven him to do was the only preparation for whatever, in the dimunder-world of the future, might be preparing for him; but he did feelthat he must do his work. He did not then think much about duty. Hewas actively inclined, had a strong feeling for doing a thing as itought to be done; and was thoroughly loyal to any one that seemed tohave a right over him. In this blind, enduring, vaguely hopeful way, he went on--sustained, and none the less certainly that he did notknow it, from the fountain of his life. When the winter came, hissufferings, cared for as he had been, and accustomed to warmth andsoftness, must at times have been considerable. In the day his workwas a protection, but at night the house was cold. He had, however, plenty to eat, had no ailment, and was not to be greatly pitied. 

Chapter XII. 

Clare becomes a guardian of the poor. 

Simpson, the bully of Clare's childhood, went limping about on acrutch, permanently lame, and full of hatred toward the innocentoccasion of the injury he had brought upon himself. Ever since hisrecovery, he had, loitering about in idleness, watched the boy, towaylay and catch him at unawares. Not until Clare went to the farm, however, did he once succeed; for it was not difficult to escape him, so long as he had not laid actual hold on his prey. But he grew moreand more cunning, and contrived at last, by creeping along hedges andlying in ambush like a snake, to get his hands upon him. Then the poorboy fared ill. 

He went home bleeding and torn. The righteous churchwarden rebuked himwith severity for fighting. His mistress told him she was glad he hadmet with some one to give him what he deserved, for she could hardlykeep her hands off him. He stared at her with wondering eyes, but saidnothing. She turned from them: the devil in her could not look in theeyes of the angel in him. The next time he fell into the snare of hisenemy, he managed to conceal what had befallen him. After that he wastoo wide awake to be caught. 

There was in the village a child whom nobody heeded. He was far moredestitute than Clare, but had too much liberty. He lived with awretched old woman who called him her grandson: whether he was or notnobody cared. She made her livelihood by letting beds, in a cottage orrather hovel which seemed to be her own, to wayfarers, mostly tramps, with or without trades. The child was thus thrown into the worst ofcompany, and learned many sorts of wickedness. He was already a thief, and of no small proficiency in his art. Though village-bred, he couldpick a pocket more sensitive than a clown's. Small and deft, he hadnever stood before a magistrate. He was a miserable creature, bare-footed and bare-legged; about eight years of age, but so stuntedthat to the first glance he looked less than six--with keen ferreteyes in red rims, red hair, pasty, freckled complexion, and agenerally unhealthy look; from which marks all, Clare conceived apitiful sympathy for him. Their acquaintance began thus:--

One day, during his father's last illness, he happened to pass thedoor of the grandmother's hovel while the crone was administering toTommy a severe punishment with a piece of thick rope: she had beensharp enough to catch him stealing from herself. Clare heard hiscries. The door being partly open, he ran in, and gave him suchassistance that they managed to bolt together from the hut. Afriendship, for long almost a silent one, was thus initiated betweenthem. Tommy--Clare never knew his other name, nor did the boyhimself--would off and on watch for a sight of him all day long, buthad the instinct, or experience, never to approach him if any one waswith him. He was careful not to compromise him. The instant the mostmomentary _tête-à-tête_ was possible, he would rush up, offer himsomething he had found or stolen, and hurry away again. That he was athief Clare had not the remotest suspicion. He had never offered himanything to suggest theft. 

By and by it came to the knowledge of Clare's enemy that there was afriendship between them, and the discovery wrought direness forboth. One day Simpson saw Clare coming, and Tommy watching him. Helaid hold of Tommy, and began cuffing him and pulling his hair, tomake him scream, thinking thus to get hold of Clare. Butnotwithstanding the lesson he had received, the rascal had not yet anyadequate notion of the boy's capacity for action where another wasconcerned. He flew to the rescue, caught up the crutch Simpson haddropped, and laid it across his back with vigour. The fellow let Tommygo and turned on Clare, who went backward, brandishing the crutch. 

"Run, Tommy, " he cried. 

Tommy retreated a few steps. 

"Run yourself, " he counselled, having reached a safe distance. "Takehis third leg with you. "

Clare saw the advice was good, and ran. But the next moment reflectionshowed him the helplessness of his enemy. He turned, and saw himhobbling after him in such evident pain and discomfiture, that he wentto meet him, and politely gave him his crutch. He might have thrown itto him and gone on, but he had a horror of rudeness, and handed it tohim with a bow. Just as he regained his perpendicular, the crutchdescended on his head, and laid him flat on the ground. There thetyrant belaboured him. Tommy stood and regarded the proceeding. 

"The cove's older an' bigger an' pluckier than me, " he said tohimself; "but he's an ass. He'll come to grief unless he's lookedafter. He'll be hanged else. He don't know how to dodge. I'll have totake him in charge!"

When he saw Clare free, an event to which he had contributed nothing, he turned and ran home. 

Simpson redoubled now his persecution of Clare, and persecuted Tommybecause of Clare. He lurked for Tommy now, and when he caught him, tormented him with choice tortures. In a word, he made his lifemiserable. After every such mischance Tommy would hurry to the farm, and lie about in the hope of a sight of Clare, or possibly a chance ofspeaking to him. His repute was so bad that he dared not show himself. 

Hot tears would come into Clare's eyes as he listened to the notalways unembellished tale of Tommy's sufferings at the hands ofSimpson; but he never thought of revenge, only of protection or escapefor the boy. It comforted him to believe that he was growing, andwould soon be a match for the oppressor. 

Whether at this time he felt any great interest in life, or recognizedany personal advantage in growing, I doubt. But he had the friendshipof the animals; and it is not surprising that creatures their makerthinks worth making and keeping alive, should yield consolation to onethat understands them, or even fill with a mild joy the pauses oflabour in an irksome life. 

Then each new day was an old friend to the boy. Each time the sunrose, new hope rose with him in his heart. He came every morning freshfrom home, with a fresh promise. The boy read the promise in his greatshining, and believed it; gazed and rejoiced, and turned to his work. 

But the hour arrived when his mistress could bear his presence nolonger. Some petty loss, I imagine, had befallen her. Nothing touchedher like the loss of money--the love of which is as dread a passion asthe love of drink, and more ruinous to the finer elements of thenature. It was like the tearing out of her heart to Mrs. Goodenough tolose a shilling. Her self-command forsook her, perhaps, in some suchmoment of vexation; anyhow, she opened the sluices of her hate, andoverwhelmed him with it in the presence of her husband. 

The farmer knew she was unfair, knew the orphan a good boy and adiligent, knew there was nothing against him but the antipathy of hiswife. But, annoyed with her injustice, he was powerless to change herheart. Since the boy came to live with them, he had had no pleasure inhis wife's society. She had always been moody and dissatisfied, butsince then had been unbearable. Constantly irritated with and by herbecause of Clare, he had begun to regard him as the destroyer of hispeace, and to feel a grudge against him. He sat smouldering withbodiless rage, and said nothing. 

Clare too was silent, --for what could he say? Where is the wisdom thatcan answer hatred? He carried to his friend Jonathan a heart heavy andperplexed. 

"Why does she hate me so, Jonathan?" he murmured. 

The big horse kissed his head all over, but made him no other answer. 

Chapter XIII. 

Clare the vagabond. 

The next morning Clare happened to do something not altogether to thefarmer's mind. It was a matter of no consequence--only cleaning thatside of one of the cow-houses first which was usually cleaned last. Hegave him a box on the ear that made him stagger, and then standbewildered. 

"What do you mean by staring that way?" cried the farmer, annoyed withhimself and seeking justification in his own eyes. "Am I not to boxyour ears when I choose?" And with that he gave him another blow. 

Then first it dawned on Clare that he was not wanted, that he was nogood to anybody. He threw down his scraper, and ran from thecow-house; ran straight from the farm to the lane, and from the laneto the high road. Buffets from the hand of his only friend, and thesudden sense of loneliness they caused, for the moment bereft Clare ofpurpose. It was as if his legs had run away with him, and he hadunconsciously submitted to their abduction. 

At the mouth of the lane, where it opened on the high road, he ranagainst Tommy turning the corner, eager to find him. The eyes of thesmall human monkey were swollen with weeping; his nose was bleeding, and in size and shape scarce recognizable as a nose. At the sight, theconsciousness of his protectorate awoke in Clare, and he stopped, unable to speak, but not unable to listen. Tommy blubbered out aconfused, half-inarticulate something about "granny and the otherdevil, " who between them had all but killed him. 

"What can I do?" said Clare, his heart sinking with the sense ofhaving no help in him. 

Tommy was ready to answer the question. He had been hatching vengeanceall the way. Eagerly came his proposition--that they should, in theirturn, lie in ambush for Simpson, and knock his crutch from underhim. That done, Clare should belabour him with it, while he ran likethe wind and set his grandmother's house on fire. 

"She'll be drunk in bed, an' she'll be burned to death!" criedTommy. "Then we'll mizzle!"

"But it would hurt them both very badly, Tommy!" said Clare, as ifunfolding the reality of the thing to a foolish child. 

"Well! all right! the worse the better! 'Ain't they hurt us?" rejoinedTommy. 

"That's how we know it's not nice!" answered Clare. "If they set it agoing, we ain't to keep it a going!"

"Then they'll be at it for ever, " cried Tommy, "an' I'm sick of it!I'll _kill_ granny! I swear I will, if I'm hanged for it! She's said ahundred times she'd pull my legs when I was hanged; but _she_ won't beat the hanging!"

"Why shouldn't you run for it first?" said Clare. "Then they wouldn'twant to hang you!"

"Then I shouldn't have nobody!" replied Tommy, whimpering. 

"I should have thought Nobody was as good as granny!" said Clare. 

"A big bilin' better!" answered Tommy bitterly. "I wasn't meanin'granny--nor yet stumpin' Simpson. "

"I don't know what you're driving at, " said Clare. Tommy burst intotears. 

"Ain't you the only one I got, up or down?" he cried. 

Tommy had a little bit of heart--not much, but enough to have a chanceof growing. If ever creature had less than that, he was not human. Ido not think he could even be an ape. 

Some of the people about the parson used to think Clare had no heart, and Mrs. Goodenough was sure of it. He had not a spark of gratitude, she said. But the cause of this opinion was that Clare's affectiontook the shape of deeds far more than of words. Never were judges oftheir neighbours more mistaken. The chief difference between Clare'shistory and that of most others was, that his began at the unusualend. Clare began with loving everybody; and most people take a longtime to grow to that. Hence, those whom, from being brought nearest tothem, he loved specially, he loved without that outbreak of show whichis often found in persons who love but a few, and whose love isdefiled with partisanship. He loved quietly and constantly, in afashion as active as undemonstrative. He was always glad to be nearthose he specially loved; beyond that, the signs of his love werepractical--it came out in ministration, in doing things forthem. There are those who, without loving, desire to be loved, becausethey love themselves; for those that are worth least are most preciousto themselves. But Clare never thought of the love of others tohim--from no heartlessness, but that he did not think abouthimself--had never done so, at least, until the moment when he fledfrom the farm with the new agony in his heart that nobody wanted him, that everybody would be happier without him. Happy is he that does notthink of himself before the hour when he becomes conscious of thebliss of being loved. For it must be and ought to be a happy momentwhen one learns that another human creature loves him; and not to begrateful for love is to be deeply selfish. Clare had always loved, buthad not thought of any one as loving him, or of himself as being lovedby any one. 

"Well, " rejoined Clare, struggling with his misery, "ain't I goingmyself?"

"You going!--That's chaff!"

"'Tain't chaff. I'm on my way. "

"What! Going to hook it? Oh golly! what a lark! Won't FarmerGoodenough look blue!"

"He'll think himself well rid of me, " returned Clare with a sigh. "Butthere's no time to talk. If you're going, Tommy, come along. "

He turned to go. 

"Where to?" asked Tommy, following. 

"I don't know. Anywhere away, " answered Clare, quickening his pace. 

In spite of his swollen visage, Tommy's eyes grew wider. 

"You 'ain't cribbed nothing?" he said. 

"I don't know what you mean. "

"You 'ain't stole something?" interpreted Tommy. 

Clare stopped, and for the first time on his own part, lifted his handto strike. It dropped immediately by his side. 

"No, you poor Tommy, " he said. "I don't steal. "

"Thought you didn't! What are you running away for then?"

"Because they don't want me. "

"Lord! what will you do?"

"Work. "

Tommy held his tongue: he knew a better way than that! If work was theonly road to eating, things would go badly with _him_! But he thoughthe knew a thing or two, and would take his chance! There were degreesof hunger that were not so bad as the thrashings he got, for in hisgranny's hands the rope might fall where it would; while all crippleSimpson cared for was to make him squeal satisfactorily. But work wasworse than all! He would go with Clare, but not to work! Not he!

Clare kept on in silence, never turning his head--out into theuntried, unknown, mysterious world, which lay around the one spot heknew as the darkness lies about the flame of the candle. They walkedmore than a mile before either spoke. 

Chapter XIV. 

Their first helper

It was a lovely spring morning. The sun was about thirty degrees abovethe horizon, shining with a liquid radiance, as if he had alreadydrawn up and was shining through the dew of the morning, though it layyet on all the grasses by the roadside, turning them into gem-plants. Every sort of gem sparkled on their feathery or beady tops, and theirlong slender blades. At the first cottages they passed, the women werebeginning their day's work, sweeping clean their floors anddoor-steps. Clare noted that where were most flowers in the garden, the windows were brightest, and the children cleanest. 

"The flowers come where they make things nice for them!" he said tohimself. "Where the flowers see dirt, they turn away, and won't comeout. "

From childhood he had had the notion that the flowers crept up insidethe stalks until they found a window to look out at. Where theprospect was not to their mind they crept down, and away by some doorin the root to try again. For all the stalks stood like watch-towers, ready for them to go up and peep out. 

They came to a pond by a farm-house. Clare had been observing withpity how wretched Tommy's clothes were; but when he looked into thepond he saw that his own shabbiness was worse than Tommy's downrightmiserableness. Nobody would leave either of them within reach ofanything worth stealing! What he wore had been his Sunday suit, and itwas not even worth brushing!

"I'm 'orrid 'ungry, " said Tommy. "I 'ain't swallered a plug thismornin', 'xcep' a lump o' bread out o' granny's cupboard. That's whatI got my weltin' for. It were a whole half-loaf, though--an' none sodry!"

Clare had eaten nothing, and had been up since five o'clock--at workall the time till the farmer struck him: he was quite as hungry asTommy. What was to be done? Besides a pocket-handkerchief he had butone thing alienable. 

The very day she was taken ill, he had been in the store-room with hismother, and she, knowing the pleasure he took in the scent of brownWindsor-soap, had made him a present of a small cake. This he had keptin his pocket ever since, wrapt in a piece of rose-coloured paper, hisone cherished possession: hunger deadening sorrow, the time was cometo bid it farewell. His heart ached to part with it, but Tommy and hewere so hungry!

They went to the door of the house, and knocked--first Clare verygently, then Tommy with determination. It was opened by a matron wholooked at them over the horizon of her chin. 

"Please, ma'am, " said Clare, "will you give us a piece of bread?--aslarge a piece, please, as you can spare; and I will give you thispiece of brown Windsor-soap. "

As he ended his speech, he took a farewell whiff of his favouritedetergent. 

"Soap!" retorted the dame. "Who wants your soap! Where did you get it?Stole it, I don't doubt! Show it here. "

She took it in her hand, and held it to her nose. 

"Who gave it you?"

"My mother, " answered Clare. 

"Where's your mother?"

Clare pointed upward. 

"Eh? Oh--hanged! I thought, so!"

She threw the soap into the yard, and closed the door. Clare dartedafter his property, pounced upon it, and restored it lovingly to hispocket. 

As they were leaving the yard disconsolate, they saw a cart full ofturnips. Tommy turned and made for it. 

"Don't, Tommy, " cried Clare. 

"Why not? I'm hungry, " answered Tommy, "an' you see it's no useastin'!"

He flew at the cart, but Clare caught and held him. 

"They ain't ours, Tommy, " he said. 

"Then why don't you take one?" retorted Tommy. 

"That's why you shouldn't. "

"It's why you should, for then it 'ud be yours. "

"To take it wouldn't make it ours, Tommy. "

"Wouldn't it, though? I believe when I'd eaten it, it would bemine--rather!"

"No, it wouldn't. Think of having in your stomach what wasn't yours!No, you must pay for it. Perhaps they would take my soap for aturnip. I believe it's worth two turnips. "

He spied a man under a shed, ran to him, and made offer of the soapfor a turnip apiece. 

"I don't want your soap, " answered the man, "an' I don't recommendcold turmits of a mornin'. But take one if you like, and clearout. The master's cart-whip 'ill be about your ears the moment he seesyou!"

"Ain't you the master, sir?"

"No, I ain't. "

"Then the turnips ain't yours?" said Clare, looking at him withhungry, regretful eyes, for he could have eaten a raw potato. 

"You're a deal too impudent to be hungry!" said the man, making a blowat him with his open hand, which Clare dodged. "Be off with you, orI'll set the dog on you. "

"I'm very sorry, " said Clare. "I did not mean to offend you. "

"Clear out, I say. Double trot!"

Hungry as the boys were, they must trudge! No bread, no turnip forthem! Nothing but trudge, trudge till they dropped!

When they had gone about five miles further, they sat down, as if bycommon consent, on the roadside; and Tommy, used to crying, began tocry. Clare did not seek to stop him, for some instinct told him itmust be a relief. 

By and by a working-man came along the road. Clare hesitated, butTommy's crying urged him. He rose and stood ready to accost him. Assoon as he came up, however, the man stopped of himself. He questionedClare and listened to his story, then counselled the boys to go back. 

"I'm not wanted, sir, " said Clare. 

"They'd kill _me_, " said Tommy. 

"God help you, boys!" returned the man. "You may be telling me lies, and you may be telling me the truth!--A liar may be hungry, butsomehow I grudge my dinner to a liar!"

As he spoke he untied the knots of a blue handkerchief with whitespots, gave them its contents of bread and cheese, wiped his face withit, and put it in his pocket; lifted his bag of tools, and went hisway. He had lost his dinner and saved his life!

The dinner, being a man's, went a good way toward satisfying them, though empty corners would not have been far to seek, had there beenanything to put in them. As it was, they started again refreshed andhopeful. What had come to them once might reasonably come again!

Chapter XV. 

Their first host. 

As the evening drew on, and began to settle down into night, a newcare arose in the mind of the elder boy. Where were they to pass thedarkness?--how find shelter for sleep? It was a question that gaveTommy no anxiety. He had been on the tramp often, now with one party, now with another of his granny's lodgers, and had frequently slept inthe open air, or under the rudest covert. Tommy had not muchimagination to trouble him, and in his present moral condition waspossibly better without it; but to inexperienced Clare there wassomething fearful in having the night come so close to him. Sleep outof doors he had never thought of. To lie down with the stars lookingat him, nothing but the blue wind between him and them, was like beingnaked to the very soul. Doubtless there would be creatures about, toshare the night with him, and protect him from its awful bareness; butthey would be few for the size of the room, and he might see none ofthem! It was the sense of emptiness, the lack of present life thatdismayed him. He had never seen any creatures to shrink from. Hedisliked no one of the things that creep or walk or fly. Before longhe did come to know and dislike at least one sort; and the sea heldcreatures that in after years made him shudder; but as yet, not evenrats, so terrible to many, were a terror to Clare. It was Nothing thathe feared. 

My reader may say, "But had no one taught him about God?" Yes, he hadheard about God, and about Jesus Christ; had heard a great deal aboutthem. But they always seemed persons a long way off. He knew, orthought he knew, that God was everywhere, but he had never felt hispresence a reality. He seemed in no place where Clare's eyes everfell. He never thought, "God is here. " Perhaps the sparrows knew moreabout God than he did then. When he looked out into the night italways seemed vacant, therefore horrid, and he took it for as empty asit looked. And if there had been no God there, it would have beenreasonable indeed to be afraid; for the most frightful of notions is_Nothing-at-all_. 

It grew dark, and they were falling asleep on their walking legs, whenthey came to a barn-yard. Very glad were they to creep into it, andsearch for the warmest place. It was a quiet part of the country, andfor years nothing had been stolen from anybody, so that the peoplewere not so watchful as in many places. 

They went prowling about, but even Tommy with innocent intent, eageronly after a little warmth, and as much sleep as they could find, andcame at length to an open window, through which they crawled intowhat, by the smell and the noises, they knew to be a stable. It wasvery dark, but Clare was at home, and felt his way about; while Tommy, who was afraid of the horses, held close to him. Clare's hand fellupon the hind-quarters of a large well-fed horse. The huge animal wasasleep standing, but at the touch of the small hand he gave a lowwhinny. Tommy shuddered at the sound. 

"He's pleased, " said Clare, and crept up on his near side into thestall. There he had soon made such friends with him, that he did nothesitate to get in among the hay the horse had for his supper. 

"Here, Tommy!" he cried in a whisper; "there's room for us both in themanger. "

But Tommy stood shaking. He fancied the darkness full of horses'heads, and would not stir. Clare had to get out again, and search fora place to suit his fancy, which he found in an untenanted loose-box, with remains of litter. There Tommy coiled himself up, and was soonfast asleep. 

Clare returned to the hospitality of the big horse. The great nostrilssnuffed him over and over as he lay, and the boy knew the horse madehim welcome. He dropped asleep stroking the muzzle of hischamber-fellow, and slept all the night, kept warm by the horse'sbreath, and the near furnace of his great body. 

In the morning the boys found they had slept too long, for they werediscovered. But though they were promptly ejected as vagabonds, andnot without a few kicks and cuffs, these were not administered withoutthe restraint of some mercy, for their appearance tended to move pityrather than indignation. 

Chapter XVI. 

On the tramp. 

With the new day came the fresh necessity for breakfast, and the freshinterest in the discovery of it. But breakfast is a thing not alwayseasiest to find where breakfasts most abound; nor was theirs whenfound that morning altogether of a sort to be envied, ill as theycould afford to despise it. Passing, on their goal-less way, aflour-mill, the door of which was half-open, they caught sight of aheap, whether floury dust or dusty flour, it would have been hard tosay, that seemed waiting only for them to help themselves fromit. Fain to still the craving of birds too early for any worm, theyswallowed a considerable portion of it, choking as it was, nor metwith rebuke. There was good food in it, and they might have faredworse. 

Another day's tramp was thus inaugurated. How it was to end no one inthe world knew less than the trampers. 

Before it was over, a considerable change had passed upon Clare; for anew era was begun in his history, and he started to grow morerapidly. Hitherto, while with his father or mother, or with his littlesister, making life happy to her; even while at the farm, doing hardwork, he had lived with much the same feeling with which he read astory: he was in the story, half dreaming, half acting it. Thedifference between a thing that passed through his brain from thepages of a book, or arose in it as he lay in bed either awake orasleep, and the thing in which he shared the life and motion of theday, was not much marked in his consciousness. He was a dreamer withopen eyes and ready hands, not clearly distinguishing thought andaction, fancy and fact. Even the cold and hunger he had felt at thefarm had not sufficed to wake him up; he had only had to wait and theywere removed. But now that he did not know whence his hunger was to besatisfied, or where shelter was to be had; now also that there was ahunger outside him, and a cold that was not his, which yet he had tosupply and to frustrate in the person of Tommy, life began to growreal to him; and, which was far more, he began to grow real tohimself, as a power whose part it was to encounter the necessitiesthus presented. He began to understand that things were required ofhim. He had met some of these requirements before, and had satisfiedthem, but without knowing them as requirements. He did it half awake, not as a thinking and willing source of the motion demanded. He did itall by impulse, hardly by response. Now we are put into bodies, andsent into the world, to wake us up. We might go on dreaming for agesif we were left without bodies that the wind could blow upon, that therain could wet, and the sun scorch, bodies to feel thirst and cold andhunger and wounds and weariness. The eternal plan was beginning totell upon Clare. He was in process of being changed from a dreamer toa man. It is a good thing to be a dreamer, but it is a bad thingindeed to be _only_ a dreamer. He began to see that everybody in theworld had to do something in order to get food; that he had worked forthe farmer and his wife, and they had fed him. He had worked willinglyand eaten gladly, but had not before put the two together. He saw nowthat men who would be men must work. 

His eyes fell upon a congregation of rooks in a field by theroadside. "Are _they_ working?" he thought; "or are they stealing? Ifit be stealing they are at, it looks like hard work as well. It can'tbe stealing though; they were made to live, and _how_ are they to liveif they don't grub? that's their work! Still the corn ain't theirs!Perhaps it's only worms they take! Are the worms theirs? A man shoulddie rather than steal, papa said. But, if they are stealing, the crowsdon't know it; and if they don't know it, they ain't thieves! Is thatit?"

The same instant came the report of a gun. A crowd of rooks rosecawing. One of them dropped and lay. 

"He must have been stealing, " thought Clare, "for see what comes ofit! Would they shoot me if I stole? Better be shot than die of hunger!Yes, but better die of hunger than be a thief!"

He had read stories about thieves and honest boys, and had never seenany difficulty in the matter. Nor had he yet a notion of how difficultit is not to be a thief--that is, to be downright honest. If anybodythinks it easy, either he has not known much of life, or he has nevertried to be honest; he has done just like other people. Clare did notknow that many a boy whose heart sided with the honest boy in thestory, has grown up a dishonourable man--a man ready to benefithimself to the disadvantage of others; that many a man who passes forrespectable in this disreputable world, is counted far meaner than athief in the next, and is going there to be put in prison. But hebegan to see that it is not enough to mean well; that he must besharp, and mind what he was about; else, with hunger worrying insidehim, he might be a thief before he knew. He was on the way to discoverthat to think rightly--to be on the side of what is honourable whenreading a story, is a very different thing from doing right, and beinghonourable, when the temptation is upon us. Many a boy when he readsthis will say, "Of course it is!" and when the time comes, will be asneak. 

Those crows set Clare thinking; and it was well; for if he had notdone as those thinkings taught him, he would have given a verydifferent turn to his history. Meditation and resolve, on the top ofhonourable habit, brought him to this, that, when he saw what wasright, he just did it--did it without hesitation, question, orstruggle. Every man must, who would be a free man, who would not bethe slave of the universe and of himself. 

Chapter XVII. 

The baker's cart. 

The sweepings of the mill-floor did not last them long, and by thetime they saw rising before them the spires and chimneys of the smallcounty town to which the road had been leading them, they were veryhungry indeed--as hungry as they well could be without having begun togrow faint. The moment he saw them, Clare began revolving in his mindonce more, as many times on the way, what he was to do to get work:Tommy of course was too small to do anything, and Clare must earnenough for both. He could think of nothing but going into the shops, or knocking at the house-doors, and asking for something to do. Sofilled was he with his need of work, and with the undefined sense of aclaim for work, that he never thought how much against him must be theoutward appearance which had so dismayed himself when he saw it in thepond; never thought how unwilling any one would be to employ him, orwhat a disadvantage was the company of Tommy, who had every mark of aborn thief. 

I do not know if, on his tramps, Tommy had been in a town before, butto Clare all he saw bore the aspect of perfect novelty, notwithstanding the few city-shapes that floated in faintest shadow, like memories of old dreams, in his brain. He was delighted with thegrand look of the place, with its many people and many shops. His hopeof work at once became brilliant and convincing. 

Noiselessly and suddenly Tommy started from his side, but so muchoccupied was he with what he beheld and what he thought, that heneither saw him go nor missed him when gone. He became again aware ofhim by finding himself pulled toward the entrance of a narrow lane. Tommy pulled so hard that Clare yielded, and went with him into thelane, but stopped immediately. For he saw that Tommy had under his arma big loaf, and the steam of newly-baked bread was fragrant in hisnostrils. Never smoke so gracious greeted those of incense-lovingpriest. Tommy tugged and tugged, but Clare stood stock-still. 

"Where did you get that beautiful loaf, Tommy?" he asked. 

"Off on a baker's cart, " said Tommy. "Don't be skeered; he never sawme! That was my business, an' I seed to 't. "

"Then you stole it, Tommy?"

"Yes, " grumbled Tommy, "--if that's the name you put upon it when yourtrousers is so slack you've got to hold on to them or they'd trip youup!"

"Where's the cart?"

"In the street there. "

"Come along. "

Clare took the loaf from Tommy, and turned to find the baker'scart. Tommy's face fell, and he was conscious only of bitterness. Whyhad he yielded to sentiment--not that he knew the word--when he longedlike fire to bury his sharp teeth in that heavenly loaf? Love--not tomention a little fear--had urged him to carry it straight to Clare, and this was his reward! He was going to give him up to the baker!There was gratitude for you! He ought to have known better than trust_anybody_, even Clare! Nobody was to be trusted but yourself! It didseem hard to Tommy. 

They had scarcely turned the corner when they came upon the cart. Thebaker was looking the other way, talking to some one, and Clarethought to lay down the loaf and say nothing about it: there was nooccasion for the ceremony of apology where offence was unknown. But inthe very act the baker turned and saw him. He sprang upon him, andcollared him. The baker was not nice to look at. 

"I have you!" he cried, and shook him as if he would have shaken hishead off. 

"It's quite a mistake, sir!" was all Clare could get out, so fiercewas the earthquake that rattled the house of his life. 

"Mistaken am I? I like that!--Police!"

And with that the baker shook him again. 

A policeman was not far off; he heard the man call, and came running. 

"Here's a gen'leman as wants the honour o' your acquaintance, Bob!"said the baker. 

But Tommy saw that, from his size, he was more likely to get off thanClare if he told the truth. 

"Please, policeman, " he said, "it wasn't him; it was me as took theloaf. "

"You little liar!" shouted the baker. "Didn't I see him with his handon the loaf?"

"He was a puttin' of it back, " said Tommy. "I wish he'd beensomewheres else! See what he been an' got by it! If he'd only ha' letme run, there wouldn't ha' been nobody the wiser. I _am_ sorry Ididn't run. Oh, I _ham_ so 'ungry!"

Tommy doubled himself up, with his hands inside the double. 

"'Ungry, are you?" roared the baker. "That's what thieves off abaker's cart ought to be! They ought to be always 'ungry--'ungry toall eternity, they ought! An' that's what's goin' to be done to 'em!"

"Look here!" cried a pale-faced man in the front of the crowd, whoseemed a mechanic. "There's a way of tellin' whether the boy'sspeakin' the truth _now_!"

He caught up the restored loaf, halved it cleverly, and handed each ofthe boys a part. 

"Now, baker, what's to pay?" he said, and drew himself up, for the manwas too angry at once to reply. 

The boys were tearing at the delicious bread, blind and deaf to allabout them. 

"P'r'aps you would like to give _me_ in charge?" pursued theirsaviour. 

"Sixpence, " said the man sullenly. 

The mechanic laid sixpence on the cover of the cart. 

"I ought to ha' made you weigh and make up, " he said. "Where's yourscales?"

"Mind your own business. "

"I mean to. Here! I want another sixpenny loaf--but I want it weighedthis time!"

"I ain't bound to sell bread in the streets. You can go to theshop. Them loaves is for reg'lar customers. "

He moved off with his cart, and the crowd began to disperse. The boysstood absorbed, each in what remained of his half-loaf. 

When he looked up, Clare saw that they were alone. But he caught sightof their benefactor some way off, and ran after him. 

"Oh, sir!" he said, "I was so hungry, I don't know whether I thankedyou for the loaf. We'd had nothing to-day but the sweepings of amill. "

"God bless my soul!" said the man. "People say there's a God!" headded. 

"I think there must be, sir, for you came by just then!" returnedClare. 

"How do you come to be so hard-up, my boy? Somebody's to blamesomewheres!"

"There ain't no harm in being hungry, so long as the loaf comes!"rejoined Clare. "When I get work we shall be all right!"

"That's your sort!" said the man. "But if there had been a God, aspeople say, he would ha' made me fit to gi'e you a job, i'stead o'stan'in' here as you see me, with ne'er a turn o' work to do formyself!"

"I'll work my hardest to pay you back your sixpence, " said Clare. 

"Nay, nay, lad! Don't you trouble about that. I ha' got two or threemore i' my pocket, thank God!"

"You have two Gods, have you, sir?" said Clare;"--one who does thingsfor you, and one who don't?"

"Come, you young shaver! you're too much for me!" said the manlaughing. 

Tommy, having finished his bread, here thought fit to join them. Hecame slyly up, looking impudent now he was filled, with his handswhere his pockets should have been. 

"It was you stole the loaf, you little rascal!" said the workman, seeing thief in every line of the boy. 

"Yes, " answered Tommy boldly, "an' I don't see no harm. The baker hadlots, and he wasn't 'ungry! It was Clare made a mull of it! He's sucha duffer you don't know! He acshally took it back to the brute! Hedeserved what he got! The loaf was mine. It wasn't his! _I_ stole it!"

"Oh, ho! it wasn't his! it was yours, was it?--Why do you go aboutwith a chap like this, young gentleman?" said the man, turning toClare. "I know by your speech you 'ain't been brought up alongside o'sech as him!"

"I had to go away, and he came with me, " answered Clare. 

"You'd better get rid of him. He'll get you into trouble. "

"I can't get rid of him, " replied Clare. "But I shall teach him not totake what isn't his. He don't know better now. He's been ill-used allhis life. "

"You don't seem over well used yourself, " said the man. 

He saw that Clare's clothes had been made for a boy in goodcircumstances, though they had been long worn, and were muchbegrimed. His face, his tone, his speech convinced him that they hadbeen made for _him_, and that he had had a gentle breeding. 

"Look you here, young master, " he continued; "you have no right to bein company with that boy. He'll bring you to grief as sure as I tellyou. "

"I shall be able to bear it, " answered Clare with a sigh. 

"He'll be the loss of your character to you. "

"I 'ain't got a character to lose, " replied Clare. "I thought I had;but when nobody will believe me, where's my character then?"

"Now you're wrong there, " returned the man. "I'm not much, I know; butI believe every word you say, and should be very sorry to find myselfmistaken. "

"Thank you, sir, " said Clare. "May I carry your bag for you?"

If Clare had seen what then passed in Tommy's mind, at the back ofthose glistening ferret-eyes of his, he would have been almostreconciled to taking the man's advice, and getting rid of him. Tommywas saying to himself that his pal wasn't such a duffer after all--hewas on the lay for the man's tools!

Tommy never reasoned except in the direction of cunning self-help--offitting means and intermediate ends to the one main object ofeating. It is wonderful what a sharpener of the poor wits hunger is!

"I guess I'm the abler-bodied pauper!" answered the man; and pickingup the bag he had dropped at his feet while they conversed, he walkedaway. 

There are many more generous persons among the poor than among therich--a fact that might help some to understand how a rich man shouldfind it hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is hard foreverybody, but harder for the rich. Men who strive to make money areunconsciously pulling instead of pushing at the heavy gate of thekingdom. 

"Tommy!" said Clare, in a tone new to himself, for a new sense ofmoral protection had risen in him, "if ever you steal anything again, either I give you a hiding, or you and I part company. "

Tommy bored his knuckles into his red eyes, and began towhimper. Again it was hard for Tommy! He had followed Clare, thinkingto supply what was lacking to him; to do for him what he was notclever enough to do for himself; in short, to make an advantageouspartnership with him, to which he should furnish the faculty ofpicking up unconsidered trifles. Tommy judged Clare defective inintellect, and quite unpractical. He was of the mind of themultitude. The common-minded man always calls the man who thinks ofrighteousness before gain, who seeks to do the will of God and doesnot seek to make a fortune, unpractical. He _will_ not see that thevery essence of the practical lies in doing the right thing. 

Tommy, in a semi-conscious way, had looked to Clare to supply thestrength and the innocent look, while he supplied the head and thelively fingers; and here was Clare knocking the lovely plan to pieces!He did well to be angry! But Clare was the stronger; and Tommy knewthat, when Clare was roused, though it was not easy to rouse him, hecould and would and did fight--not, indeed, as the little coward saidto himself _he_ could fight, like a wild cat, but like a blunderinghornless old cow defending her calf from a cur. 

In the heart of all his selfishness, however, Tommy did a little loveClare; and his love came, not from Tommy, but from the same source ashis desire for food, namely, from the God that was in Tommy, the Godin whom Tommy lived and had his being with Clare. Whether Tommy's lovefor Clare would one day lift him up beside Clare, that is, make him anhonest boy like Clare, remained to be seen. 

Finding his demonstration make no impression, Tommy took his knucklesout of his eye-holes and thrust them into his pocket-holes, turned hisback on his friend, and began to whistle--with a lump of self-pity inhis throat. 

Chapter XVIII. 

Beating the town. 

They turned their faces again toward the centre of the town, andresumed their walk, taking in more of what they saw than while theyhad not yet had the second instalment of their daily bread. What athing is food! It is the divineness of the invention--the need for thefood, and the food for the need--that makes those who count theirdinner the most important thing in the day, such low creatures:nothing but what is good in itself can be turned into vileness. It isa delight to see a boy with a good honest appetite; a boy that _loves_his dinner is a loathsome creature. Eat heartily, my boy, but be readyto share, even when you are hungry, and have only what you could eatup yourself, else you are no man. Remember that you created neitheryour hunger nor your food; that both came from one who cares for youand your neighbours as well. 

In the strength of the half-loaf he had eaten, the place looked toClare far more wonderful, and his hopes of earning his bread grew yetmore radiant. But he passed one shop after another, and alwayssomething prevented him from going in. One after another did not lookjust the right sort, did not seem to invite him: the next might bebetter! I dare say but for that half-loaf, he would have made a trialsooner, but I doubt if he would have succeeded sooner. He did notthink of going to parson, doctor, or policeman for advice; he wentwalking and staring, followed by Tommy with his hands in hispocketless pocket-holes. Clare was not yet practical in device, thoughperfect in willingness, and thorough in design. Up one street and downanother they wandered, seeing plenty of food through windows, and incarts and baskets, but never any coming their way, except in the formof tempting odours that issued from almost every house, and grew inkeenness and strength toward one o'clock. Oh those odours!--agonizingangels of invisible yet most material good! Of what joys has not theFather made us capable, when the poorest necessity is linked with suchpain! What a tormenting thing--and what a good must be meant to comeout of it!--to be hungry, downright, cravingly hungry with the wholemicrocosm, and not a halfpenny to buy a mouthful of assuagement!--tobe assailed with wafts of deliriously undefined promise, not one ofwhich seems likely to be fulfilled!--promise true to men hurrying hometo dinner or luncheon, but only rousing greater desire in such asClare and Tommy. Not one opportunity of appropriation presenteditself, else it would have gone ill with Tommy, now that the eyes andears of his guardian were on the alert. For Clare thought of him nowas a little thievish pup, for whose conduct, manners, and education hewas responsible. 

The agony began at length to abate--ready to revive with augmentedstrength when the next hour for supplying the human furnace shouldbegin to approach. Few even of those who know what hunger is, understand to what it may grow--how desire becomes longing, longingbecomes craving, and craving a wild passion of demand. It must beterrible to be hungry, and not know God!

As the evening came down upon them, worn out, faint with want, shivering with cold, and as miserable in prospect as at the moment, yet another need presented itself with equally imperativerequisition--that of shelter that they might rest. It was even moreimperative: they could not eat; they _must_ lie down!

Whether it be a rudiment retained from their remote ancestry, I cannottell, but any kind of suffering will wake in some a masterful impulseto burrow; and as the boys walked about in their misery, white withcold and hunger, Clare's eyes kept turning to every shallowestarchway, every breach in wall or hedge that seemed to offer the leastchance of covert, while, every now and then, Tommy would bolt from hisside to peer into some opening whose depth was not immediately patentto his ferret-gaze. Once, in a lane on the outskirts of the town, hedarted into a narrow doorway in the face of a wall, but instantlyrushed back in horror: within was a well, where water lay still anddark. Then first Clare had a hint of the peculiar dread Tommy had ofwater, especially of water dark and unexpected. Possibly he had oncebeen thrown into such water to be got rid of. But Clare at the momentwas too weary to take much notice of his dismay. 

It was an old town in which they were wandering, and change in thechannels of traffic had so turned its natural nourishment aside, thatit was in parts withering and crumbling away. Not a few of the houseswere, some from poverty, some from utter disuse, yielding fast todecay. But there were other causes for the condition of one, which, almost directly they came out of the lane I have just mentioned, intothe end of a wide silent street, drew the roving, questing eyes ofClare and Tommy. The moon was near the full and shining clear, so thatthey could perfectly see the state it was in. Most of its windows werebroken; its roof was like the back of a very old horse; itschimney-pots were jagged and stumped with fracture; from one of them, by its entangled string, the skeleton of a kite hung half-way down thefront. But, notwithstanding such signs of neglect, the red-brick walland the wrought-iron gate, both seven feet high, that shut the placeoff from the street, stood in perfect aged strength. The moment theysaw it, the house seemed to say to them, "There's nobody here: comein!" but the gate and the wall said, "Begone!"

Chapter XIX. 

The blacksmith and his forge. 

At the end of the wall was a rough boarded fence, in contact with it, and reaching, some fifty yards or so, to a hovel in which ablacksmith, of unknown antecedents, had taken possession of a forsakenforge, and did what odd jobs came in his way. The boys went along thefence till they came to the forge, where, looking in, they saw theblacksmith working his bellows. To one with the instincts of Clare'sbirth and breeding, he did not look a desirable acquaintance. Tommywas less fastidious, but he felt that the scowl on the man's browsboded little friendliness. Clare, however, who hardly knew what fearwas, did not hesitate to go in, for he was drawn as with a cart-ropeby the glow of the fire, and the sparks which, as they gazed, began, like embodied joys, to fly merrily from the iron. Tommy followed, keeping Clare well between him and the black-browed man, who rainedhis blows on the rosy iron in his pincers, as if he hated it. 

"What do you want, gutter-toads?" he cried, glancing up and seeingthem approach. "This ain't a hotel. "

"But it's a splendid fire, " rejoined Clare, looking into his face witha wan smile, "and we're so cold!"

"What's that to me!" returned the man, who, savage about something, was ready to quarrel with anything. "I didn't make my fire to warmlittle devils that better had never been born!"

"No, sir, " answered Clare; "but I don't think we'd better not havebeen born. We're both cold, and nobody but Tommy knows how hungry Iam; but your fire is so beautiful that, if you would let us standbeside it a minute or two, we wouldn't at all mind. "

"Mind, indeed! Mind what, you preaching little humbug?"

"Mind being born, sir. "

"Why do you say _sir_ to me? Don't you see I'm a working man?"

"Yes, and that's why. I think we ought to say _sir_ and _ma'am_ toevery one that can do something we can't. Tommy and I can't make irondo what we please, and you can, sir! It would be a grand thing for usif we could!"

"Oh, yes, a grand thing, no doubt!--Why?"

"Because then we could get something to eat, and somewhere to liedown. "

"Could you? Look at me, now! I can do the work of two men, and can'tget work for half a man!"

"That's a sad pity!" said Clare. "I wish I had work! Then I wouldbring you something to eat. "

The man did not tell them why he had not work enough--that hisdrunkenness, and the bad ways to which it had brought him, with thefact that he so often dawdled over the work that was given him, causedpeople to avoid him. 

"Who said I hadn't enough to eat? I ain't come to that yet, young 'un!What made you say that?"

"Because when I had work, I had plenty to eat; and now that I havenothing to do, I have nothing to eat. It's well I haven't work now, though, " added Clare with a sigh, "for I'm too tired to do any. Pleasemay I sit on this heap of ashes?"

"Sit where you like, so long 's you keep out o' my way. I 'ain't gotnothing to give you but a bar of iron. I'll toast one for you if youwould like a bite. "

"No, thank you, sir, " answered Clare, with a smile. "I'm afraid itwouldn't be digestible. They say toasted cheese ain't. I wish I had atry though!"

"You're a comical shaver, you are!" said the blacksmith. "You'll cometo the gallows yet, if you're a good boy! Them Sunday-schools is doin'a heap for the gallows!--That ain't your brother?"

By this time Tommy had begun to feel at home with the blacksmith, fromwhose face the cloud had lifted a little, so that he looked lessdangerous. He had edged nearer to the fire, and now stood in the lightof it. 

"No, " answered Clare, with an odd doubtfulness in his tone. "I oughtto say _yes_, perhaps, for all men are my brothers; but I mean Ihaven't any particular one of my very own. "

"That ain't no pity; he'd ha' been no better than you. I've a brotherI would choke any minute I got a chance. "

While they talked, the blacksmith had put his iron in the fire, andagain stood blowing the bellows, when his attention was caught by thegestures of the little red-eyed imp, Tommy, who was making rapid signsto him, touching his forehead with one finger, nodding mysteriously, and pointing at Clare with the thumb of his other hand, held close tohis side. He sought to indicate thus that his companion was aninnocent, whom nobody must mind. In the blacksmith Tommy saw one ofhis own sort, and the blacksmith saw neither in Tommy nor in Clare anyreason to doubt the hint given him. Not the less was he inclined todraw out the idiot. 

"Why do you let him follow you about, if he ain't your brother?" hesaid. "He ain't nice to look at!"

"I want to make him nice, " answered Clare, "and then he'll be nice tolook at. You mustn't mind him, please, sir. He's a very little boy, and 'ain't been well brought up. His granny ain't a good woman--atleast not very, you know, Tommy!" he added apologetically. 

"She's a damned old sinner!" said Tommy stoutly. 

The man laughed. 

"Ha, ha, my chicken! you know a thing or two!" he said, as he took hisiron from the fire, and laid it again on the anvil. 

But besides the brother he would so gladly strangle, there was anidiot one whom he had loved a little and teazed so much, that, when hedied, his conscience was moved. He felt therefore a little tendertoward the idiot before him. He bethought himself also that his jobwould soon be at a stage where the fewer the witnesses the better, forhe was executing a commission for certain burglars of hisacquaintance. He would do no more that night! He had money in hispocket, and he wanted a drink!

"Look here, cubs!" he said; "if you 'ain't got nowhere to go to, Idon't mind if you sleep here. There ain't no bed but the bed of theforge, nor no blankets but this leather apron: you may have them, foryou can't do them no sort of harm. I don't mind neither if you put ashovelful of slack and a little water now and then on the fire; and ifyou give it a blow or two with the bellows now and then, you won't bestone-dead afore the mornin'!--Don't be too free with the coals, now, and don't set the shed on fire, and take the bread out of my poorinnocent mouth. Mind what I tell you, and be good boys. "

"Thank you, sir, " said Clare. "I thought you would be kind to us! I'veone friend, a bull, that's very good to me. So is Jonathan. He's ahorse. The bull's name is Nimrod. He wants to gore always, but he'snever cross with me. "

The blacksmith burst into a roar of laughter at the idioticspeech. Then he covered the fire with coal, threw his apron overClare's head, and departed, locking the door of the smithy behind him. 

The boys looked at each other. Neither spoke. Tommy turned to thebellows, and began to blow. 

"Ain't you warm yet?" said Clare, who had seen his mother careful overthe coals. 

"No, I ain't. I want a blaze. "

"Leave the fire alone. The coal is the smith's, and he told us not towaste it. "

"He ain't no count!" said Tommy, as heartless as any grown man orwoman set on pleasure. 

"He has given us a place to be warm and sleep in! It would be a shameto do anything he didn't like. Have you no conscience, Tommy?"

"No, " said Tommy, who did not know conscience from copper. The germ ofit no doubt lay in the God-part of him, but it lay deep. Tommy--noworse than many a boy born of better parents--was like a hill full ofprecious stones, that grows nothing but a few little dry shrubs, andshoots out cold sharp rocks every here and there. 

"If you have no conscience, " answered Clare, "one must serve forboth--as far as it will reach! Leave go of that bellows, or I'll makeyou. "

Tommy let the lever go, turned his back, and wandered, in such dudgeonas he was capable of, to the other side of the shed. 

"Hello!" he cried, "here's a door!--and it ain't locked, it's onlybolted! Let's go and see!"

"You may if you like, " answered Clare, "but if you touch anything ofthe blacksmith's, I'll be down on you. "

"All right!" said Tommy, and went out to see if there was anything tobe picked up. 

Clare got on the stone hearth of the forge, and lay down in the hotashes, too far gone with hunger to care for the clothes that werealmost beyond caring for. He was soon fast asleep; and warmth andsleep would do nearly as much for him as food. 

Chapter XX. 

Tommy reconnoitres. 

Tommy, out in the moonlight, found himself in a waste yard, scatteredover with bits of iron, mostly old and rusty. It was not aninteresting place, for it was not likely to afford him anything toeat. Yet, with the instinct of the human animal, he went shifting andprying and nosing about everywhere. Presently he heard a curioussound, which he recognized as made by a hen. More stealthily yet hewent creeping hither and thither, feeling here and feeling there, inthe hope of laying his hand on the fowl asleep. Urged by his naturalimpulse to forage, he had forgotten Clare's warning. His hand did findher, and had it been his grandmother instead of Clare in the smithy, he would at once have broken the bird's neck before she could cry out;but with the touch of her feathers came the thought of Clare, and bythis time he understood that what Clare said, Clare would do. 

He had some knowledge of fowls; he had heard too much talk about themat his grandmother's not to know something of their habits; andfinding she sat so still, he concluded that under her might beeggs. To his delight it was so. The hen belonged to a house at somedistance, and had wandered from it, in obedience to the secretiveinstinct of animal maternity, strong in some hens, to seek a hiddenshelter for her offspring. This she had found in the smith's yard, beneath the mould-board of a plough that had lain there foryears. Slipping his hand under her, Tommy found five eggs. In greedyhaste he took them, every one. 

I must do him the justice to say that his first impulse was to dartwith them to Clare. But before he had taken a step toward him, againhe remembered his threat. With the eggs inside him, he could run therisk; he would not mind a few blows--not much; but if he took them toClare, the unbearable thing was, that he would assuredly give everyone of them back to the hen. He was an idiot, and Tommy was there tolook after him; but, in looking after Clare, was Tommy to neglecthimself? If Clare would not eat the eggs Tommy carried him, as mostcertainly he would not, the best thing was for Tommy to eat themhimself! What a good thing that it was no use to steal for Clare! Thesteal would be all for himself! Not a step from the spot did Tommymove till he had sucked every one of the five eggs. But he made onemistake: he threw away the shells. 

When he had sucked them, he found himself much lighter-hearted, but, alas, nearly as hungry as before! The spirit of research began againto move him: where were eggs, what might there not be beside?

The moon was nearly at the full; the smith's yard was radiantlyilluminated. But even the moon could lend little enchantment to ascene where nothing was visible but rusty, broken, deserted, despairful pieces of old iron. Tommy lifted his eyes and lookedfurther. 

The enclosure was of small extent, bounded on one side by the gardenwall of the house they had just passed, and at the bottom by a brokenfence, dividing it from a piece of waste land that probably belongedto the house. As he roamed about, Tommy spied a great heap of old ironpiled up against the wall, and made for it, in the hope of enlarginghis horizon. He scrambled to the top, and looked over. His gaze fellright into a big but, full of dark water. Twice that evening he metthe same horror! There was a legendary report, though he had not heardit, I fancy, that his mother drowned herself instead of him: she fellin, and he was fished out. Whether this was the origin of his fear ornot, so far from getting down by means of the water-but, Tommy darednot cross at that point. With much trembling he got on the top of thewall, turned his back on the but, and ran along like a cat, in searchof a place where he could descend into the garden. He went right tothe end, round the corner, and half-way along the bottom before hefound one. There he came to a doorway that had been solidly walled upon the outside, while the door was left in position on theinside--ready for use when the court of chancery should have decidedto whom the house belonged. Its frame was flush with the wall, so thatits bolts and lock afforded Tommy foothold enough to descend, andconfidence of being able to get up again. 

He landed in a moonlit wilderness--such a wilderness as a desertedgarden speedily becomes, the wealth in the soil converting it thesooner to a savage chaos. Full of the impulse of discovery, and thehope of presenting himself with importance to Clare as the bringer ofgood tidings, Tommy forced his way through or crept under theovergrown bushes, until he reached a mossy rather than gravelly walk, where it was more easy to advance. It led him to the house. 

Had he been a boy of any imagination, he would have shuddered at thethought of attempting an entrance. All the windows had outsideshutters. Those of the ground floor were closed--except one that swungto and fro, and must have swung in many a wind since the house wasabandoned. The moon shone with a dull whitish gleam on the dustywindows of the first and second stories, and on the great dormers thatshot out from the slope of the roof, and cast strange shadows uponit. The door to the garden had had a porch of trellis-work, over whichjasmine and other creeping plants were trained; but whether anythingof the porch was left, no one could have told in that thicket ofcreepers, interlaced and matted by antagonist forces of wind andgrowth so that not a hint of door was visible. Clearly there wasnobody within. 

Tommy sought the window with the open shutter. Through the dirtyglass, and the reflection of the moon, he could see nothing. He triedthe sash, but could not stir it. He went round the corner to one endof the house, and saw another door. But an enemy stepped between: themoon shone suddenly up from the ground. In a hollow of the pavementhad gathered a pool from the drip of the neglected gutters, and out ofits hidden depth the staring round looked at him. It was the thirdtime Tommy's nerves had been shaken that night, and he could stand nomore. At the awful vision he turned and fled, fell, and rose and fledagain. It was not imagination in Tommy; it was an undefined, inexplicable horror, that must have had a cause, but could have noreason. Young as he was he had already more than once looked on theface of death, and had felt no awe; he had listened to the gruesomestof tales, told not altogether without art, and had never moved a hairOnly one material and two spiritual things had power with him; the onematerial thing was hunger, the two spiritual things were a feeble lovefor Clare, and a strong horror of water of any seeming depth. Now anew element was added to this terror by the meddling of the moon inthe fiendish mystery--the secret of which must, I think, have been thebottomless depth she gave the water. 

He rushed down the garden. With frightful hindrance from theovergrowth, he found the prisoned door by strange perversion become aladder, gained by it the top of the wall, and sped along as if pursuedby an incarnate dread. Horror of horrors! all at once the moon againlooked up at him from below: he was within a yard or two of the bigwater-but! Right up to it he must go, for, close to it, on the otherside of the wall, was the heap of iron by which alone he could getdown. He tightened every nerve for the effort. He assured himself thatthe thing would be over in a moment; that the water was quiet, andcould not follow him; that presently he would find himself in thesmithy by the warm forge-fire. The scaring necessity was, that he muststoop and kneel right over the water-but, in order to send his legs inadvance down the wall to the top of the mound. It was a moment ofagony. That very moment, with an appalling unearthly cry, somethingdark, something hideous, something of inconceivable ghastliness, as itseemed to Tommy, sprang right out of the water into the air. Hetumbled from the wall among the iron, and there lay. 

The stolen eggs were avenged. The hen, feverish and unhappy from theloss of her hope of progeny, had gone to the but to sip a littlewater. Tommy, appearing on the wall above her, startled her. She, flying up with a screech, startled Tommy, and became her own unwittingavenger. 

Chapter XXI. 

Tommy is found and found out. 

When Clare woke from his first sleep, which he did within an hour--forhe was too hungry to sleep straight on, and the door, imperfectlyclosed by Tommy, had come open, and let in a cold wind with themoonlight--he raised himself on his elbow, and peered from his stoneshelf into the dreary hut. He could not at once tell where he was, butwhen he remembered, his first thought was Tommy. He looked about forhim. Tommy was nowhere. Then he saw the open door, and remembered hehad gone out. Surely it was time he had come back! Stiff and sore, heturned on his longitudinal axis, crept down from the forge, and wentout shivering to look for his imp. The moon shone radiant on the rustyiron, and the glamour of her light rendered not a few of its shapesand fragments suggestive of cruel torture. Picking his way amongspikes and corners and edges, he walked about the hideous wildernesssearching for Tommy, afraid to call for fear of attracting attention. The hen too was walking about, disconsolate, but she took no notice ofhim, neither did the sight of her give him any hint or rouse in himthe least suspicion: how could he suspect one so innocent and troubledfor the avenging genius through whom Tommy's white face lay upturnedto the white moon! Her egg-shells lay scattered, each a ghastly pointin the moonshine, each a silent witness to the deed that had beendone. Tommy scattered and forgot them; the moon gathered and notedthem. But they told Clare nothing, either of Tommy's behaviour or ofTommy himself. 

He came at last to the heap of metal, and there lay Tommy, caught inits skeleton protrusions. A shiver went through him when he saw thepallid face, and the dark streak of blood across it. He concluded thatin trying to get over the wall he had failed and fallen back. Heclimbed and took him in his arms. Tommy was no weight for Clare, weakwith hunger as he was, to carry to the smithy. He laid him on thehearth, near the fire, and began to blow it up. The roaring of thewind in the fire did not wake him. Clare went on blowing. The heatrose and rose, and brought the boy to himself at last, in nocomfortable condition. He opened his eyes, scrambled to his feet, andstared wildly around him. 

"Where is it?" he cried. 

"Where's what?" rejoined Clare, leaving the bellows, and taking a holdof him lest he should fall off. 

"The head that flew out of the water-but, " answered Tommy with ashudder. 

"Have you lost your senses, Tommy?" remonstrated Clare. "I found youlying on a heap of old iron against the wall, with the moon shining onyou. "

"Yes, yes!--the moon! She jumped out of the water-but, and got a holdof me as I was getting down. I knew she would!"

"I didn't think you were such a fool, Tommy!" said Clare. 

"Well, you hadn't the pluck to go yourself! You stopt in!" criedTommy, putting his hand to his head, but more sorely hurt that anidiot should call him a fool. 

"Come and let me see, Tommy, " said Clare. 

He wanted to find out if he was much hurt; but Tommy thought he wantedto go to the water-but, and screamed. 

"Hold your tongue, you little idiot!" cried Clare. "You'll have allthe world coming after us! They'll think I'm murdering you!"

Tommy restrained himself, and gradually recovering, told Clare what hehad discovered, but not what he had found. 

"There's something yellow on your jacket! What is it?" said Clare. "Ido believe--yes, it is!--you've been eating an egg! Now I remember! Isaw egg-shells, more than two or three, lying in the yard, and thepoor hen walking about looking for her eggs! You little rascal! Youpig of a boy! I won't thrash you this time, because you've fetchedyour own thrashing. But--!"

He finished the sentence by shaking his fist in Tommy's face, andlooking as black at him as he was able. 

"I do believe it was the hen herself that frighted you!" he added. "She served you right, you thief!"

"I didn't know there was any harm, " said Tommy, pretending to sob. 

"Why didn't you bring me my share, then?"

"'Cos I knowed you'd ha' made me give 'em back to the hen!"

"And you didn't know there was any harm, you lying little brute!"

"No, I didn't. "

"Now, look here, Tommy! If you don't mind what I tell you, you and Ipart company. One of us two must be master, and I will, or you musttramp. Do you hear me?"

"I can't do without wictuals!" whimpered Tommy. "I didn't come wi'_you_ a purpose to be starved to death!"

"I dare say you didn't; but when I starve, you must starve too; andwhen I eat, you shall have the first mouthful. What did you come withme for?"

"'Acos you was the strongest, " answered Tommy, "an' I reckoned youwould get things from coves we met!"

"Well, I'm not going to get things from coves we meet, except theygive them to me. But have patience, Tommy, and I'll get you all youcan eat. You must give me time, you know! I 'ain't got work yet!--Comehere. Lie down close to me, and we'll go to sleep. "

The urchin obeyed, pillowed his head on Clare's chest, and went fastasleep. 

Clare slept too after a while, but the necessities of his relation toTommy were fast making a man of him. 

Chapter XXII. 

The smith in a rage. 

They had not slept long, when they were roused by a hideous clamourand rattling at the door, and thunderous blows on the wooden sides ofthe shed. Clare woke first, and rubbed his eyelids, whose hinges wererusted with sleep. He was utterly perplexed with the uproar andromage. The cabin seemed enveloped in a hurricane of kicks, and theair was in a tumult of howling and brawling, of threats and curses, whose inarticulateness made them sound bestial. There never came pauselong enough for Clare to answer that they were locked in, and that thesmith must have the key in his pocket. But when Tommy came to himself, which he generally did the instant he woke, but not so quickly thistime because of his fall, he understood at once. 

"It's the blacksmith! He's roaring drunk!" he said. 

"Let's be off, Clare! The devil 'ill be to pay when he gets in! He'llmurder us in our beds!"

"We ought to let him into his own house if we can, " replied Clare, rising and going to the door. It was well for him that he found no wayof opening it, for every instant there came a kick against it thatthreatened to throw it from lock and hinges at once. He protested hisinability, but the madman thought he was refusing to admit him, andwent into a tenfold fury, calling the boys hideous names, and swearinghe would set the shed on fire if they did not open at once. The boysshouted, but the man had no sense to listen with, and began such afurious battery on the door, with his whole person for a ram, thatTommy made for the rear, and Clare followed--prudent enough, however, in all his haste, to close the back-door behind them. 

Tommy was in front, and led the way to the bottom of the yard, andover the fence into the waste ground, hoping to find some point inthat quarter where he could mount the wall. He could not face thewater-but--with the moon in it, staring out of the immensity of thelower world. He ran and doubled and spied, but could find nofoothold. Least of all was ascent possible at the spot where the doorstood on the other side; the bricks were smoother than elsewhere. Heturned the corner and ran along a narrow lane, Clare still following, for he thought Tommy knew what he was about; but Tommy could find noencouragement to attempt scaling the wall. They might have fled intothe fields that lay around; but the burrowing instinct was strong, andthe deserted house drew them. Then Clare, finding Tommy at fault, bethought him that the little rascal had got up by the heap on whichhe discovered him, and must be afraid to go that way again. He facedabout and ran, in his turn become leader. Tommy wheeled also, andfollowed, but with misgiving. When they reached the farther corner ofthe bottom wall, they stopped and peeped round before they would turnit: they might run against the blacksmith in chase of them! But thesound of his continued hammering at the door came to them, and theywent on. They crossed the fence and ran again, ran faster, for nowevery step brought them nearer to their danger: the heap of iron laybetween them and the smithy, and any moment the smith might burst intothe shed, rush through, and be out upon them. 

They reached the heap. Clare sprang up; and Tommy, urged on the oneside by the fear of the drunken smith, and drawn on the other by thedread of being abandoned by Clare, climbed shuddering after him. 

"Mind the water-but, Clare!" he gasped; "an' gi' me a hand up. "

Clare had already turned on the top of the wall to help him. 

"Now let me go first!" said Tommy, the moment he had his foot onit. "I know how to get down. "

He scudded along the wall, glad to have Clare between him and thebut. Clare followed swiftly. He was not so quick on the cat-promenadeas Tommy, but he had a good head, and was spurred by the apprehensionof being seen up there in the moonlight. 

Chapter XXIII. 

Treasure trove. 

In a few moments they were safe in the thicket at the foot of what hadbeen their enemy and was now their friend--the garden-wall. How manythings and persons there are whose other sides are altogetherfriendly! These are their true selves, and we must be true to get atthem. 

Tommy again took the lead, though with a fresh sinking of the heartbecause of that other place with the moon in it. Through the tangledthicket they made or found their way--and there stood the house, withthe moon looking down on its roof, and the drunkard's thundertroubling her still pale light--her _moon-thinking_. But for the noiseand the haste, Clare would have been frightened at them. There seemedsome secret between the house and the moon which they were determinedno one else should share. They were of one mind to terrify man or boywho should attempt to cross the threshold! There was no time, however, to heed such fancies. "If we could only get in without spoilinganything!" thought Clare. Once in, they would hurt nothing, take butthe shelter and rest lying there of no good to anybody, and leave themthere all the same when they had done with them!

While they stood looking at the house, the thundering at the door ofthe smithy ceased. Presently they heard voices in altercation. Onevoice was that of the smith, quieter than when last they heard it, butill-tempered and growling as at first. The other seemed that of awoman. She had been able so far to quiet him, probably, that heremembered he had the key in his pocket; for they thought they heardthe door of the smithy open. Then all was silent, and the outcastspursued their quest of an entrance to the house. 

Clare went ferreting as Tommy had done. He also tried to get a peepthrough the window with the swinging shutter, but had no bettersuccess than Tommy. Then he started to go round the corner next theblacksmith's yard. 

"Look out!" cried Tommy in a loud whisper, when he saw where he wasgoing. 

"Why?" asked Clare. 

"Because there's a horrible hole there, full of water, " answeredTommy. 

"I'll keep a look out, " returned Clare, and went. 

When he was about half-way along the end of the house, he heard anoise he did not understand, and stopped to listen. Some one seemedmoving somewhere. 

Then came a kind of scrambling sound, and presently the noise of agreat watery splash. Clare shivered from head to foot. 

"Something has fallen into the hole Tommy mentioned!" he said tohimself, and ran on to see. A few steps brought him to what Tommy hadtaken for a great hole. It was nothing but a pool of rain-water: thesplash could not have come from that!

Then it occurred to him that the water-but could not be far off. Heforced his way through shrubs of various kinds, and reaching the wall, went back along it until he came to the but. A ray of moonlight showedhim that the side of it was wet, as if the water had lately come overthe edge. He looked about for some means of getting a peep into thehuge thing. It stood on a brick stand, of which it left a narrow edgeclear, but on this edge the bulge of the but would not permit him tomount. With the help of a small tree, however, he got on the wall, which was better. 

Spying into the but, he could see nothing at first, for a chimney wasnow between it and the moon. A moment more, however, and he descriedsomething white in the dull iron gleam of the water. It was under thewater, but floating near the surface. He lay down on the wall, plungedhis arm into the but, laid hold of it, and drew it out. It was alittle heavy for the size, for what should it be but a tiny baby, in aflannel night-gown, which, as he drew it out, sent back little noisystreams into the but! It lay perfectly still in his arms, he did notknow whether dead or alive, but he thought it could hardly be drownedso soon after the splash. It had been drugged, and the antagonism ofthe two means employed to kill it was probably the saving of its life. 

Clare stood in stony bewilderment. What was he to do? Certainly not togo after the mother! The first thing was to get it down from thewall. That he could easily have done on the other side, by the heap;but that was the side whence it must have been thrown, and they wouldbe but in worse difficulty there! He must get the baby down inside thewall! With at least one arm occupied, the tree-way was impracticable. There was only one other way, and that full of danger! But where thereis only one way, that way must be taken, and Clare did not hesitate. He started along the top of the wall, with the poor unconscious germof humanity in his arms. He had lifted it from its watery coffin, outof the cold arms of death, up into the clear air of life! True, thatair was cold, and filled only with moonshine; but there was the housewhose seal might be broken! and the moon saw the sun making warm theunder world! Along the narrow way, through the still, keen glimmer, unseen, probably, by any eye in the sleeping town, he bore his burden, speeding as fast as he dared, for he must not set a foot down amiss!

Had any one caught sight of him, what a commotion would not the talehave roused--of the spectre of a boy with a baby in his arms, glidingnoiseless in the moon and the middle night, along the top of the highbrick wall of a deserted house, where no one had lived within thememory of man!

When he reached the door-ladder, he found descent difficult butpossible. It was more difficult to make his way through the tangledbushes without scratching the baby, which, after all, might, alas, bebeyond hurt! He held it close to his bosom, life coaxing life to "staya little. "

Thus laden, he appeared before Tommy, who had heard the splash, andthought Clare had fallen into the deep hole, but had not had courageto go and see, partly from the fear of verifying his fear, but morefrom his horror of the watery abyss. He stood trembling where Clarehad left him. 

To save the baby was now Clare's only thought. The baby was now theone thing in the universe! If only the light that shone on it werethat of the hot sun instead of the cold moon, which looked far morelike killing than bringing to life! "And, " thought Clare with himself, "there ain't much more heat in my body than in that shivery moon!" Butthe sun would wake and mount the sky, and send the moon down, and allwould be different! Only, if nothing could be done in the meantime, where would baby be by then!

"Here, Tommy, " he cried, "come and see what I found in the water-but. "

At the word, Tommy turned to flee; but confidence in Clare, andcuriosity to see what, in Clare's arms, could hardly hurt him, prevailed, and he drew near cautiously. 

"Lord, it's a kid!" he cried. 

"It's not a kid, " said Clare, who had no slang; "it's a baby!"

"Well! ain't a baby a kid, just?"

Tommy did not know that the word stood for anything else than a child, which was indeed its meaning long before it was specially applied tothe young of the goat. A _kidnapper_ or _kidnabber_ is a stealer ofchildren. Mr. Skeat tells us that _kid_ meant at first just a youngone. 

"You can't tell me what to do with it, I'm afraid, Tommy!" said Clare. 

Already it was as if from all eternity he had loved this helplesslittle waif of Time, with its small, thin, blue-gray, gin-druggedface; this tiny life, so hopeless, so miserable, yet so uncomplaining:the thing that was, was the thing for it to bear; it had come into theworld to bear it! Ready to die, even Death would not have it; it mustlive where it was not wanted, where it was not welcome!

"Yes, I can!" answered Tommy with evil promptitude. "Put it in again. "

"But that would drown it, you know, Tommy!" answered Clare, treatinghim like the child he was not. "We want it to live, Tommy!"

His tenderness for the baby made him speak with foolish gentleness. 

"No, we don't!" returned Tommy. "What business has _it_ to live, whenwe can't get nothing to eat?"

Clare held faster to the baby with one arm, and with the fist of theother struck straight out at Tommy, hit him between the eyes, andknocked him flat. It was a miserable thing to have to do, and it madeClare miserable, for Tommy was not half his size, and was stillsuffering from his fall on the iron. But then the dying baby was nothalf Tommy's size, and any milder argument would have been lost onhim: he was thus sent on the way to understand that the baby hadrights; and that if the baby could not enforce them, there was one inthe world that could and would. Never in his life did Clare show moreinstinctive wisdom than in that knock-down blow to the hardly blamablelittle devil!

Tommy got up at once. He was not much hurt, for he had a hard headthough he was easily knocked over. From that moment he began torespect Clare. He had loved him before in a way; he had patronizedhim, and feared to offend him because he was stronger than he; butuntil now he had had no respect for him, believing little Tommy a muchfiner fellow than big Clare. There are thousands for whom a blow is abetter thing than expostulation, persuasion, or any sort ofkindness. They are such that nothing but a blow will set their doorajar for love to get in. That is why hardships, troubles, disappointments, and all kinds of pain and suffering, are sent to somany of us. We are so full of ourselves, and feel so grand, that weshould never come to know what poor creatures we are, never begin todo better, but for the knock-down blows that the loving God gives us. We do not like them, but he does not spare us for that. 

Chapter XXIV. 

Justifiable burglary. 

Tommy rose rubbing his forehead, and crying quietly. He did not daresay a word. It was well for him he did not. Clare, perplexed andanxious about the baby, was in no mood to accept annoyance fromTommy. But the urchin remaining silent, the elder boy's indignationbegan immediately to settle down. 

The infant lay motionless, its little heart beating doubtfully, likethe ticking of a clock off the level, as if the last beat might beindeed the last. 

"We _must_ get into the house, Tommy!" said Clare. 

"Yes, Clare, " answered Tommy, very meekly, and went off like a shot torenew investigation at the other end of the house. He was back in amoment, his face as radiant with success as such a face could be, withsuch a craving little body under it. 

"Come, come, " he cried. "We can get in quite easy. I ha' _been_ in!"

The keen-eyed monkey had found a cellar-window, sunk a little belowthe level of the ground--a long, narrow, horizontal slip, with agrating over its small area not fastened down. He had lifted it, andpushed open the window, which went inward on rusty hinges--so rustythat they would not quite close again. That he had been in was alie. _He_ knew better than go first! He belonged to the school of_No. 1!_--all mean beggars. 

Clare hastened after him. 

"Gi' me the kid, an' you get in; you can reach up for it better, 'cause ye're taller, " said Tommy. 

"Is it much of a drop?" asked Clare. 

"Nothing much, " answered Tommy. 

Clare handed him the baby, instructing him how to hold it, andthreatening him if he hurt it; then laid himself on his front, shovedhis legs across the area through the window, and followed with hisbody. Holding on to the edge of the window-sill, he let his feet asfar down as he could, then dropped, and fell on a heap of coals, whence he tumbled to the floor of the cellar. 

"You should have told me of the coals!" he said, rising, and callingup through the darkness. 

"I forgot, " answered Tommy. 

"Give me the baby, " said Clare. 

When Tommy took the baby, he renewed that moment, and began to cherishthe sense of an injury done him by the poor helpless thing. He did notpinch it, only because he dared not, lest it should cry. When he heardClare fall on the coals, and then heard him call up from the depth ofthe cellar, he was greatly tempted to turn with it to the other end ofthe house, and throw it in the pool, then make for the wall and thefields, leaving Clare to shift for himself. But he durst not go nearthe pool, and Clare would be sure to get out again and be after him!so he stood with the hated creature in his unprotective arms. WhenClare called for it, he got into the shallow area, and pushed the babythrough the window, grasping the extreme of its garment, and lettingit hang into the darkness of the cellar, head downward. I believe thenthe baby was sick, for, a moment after, and before Clare could get ahold of it, it began to cry. The sound thrilled him with delight. 

"Oh, the darling!--Can't you let her down a bit farther, Tommy?" hesaid, with suppressed eagerness. 

He had climbed on the heap of coals, and was stretching up his arms toreceive her. In the faint glimmer from the diffused light of the moon, he could just distinguish the window, blocked up by Tommy; the baby hecould not see. 

"No, I can't, " answered Tommy. "Catch! There!"

So saying he yielded to his spite, and waiting no sign of preparednesson the part of Clare, let go his hold, and dropped the little one. Itfell on Clare and knocked him over; but he clasped it to him as hefell, and they hurtled to the bottom of the coals without much damage. 

"I have her!" he cried as he got up. "Now you come yourself, Tommy. "

He had known no baby but his lost sister, and thought of all babies asgirls. 

"You'll catch me, won't you, Clare?" said Tommy. 

"The thing you've done once you can do again! I can't set down thebaby to catch you!" replied the unsuspicious Clare, and turned to seekan exit from the cellar. He had not had time yet to wonder how Tommyhad got out. 

Tommy came tumbling on the top of the coals: he dared not be left withthe water-but and the pool and the moon. 

"Where are you, Clare?" he called. 

Clare answered him from the top of the stone stair that led to thecellar, and Tommy was soon at his heels. Going along a dark passage, where they had to feel their way, they arrived at the kitchen. Theloose outside shutter belonged to it, and as it was open, a little ofthe moonlight came in. The place looked dreary enough and cold enoughwith its damp brick-floor and its rusty range; but at least they wereout of the air, and out of sight of the moon! If only they had some ofthat coal alight!

"I don't see as we're much better off!" said Tommy. "I'm as cold aspigs' trotters!"

"Then what must baby be like!" said Clare, whose heart was brimful ofanxiety for his charge. It seemed to him he had never known miserytill now. Life or death for the baby--and he could do nothing! He wascold enough himself, what with hunger, and the night, and the wet anddeadly cold little body in his arms; but whatever discomfort he felt, it seemed not himself but the baby that was feeling it; he imputed itall to the baby, and pitied the baby for the cold he felt himself. 

"We needn't stay here, though, " he said. "There must be better placesin the house! Let's try and find a bedroom!"

"Come along!" responded Tommy. 

They left the kitchen, and went into the next room. It seemed warmer, because it had a wooden floor. There was hardly any light in it, butit felt empty. They went up the stair. When they turned on the landinghalf-way, they saw the moon shining in. They went into the first roomthey came to. Such a bedroom!--larger and grander than any at theparsonage!

"Oh baby! baby!" cried Clare, "now you'll live--won't you?"

He seemed to have his own Maly an infant again in his arms. Thethought that the place was not his, and that he might get into troubleby being there, never came to him. Use was not theft! The room and itscontents were to him as the water and the fire which even paganscounted every man bound to hand to his neighbour. There was the bed!Through all the cold time it had been waiting for them! Thecounterpane was very dusty; and oh, such moth-eaten blankets! Butthere were sheets under them, and they were quite clean, though dingywith age! The moths--that is, their legs and wings and dried-upbodies--flew out in clouds when they moved the blankets. Not the lesshad they discovered Paradise! For the moths, they must have found itan island of plum-cake!

I do not know the history of the house--how it came to be shut up withso much in it. I only know it was itself shut up in chancery, andchancery is full of moths and dust and worms. I believe nobody in thetown knew much about it--not even the thieves. It was of course saidto be haunted, which had doubtless done something for itsprotection. No one knew how long it had stood thus deserted. Nobodythought of entering it, or was aware that there was furniture init. It was supposed to be somebody's property, and that it wassomebody's business to look after it: whether it was looked after ornot, nobody inquired. Happily for Clare and the baby and Tommy, thatwas nobody's business. 

With deft hands--for how often had he not seen his baby-sisterundressed!--Clare hurried off the infant's one garment, gently rubbedher little body till it was quite dry, if not very clean, and laid hertenderly in the heart of the blankets, among the remains and eggs andgrubs of the mothy creatures--they were not wild beasts, or evenstinging things--and covered her up, leaving a little opening for herto breathe through. She had not cried since Clare took her; she wastoo feeble to cry; but, alas, there was no question about feeding her, for he had no food to give her, were she crying ever so much! He threwoff his clothes, and got into the mothy blankets beside her. In a fewminutes he began to glow, for there was a thick pile of woollysalvation atop of him. He took the naked baby in his arms and held herclose to his body, and they grew warmer together. 

"Now, Tommy, " he said, "you may take off your clothes, and get in onthe other side of me. "

Tommy did not need a second invitation, and in a moment they were allfast asleep. A few months, even a few days before, it would have beena right painful thing to Clare to lie so near a boy like Tommy, butsuffering had taken the edge off nicety and put it on humanity. Thetemple of the Lord may need cleansing, but the temple of the Lord itis. Clare had in him that same spirit which made _the_ son of man gobeyond the healingly needful, and lay his hand--the Sinaiticmanuscript says his _hands_--upon the leper, where a word alone wouldhave served for the leprosy: the hands were for the man'sheart. Repulsive danger lay in the contact, but the flesh and boneswere human, and very cold. 

Chapter XXV. 

A new quest. 

Though as comfortable as one could be who so sorely lacked food, Clareslept lightly. His baby was heavy on his mind, and he woke veryearly--woke at once to the anxious thought of a boy without food, money, or friends, and with a hungry baby. He woke, however, with anew train of reasoning in his mind. Babies could not work; babiesalways had their food given them; therefore babies who hadn't food hada right to ask for it; babies couldn't ask for it; therefore those whohad the charge of them, and hadn't food to give them, had a right todo the asking for them. He could not beg for himself as long as he wasable to ask for work; but for baby it was his duty to beg, because shecould not wait: she would not live till he found work. If he got workthat very day, he would have to work the whole day before he got themoney for it, and baby would be dead by that time! He crept out, so asnot to awake the sleepers, and put on his clothes. They were not dry, but they would dry when the sun rose. He did not at all like leavinghis baby with Tommy, but what was he to do? She might as well die ofTommy as of hunger! Perhaps it might be easier!

He thought over the nature of the boy, and what it would be best tosay to him. He saw what many genial persons are slow to see, thatkindness, in its natural shape, is to certain dispositions a greatbarrier in the way of learning either love or duty. With multitudes, nothing but undiluted fear or pain or shame can open the door for loveto enter. 

He searched the house for a medicine-bottle, such as he had seenplenty of at the parsonage, and found two. He chose the smaller, lestsize should provoke disinclination. Then he woke Tommy, and said tohim, "Tommy, I'm going out to get baby's breakfast. "

"Ain't you going to give _me_ any? Is the kid to have _everything_?"

"Tommy!" said Clare, with a steady look in his eyes that frightenedhim, "your turn will come next. You won't die of want for a day or twoyet. I'll see to you as soon as I can. Only, remember, baby comesfirst! I'm going to leave her with you. You needn't take her up. You're not able to carry her. You would let her fall. But if, when Icome home, I find anything has happened to her, _I'll put you in thewater-but_--I WILL. And I'll do it when the moon is in it. "

Tommy pulled a hideous face, and began to yell. Clare seized him bythe throat. 

"Make that noise again, you rascal, and I'll choke you. If you're goodto baby while I'm away, I won't eat a mouthful till you've had some;if you're not good to her, you know what will happen! You've got thething in your own hands!"

"She'll go an' do something I can't help, an' then you'll go for todrown me!"

Again he began to howl, but Clare checked him as before. "If you wakeher up, I'll--" He had no words, and shook him for lack of any. "Isee, " he resumed, "I shall have to lock you up in the coal-cellar tillI come back! Here! come along!"

Tommy was quiet instantly, and fell to pleading. Clare lent a graciousear, and yielding to Tommy's protestations, left him with histreasure, and set out on his quest. 

He got out through the kitchen, the rustiness of the fastenings of itsdoor delaying him a little, and over the wall by the imprisoned door, taking care to lift as little as possible of his person above thecoping as he crossed. He dared not go along the wall in the daylight, or get down in the smith's yard; he dropped straight to the ground. 

The country was level, and casting his eyes about, he saw, at no greatdistance, what looked like a farmstead. He knew cows were milkedearly, but did not know what time it was. Hoping anyhow to reach theplace before the milk was put away in the pans, he set out to runstraight across the fields. But he soon found he could not run, andhad to drop into a walk. 

When he got into the yard, he saw a young woman carrying a foamingpail of milk across to the dairy. He ran to her, and addressed herwith his usual "Please, ma'am;" but the pail was heavy, and she kepton without answering him. Clare followed her, and looking into thedairy, saw an elderly woman. 

"Please, ma'am, could you afford me as much fresh milk as would fillthat bottle?" he said, showing it. 

"Well, my man, " she answered pleasantly, "I think we might venture asfar without fear of the workhouse! But what on earth made you bringsuch a thimble of a bottle as that?"

"I have no money to pay for it, you see, ma'am; and I thought a littlebottle would be better to beg with; it wouldn't be so hard on thefarmer!"

"Bless the boy! Much good a drop of milk like that will do him!" saidthe woman, turning to the girl "Is it for your mother's tea?"

"No, ma'am; it's for a baby--a very little baby, ma'am!--I think itwill hold enough, " he added, giving an anxious glance at the bottle inhis hand, "to keep her alive till I get work. "

The woman looked, and her heart was drawn to the boy who stood gazingat her with his whole solemn, pathetic yet strong face--with his wide, clear eyes, his decided nose, large and straight, his rather long, fine mouth, trembling with eager anxiety, and his confident chin. Shesaw hunger in his grimy cheeks; she saw that his manners were those ofa gentleman, and his clothes poor enough for any tramp, thoughevidently not made for a tramp. She would have concluded him escapedfrom cruel guardians, for she was a reader of _The Family Herald_; butthat would not account for the baby! The baby did not tally!

"How old's the baby?" she asked. 

"I don't know, ma'am; she only came to us last night. "

"Who brought her?"

She imagined the boy a simpleton, and expected one of such answers asinconvenient questions in natural history receive from nurses. 

"I don't know, ma'am. I took her out of the water-but. "

The thing grew bewildering. 

"Who put her there?"

"I don't know, ma'am. "

"Whose baby is she, then?"

"Mine, I think, ma'am. "

"God bless the boy!" said the woman impatiently, and stared at himspeechless. 

Her daughter in the meantime had filled the phial with new milk. Shehanded it to him. He grasped it eagerly. Tears of joy came in his bighungry eyes. 

"Oh, _thank_ you, ma'am!" he said. "But, please, would you tell me, "he continued, looking from the one to the other, "how much water Imust put in the milk to make it good for baby? I know it wants water, but I don't know how much!"

"Oh, about half and half, " answered the elder woman. "'Ain't she gotno mother?" she resumed. 

"I think she must have a mother, but I daresay she's a tramp, "answered Clare. 

"I don't want to give my good milk to a tramp!" she rejoined. 

"_I_'m not a tramp, please, ma'am!--at least I wasn't till the daybefore yesterday. "

The woman looked at him out of motherly eyes, and her heart swelledinto her bosom. 

"Wouldn't you like some milk yourself?" she said. 

"Oh, yes, ma'am!" answered Clare, with a deep sigh. 

She filled a big cup from the warm milk in the pail, and held it outto him. He took it as a man on the scaffold might a reprieve fromdeath, half lifted it to his lips, then let his hand sink. It trembledso, as he set the cup down on a shelf beside him, that he spilled alittle. He looked ruefully at the drops on the brick floor. 

"Please, ma'am, there's Tommy!" he faltered. 

His promise to Tommy had sprung upon him like a fiery flying serpent. 

"Tommy! I thought you said the baby was a girl?"

"Yes, the baby's a girl; but there's Tommy as well! He's another ofus. "

"Your brother, of course!"

"No, ma'am; I'm afraid he's a tramp. But there he is, you see, and Imust share with him!"

It grew more and more inexplicable!

A gruff, loud voice came from the yard. It was the farmer's. He was abitter-tempered man, and his dislike of tramps was almost hatred. Hiswife and daughter knew that if he saw the boy he would be worse thanrude to him. 

"There's the master!" cried the mother. "Drink, and make haste out ofhis way. "

"If it's stealing, --" said Clare. 

"Stealing! It's no stealing! The dairy's mine! I can give my milkwhere I please!"

"Well, ma'am, if the milk's mine because you gave it me, it's notbegging to ask you to give me a piece of bread for it! I could take ashare of that to Tommy!"

"Run, Chris, " cried the mother, hurriedly; "take the innocent withyou--round outside the yard. Give him a hunch of bread, and let himgo. For God's sake don't let your father see him! Run, my boy, run!There's no time to drink the milk now!"

She poured it back into the pail, and set the cup out of the way. 

There was a little passage and another door, by which they left as thefarmer entered. The kick he would have given Clare with his heavy bootwould, in its consequences, have reached the baby too. The girl ranwith him to the back of the house. 

"Wait a moment at that window, " she said. 

Now whether it was loving-kindness all, or that she dared not take thetime to divide it, I cannot tell, but she handed Clare a whole loaf, and that a good big one, of home-made bread, and disappeared before hecould thank her, telling him to run for his life. 

He was able now. With the farmer behind, and the hungry ones beforehim, he _must_ run; and with the phial in his pocket and the loaf inhis hands, he _could_ run. Happily the farmer did not catch sight ofhim. His wife took care he should not. I believe, indeed, she got up abrand-new quarrel with him on the spur of the moment, that he mightnot have a chance. 

Chapter XXVI. 

A new entrance. 

Clare sped jubilant. But soon came a check to his jubilation: it wasone thing to drop from the wall, and quite another to climb to the topof it without the help of the door! The same moment he heard the clinkof the smith's hammer on his anvil, and to go by his yard in daylightwould be to risk too much! For what would become of them if theirretreat was discovered! He stood at the foot of the brick precipice, and stared up with helpless eyes and failing strength. Baby wasinside, hungry, and with no better nurse than ill conditioned Tommy;her milk was in his pocket, Tommy's bread in his hand, theinsurmountable wall between him and them! He had the daylight now, however, and there was hardly any one about: perhaps he could findanother entrance! Round the outside of the wall, therefore, like theMidianite in the rather comical hymn, did Clare prowl and prowl. Butthe wall rose straight and much too smooth wherever he looked. Searching its face he went all along the bottom of the garden, andthen up the narrow lane between it and the garden of the next house, with increasing fear that there was no way but by the smith's yard, and no choice but risk it. 

A dozen yards or so, however, from the end of the lane, where it tooka sharp turn before entering the street, he spied an opening in thewall--the same from which, the night before, Tommy had returned withsuch a frightened face. Clare went through, and found a narrow passagerunning to the left for a short distance between two walls. At theend, half on one side, half on the other of the second wall, lay thewell that had terrified Tommy. The wall crossed it with a low arch. Onthe further side of the well was a third wall, with a space of abouttwo feet and a half between it and the side of the round well. Throughthat wall there might be a door!--or, if not, there might be some wayof getting over it! To cross the well would be awkward, but he must doit! He tied the loaf in his pocket-handkerchief--he was far pastfastidiousness, and Tommy knew neither the word nor the thing--andknotted the ends of it round his neck. But his chief anxiety was notto break the bottle in his jacket-pocket. He got on his knees on theparapet. How deep and dark the water looked! For a moment he felt afear of it something like Tommy's. How was he to cross the awful gulf?It was not like a free jump; he was hemmed in before and behind, andoverhead also. But the baby drew him over the well, as the name ofBeatrice drew Dante through the fire. The baby was waiting for him, and it had to be done! He made a cat-leap through beneath the arch, reaching out with his hands and catching at the parapet beyond. He didcatch it, just enough of it to hold on by, so that his body did notfollow his legs into the water. Oh, how cold they found it after hisrun! He held on, strained and heaved up, made a great reach across thewidth of the parapet with one hand, laid hold of its outer edge, madegood his grasp on it, and drew himself out of the water, and out ofthe well. 

He was in a narrow space, closed in with walls much higher than hishead, out of which he saw no way but that by which he had comein--across the fearful well, that seemed, so dark was its water, to godown and down for ever. 

He felt in his pocket. If then he had found baby's bottle broken, Idoubt if Clare would ever have got out of the place, except by thedoor into the next world. What little strength he had was nearly gone, and I think it would then have gone quite. But the bottle was safe andhis courage came back. 

He examined his position, and presently saw that the narrowness of histhreatened prison would make it no prison at all. He found that, byleaning his back against one wall, pushing his feet against theopposite wall, and making of the third wall a rack for his shoulder, he could worm himself slowly up. It was a task for a strong man, andClare, though strong for his years, was not at that moment strong. Butthere was the baby waiting, and here was her milk! He fell to, and, with an agony of exertion, wriggled himself at last to the top--soexhausted that he all but fell over on the other side. He pulledhimself together, and dropped at once into, the garden. Happier boythan Clare was not in all England then. Hunger, wet, incipientnakedness, for he had torn his clothes badly, were nowhere. Baby waswithin his reach, and the milk within baby's!

He ran, dripping like a spaniel, to find her, and shot up the stair tothe room that held his treasure. To his joy he found both Tommy andthe baby fast asleep, Tommy tired out with the weary tramping of theday before, and the baby still under the influence of the opiate hermother had given her to make her drown quietly. 

Chapter XXVII. 

The baby has her breakfast. 

He waked Tommy, and showed him the loaf. Tommy sprang from his lairand snatched at it. 

"No, Tommy, " said Clare, drawing back, "I can't trust you! You wouldeat it all; and if I died of hunger, what would become of baby, leftalone with you? I don't feel at all sure you wouldn't eat _her_!"

Baby started a feeble whimper. 

"You must wait now till I've attended to her, " continued Clare. "Ifyou had got up quietly without waking her, I would have given you yourshare at once. "

As he spoke, he pulled a blanket off the bed to wrap her in, and madehaste to take her up. A series of difficulties followed, which I willleave to the imagination of mothers and aunts, and nurses ingeneral--the worst being that there was no warm water to wash her in, and cold water would be worse than dangerous after what she had gonethrough with it the night before. Clare comforted himself that washingwas a thing non-essential to existence, however desirable forwell-being. 

Then came a more serious difficulty: the milk must be mixed withwater, and water as cold as Clare's legs would kill the drug-dazedshred of humanity! What was to be done? It would be equally dangerousto give her the strong milk of a cow undiluted. There was but one way:he must feed her as do the pigeons. First, however, he must havewater! The well was almost inaccessible: to get to it and return wouldfearfully waste life-precious time! The rain-water in the little poolmust serve the necessity! It was preferable to that in the but!

Until many years after, it did not occur to Clare as strange thatthere should be even a drop of water in that water-but. Whence was itfed? There was no roof near, from which the rain might run into it. Ifthere had ever been a pipe to supply it, surely, in a house so longforsaken, its continuity must have given way One always sees suchbarrels empty, dry, and cracked: this one was apparently known to befull of water, for what woman in her senses, however inferior thosesenses, would throw her child into an empty but! How did it happen tobe full? Clare was almost driven to the conclusion that it had beenfilled for the evil purpose to which it was that night put. Againstthis was the fact that it would not have been easy to fill such a hugevessel by hand. I suggested that the blacksmith and his predecessorsmight have used it for the purposes of the forge, and kept it and itsfeeder in repair. Mr. Skymer endeavoured repeatedly to find out whathad become of the blacksmith, but never with any approach to success;the probability being that he had left the world long before hisnatural time, by disease engendered or quarrel occasioned through hisdrunkenness. 

Clare laid the baby down, and fetched water from the pool. Then hemixed the milk with what seemed the right quantity, again took thebaby up, who had been whimpering a little now and then all the time, laid a blanket, several times folded, on his wet knees, and laid herin her blanket upon it. These preparations made, he took a smallmouthful of the milk and water, and held it until it grew warm. It wasthe only way, I condescend to remind any such reader as may think itproper to be disgusted. When then he put his mouth to the baby's, careful not to let too much go at once, they managed so between themthat she successfully appropriated the mouthful. It was followed by asecond, a third, and more, until, to Clare's delight, the child seemedsatisfied, leaving some of the precious fluid for another meal. He puther in the bed again, and covered her up warm. All the time, Tommy hadbeen watching the loaf with the eyes of a wild beast. 

"Now, Tommy, " said Clare, "how much of this loaf do you think youought to have?"

"Half, of course!" answered Tommy boldly, with perfect conviction ofhis fairness, and pride in the same. 

"Are you as big as I am?"

Tommy held his peace. 

"You ain't half as big!" said Clare. 

"I'm a bloomin' lot hungrier!" growled Tommy. 

"You had eggs last night, and I had none!"

"That wurn't my fault!"

"What did you do to get this bread?"

"I staid at home with baby. "

"That's true, " answered Clare. "But, " he went on, "suppose a horse anda pony had got to divide their food between them, would the pony havea right to half? Wouldn't the horse, being bigger, want more to keephim alive than the pony?"

"Don't know, " said Tommy. 

"But you shall have the half, " continued Clare; "only I hope, afterthis, when you get anything given to you, you'll divide it with me. Itry to be fair, and I want you to be fair. "

Tommy made no reply. He did not trouble himself about fair play; hewanted all he could get--like most people; though, thank God, I know afew far more anxious to give than to receive fair play. Such men, bethey noblemen or tradesmen, I worship. 

Clare carefully divided the loaf, and after due deliberation, handedTommy that which seemed the bigger half. Without a word ofacknowledgment, Tommy fell upon it like a terrier. He would love Clarein a little while when he had something more to give--but stomachbefore heart with Tommy! His sort is well represented in everyrank. There are not many who can at the same time both love and behungry. 

Chapter XXVIII. 

Treachery. 

"Now, Tommy, " said Clare, having eaten his half loaf, "I'm going outto look for work, and you must take care of baby. You're not to feedher--you would only choke her, and waste the good milk. "

"I want to go out too, " said Tommy. 

"To see what you can pick up, I suppose?"

"That's my business. "

"I fancy it mine while you are with me. If you don't take care of babyand be good to her, I'll put you in the water-but I took her outof--as sure as you ain't in it now!"

"That you shan't!" cried Tommy; "I'll bite first!"

"I'll tie your hands and feet, and put a stick in your mouth, " saidClare. "So you'd better mind. "

"I want to go with you!" whimpered Tommy. 

"You can't. You're to stop and look after baby. I won't be away longerthan I can help; you may be sure of that. "

With repeated injunctions to him not to leave the room, Clare went. 

Before going quite, however, he must arrange for returning. To swarmup between the two walls as he had done before, would be to bidgood-bye to his jacket at least, and he knew how appearances werealready against him. Spying about for whatever might serve hispurpose, he caught sight of an old garden-roller, and was making forit, when Tommy, never doubting he was gone, came whistling round thecorner of the house with his hands in his pocket-holes, and animpudent air of independence. Clare away, he was a lord in his owneyes! He could kill the baby when he pleased! Plainly his mood was, "He thinks I'm going to do as he tells me! Not if I knows it!" Claresaw him before he saw Clare, and rushed at him with a roar. 

"You thought I was gone!" he cried. "I told you not to leave the room!Come along to the water-but!"

Tommy shivered when he heard him, and gave a shriek when he saw himcoming. He shook till his teeth chattered. But terror not alwaysparalyzes instinct in the wild animal. As Clare came running, he tookone step toward him, and dropped on the ground at his feet. Clare shotaway over his head, struck his own against a tree, and lay for aminute stunned. Tommy's success was greater than he had hoped. Hescudded into the house, and closed and bolted the door to the kitchen. 

When Clare came to himself, he found he had a cut on his head. Itwould never do to go asking for work with a bloody face! The littlepool served at once for basin and mirror, and while he washed hethought. 

He had no inclination to punish Tommy for the trick he had played him;he had but done after his kind! It would serve a good end too: Tommywould imagine him lurking about to have his revenge, and would notventure his nose out. He discovered afterward that the little wretchhad made fast the cellar-door, so that, if he had entered that way, hewould have been caught in a trap, and unable to go or return. 

He got the iron roller to the foot of the wall, where he had come overthe night before, and where now first he perceived there had once beena door; managed, with its broken handle for a lever, to set it up onend, filled it with earth, and heaped a mound of earth about it tosteady it, placed a few broken tiles and sherds of chimney-pots uponit, and from this rickety perch found he could reach the top easily. 

The next thing was to arrange for getting up from the other side. Forthis he threw over earth and stones and whatever rubbish came to hishand, the sole quality required in his material being, that it shouldserve to lift him any fraction of an inch higher. The space was sonarrow that his mound did not require to be sustained by the width ofits base except in one direction; everywhere else the walls kept inthe heap, and he made good speed. At length he descended by it, sureof being able to get up again. 

He had been gone an hour before Tommy dared again leave the room wherethe baby was. He had planned what to do if Clare got into it: he wouldthreaten, if he came a step nearer, to kill the baby! But if he hadhim in the coal-cellar, he would make his own conditions! A trampwould not keep a promise, but Clare would! and until he promised notto touch him, he should not come out--not if he died of hunger!

At length he could bear imprisonment no longer. He opened theroom-door with the caution of one who thought a tiger might be lyingagainst it. He saw no one, and crept out with half steps. By slowdegrees, interrupted by many an inroad of terror and many a swiftretreat, he got down the stair and out into the garden; whence, afterclosest search, he was at length satisfied his enemy had departed. Fora time he was his own master! To one like Tommy--and such are notrare--it is a fine thing to be his own master. But the same person whois the master is the servant--and what a master to serve! Tommy, however, was quite satisfied with both master and servant, for bothwere himself. What was he to do? Go after something to eat, of course!He would be back long before Clare! He had gone to look for work--andwho would give _him_ work? If Tommy were as big as Clare, lots ofpeople would give him work! But catch him working! Not if he knewit!--not Tommy!

Never till she was grown up, never, indeed, until she was amiddle-aged woman and Mr. Skymer's housekeeper, did the baby know inwhat danger she was that morning, alone with surnameless Tommy. 

His first sense of relation to any creature too weak to protectitself, was the consciousness of power to torment that creature. Butin this case the exercise of the power brought him into anotherrelation, one with the water-but! He went back to the room where thechild lay in her blankets like a human chrysalis, and stood for amoment regarding her with a hatred far from mild: was he actuallyexpected to give time and personal notice to that contemptible thinglying there unable to move? _He_ wasn't a girl or an old woman! Hemust go and get something to eat! that was what a man was for! Bettertwist her neck at once and go!

But he could not forget the water-but--proximate mother of thechild. Its idea came sliding into Tommy's range, grew and grew uponTommy, came nearer and nearer, until the baby was nowhere, and nothingin the world but the water-but. His consciousness was possessed withit. It was preparing to swallow him in its loathsome deep! All at onceit jumped back from him, and stood motionless by the side of thewall. Now was his chance! Now he must mizzle! Not a moment longerwould he stop in the same place with the horrible thing!

But the baby! Clare would bring him back and put him in the but! No, he wouldn't! What harm would come to the brat? She was not able toroll herself off the bed! She could do nothing but go to sleep again!Out he must and would go! He wanted something to eat! He would be inagain long before Clare could get back!

He left the room and the house, ran down the garden, scrambled up thedoor, got on the top of the wall, and dropped into the waste landbehind it--nor once thought that the only way back was by the veryjaws of the water-but. 

Chapter XXIX. 

The baker. 

Clare went over the wall and the well without a notion of what he wasgoing to do, except look for work. He had eaten half a loaf, and nowdrew in his cap some water from the well and drank. He felt betterthan any moment since leaving the farm. He was full of hope. 

All his life he had never been other than hopeful. To the human beinghope is as natural as hunger; yet how few there are that hope as theyhunger! Men are so proud of being small, that one wonders to whatpitch their conceit will have arrived by the time they are nothing atall. They are proud that they love but a little, believe less, andhope for nothing. Every fool prides himself on not being such a foolas believe what would make a man of him. For dread of being taken in, he takes himself in ridiculously. The man who keeps on trying to dohis duty, finds a brighter and brighter gleam issue, as he walks, fromthe lantern of his hope. 

Clare was just breaking into a song he had heard his mother sing tohis sister, when he was checked by the sight of a long skinny mongrellike a hairy worm, that lay cowering and shivering beside a heap ofashes put down for the dust-cart--such a dry hopeless heap that thefamished little dog did not care to search it: some little warmth init, I presume, had kept him near it. Clare's own indigence made himthe more sorry for the indigent, and he felt very sorry for thismember of the family; but he had neither work nor alms to give him, therefore strode on. The dog looked wistfully after him, as ifrecognizing one of his own sort, one that would help him if he could, but did not follow him. 

A hundred yards further, Clare came to a baker's shop. It was thefirst he felt inclined to enter, and he went in. He did not know itwas the shop from whose cart Tommy had pilfered. A thin-faced, bilious-looking, elderly man stood behind the counter. 

"Well, boy, what do you want?" he said in a low, sad, severe, but notunkindly voice. 

"Please, sir, " answered Clare, "I want something to do, and I thoughtperhaps you could help me. "

"What can you do?"

"Not much, but I can _try_ to do anything. "

"Have you ever learned to do anything?"

"I've been working on a farm for the last six months. Before that Iwent to school. "

"Why didn't you go on going to school?"

"Because my father and mother died. "

"What was your father?"

"A parson. "

"Why did you leave the farm?"

"Because they didn't want me. The mistress didn't like me. "

"I dare say she had her reasons!"

"I don't know, sir; she didn't seem to like anything I did. My motherused to say, 'Well done, Clare!' my mistress never said 'Well done!"'

"So the farmer sent you away?"

"No, sir; but he boxed my ears for something--I don't now rememberwhat. "

"I dare say you deserved it!"

"Perhaps I did; I don't know; he never did it before. "

"If you deserved it, you had no right to run away for that. "

The baker taught in a Sunday-school, and was a good teacher, able tomake a class mind him. 

"I didn't run away for that, sir; I ran away because he was tired ofme. I couldn't stay to make him uncomfortable! He had been very kindto me; I fancy it was mistress made him change. I've been thinking agood deal about it, and that's how it looks to me. I'm very sorry notto have him or the creatures any more. "

"What creatures?"

"The bull, and the horses, and the cows, and the pigs--all thecreatures about the farm. They were my friends. I shall see them allagain somewhere!"

He gave a great sigh. 

"What do you mean by that?" asked the baker. 

"I hardly know what I mean, " answered Clare. 

"When I'm loving anybody I always feel I shall see that person againsome time, I don't know when--somewhere, I don't know where. "

"That don't apply to the lower animals; it's nothing but a foolishimagination, " said the baker. 

"But if I love them!" suggested Clare. 

"Love a bull, or a horse, or a pig! You can't!" asserted the baker. 

"But I _do_, " rejoined Clare. "I love my father and mother much morethan when they were alive!"

"What has that to do with it?" returned the baker. 

"That I know I love my father and mother, and I know I love thatfierce bull that would always do what I told him, and that dear oldhorse that was almost past work, and was always ready to do hisbest. --I'm afraid they've killed him by now!" he added, with anothersigh. 

"But beasts 'ain't got souls, and you can't love them. And if youcould, that's no reason why you should see them again. "

"I _do_ love them, and perhaps they have souls!" rejoined Clare. 

"You mustn't believe that! It's quite shocking. It's nowhere in theBible. "

"Is everything that is not in the Bible shocking, sir?"

"Well, I won't say that; but you're not to believe it. "

"I suppose you don't like animals, sir! Are you afraid of their goingto the same place as you when they die?"

"I wouldn't have a boy about me that held such an unscriptural notion!The Bible says--the spirit of a man that goeth upward, and the spiritof a beast that goeth downward!"

"Is that in the Bible, sir?"

"It is, " answered the baker with satisfaction, thinking he had provedhis point. 

"I'm so glad!" returned Clare. "I didn't know there was anything aboutit in the Bible! Then when I die I shall only have to go downsomewhere, and look for them till I find them!"

The baker was silenced for a moment. 

"It's flat atheism!" he cried. "Get out of my shop! What is the worldcoming to!"

Clare turned and went out. 

But though a bilious, the baker was not an unreasonable or unjust manexcept when what he had been used to believe all his life wascontradicted. Clare had not yet shut the door when he repented. He wasa good man, though not quite in the secret of the universe. He vaultedover the counter, and opened the door with such a ringing of itsappended bell as made heavy-hearted Clare turn before he heard hisvoice. The long spare white figure appeared on the threshold, framedin the doorway. 

"Hi!" it shouted. 

Clare went meekly back. 

"I've just remembered hearing--but mind I _know_ nothing, and pledgemyself to nothing----"

He paused. 

"I didn't say I was _sure_ about it, " returned Clare, thinking hereferred to the fate of the animals, "but I fear I'm to blame for notbeing sure. "

"Come, come!" said the baker, with a twist of his mouth that expresseddisgust, "hold your tongue, and listen to me. --I did hear, as I wassaying, that Mr. Maidstone, down the town, had one of his errand-boyslaid up with scarlet fever. I'll take you to him, if you like. Perhapshe'll have you, --though I can't say you look respectable!"

"I 'ain't had much chance since I left home, sir. I had a bit of soap, but----"

He bethought him that he had better say nothing about hisfamily. Tommy had picked his pocket of the soap the night before, andtried to eat it, and Clare had hidden it away: he wanted it to washthe baby with as soon as he could get some warm water; but when hewent to find it to wash his own face, it was gone. He suspected Tommy, but before long he had terrible ground for a different surmise. 

"You see, sir, " he resumed, "I had other things to think of. When yourtummy's empty, you don't think about the rest of you--do you, sir?"

The baker could not remember having ever been more than decently, healthily hungry in his life; and here he had been rough on awell-bred boy too hungry to wash his face! Perhaps the word _one ofthese little ones_ came to him. He had some regard for him who spokeit, though he did talk more about him on Sundays than obey him in thedays between. 

"I don't know, my boy, " he answered. "Would you like a piece ofbread?"

"I'm not much in want of it at this moment, " replied Clare, "but Ishould be greatly obliged if you would let me call for it by andby. You see, sir, when a man has no work, he can't help having nomoney!"

"A man!" thought the baker. "God pity you, poor monkey!"

He called to some one to mind the shop, removed his apron and put on acoat, shut the door, and went down the street with Clare. 

Chapter XXX. 

The draper. 

At the shop of a draper and haberdasher, where one might buy almostanything sold, Clare's new friend stopped and walked in. He asked tosee Mr. Maidstone, and a shopman went to fetch him from behind. Hecame out into the public floor. 

"I heard you were in want of a boy, sir, " said the baker, who carriedhimself as in the presence of a superior; and certainly fine clothesand a gold chain and ring did what they could to make the drapersuperior to the baker. 

"Hm!" said Mr. Maidstone, looking with contempt at Clare. 

"I rather liked the look of this poor boy, and ventured to bring himon approval, " continued the baker timidly. "He ain't much to look at, I confess!"

"Hm!" said the draper again. "He don't look promising!"

"He don't. But I think he means performing, " said the baker, with awan smile. 

"Donnow, I'm sure! If he 'appened to wash his face, I could tellbetter!"

Clare thought he had washed it pretty well that morning because of hiscut, though he had, to be sure, done it without soap, and had been atrather dirty work since!

"He says he's been too hungry to wash his face, " answered the baker. 

"Didn't 'ave his 'ot water in time, I suppose!--Will you answer forhim, Mr. Ball?"

"I can't, Mr. Maidstone--not one way or another. I simply was takenwith him. I know nothing about him. "

Here one of the shopmen came up to his master, and said, "I heard Mr. Ball's own man yesterday accuse this very boy of taking aloaf from his cart. "

"Yesterday!" thought Clare; "it seems a week ago!"

"Oh! this is the boy, is it?" said the baker. "You see I didn't knowhim! All the same, I don't believe he took the loaf. "

"Indeed I didn't, sir! Another boy took it who didn't know better, andI took it from him, and was putting it back on the cart when the manturned round and saw me, and wouldn't listen to a word I said. But aworking-man believed me, and bought the loaf, and gave it between us. "

"A likely story!" said the draper. 

"I've heard that much, " said the baker, "and I believe it. At least Ihave no reason to believe my man against him, Mr. Maidstone. That samenight I discovered he had been cheating me to a merry tune. Idischarged him this morning. "

"Well, he certainly don't look a respectable boy, " said the draper, who naturally, being all surface himself, could read no deeper thanclothes; "but I'm greatly in want of one to carry out parcels, and Idon't mind if I try him. If he do steal anything, he'll be caughtwithin the hour!"

"Oh, thank you, sir!" said Clare. 

"You shall have sixpence a day, " Mr. Maidstone continued, "--not apenny more till I'm sure you're an honest boy. "

"Thank you, sir, " iterated Clare. "Please may I run home first? Iwon't be long. I 'ain't got any other clothes, but----"

"Hold your long tongue. Don't let me hear it wagging in myestablishment. Go and wash your face and hands. " Clare turned to thebaker. 

"Please, sir, " he said softly, "may I go back with you and get thepiece of bread?"

"What! begging already!" cried Mr. Maidstone. 

"No, no, sir, " interposed the baker. "I promised him a piece ofbread. He did not ask for it. "

The good man was pleased at his success, and began to regard Clarewith the favour that springs in the heart of him who has done a goodturn to another through a third. Had he helped him out of his ownpocket, he might not have been so much pleased. But there had been noloss, and there was no risk! He had beside shown his influence with asuperior!

"I am so much obliged to you, sir!" said Clare as they went awaytogether. "I cannot tell you how much!"

He was tempted to open his heart and reveal the fact that three peoplewould live on the sixpence a day which the baker's kindness hadprocured him, but prudence was fast coming frontward, and he saw thatno one must know that they were in that house! If it were known, theywould probably be turned out at once, which would go far to be fatalto them as a family. For, if he had to pay for lodgings, were it nomore than the tramps paid Tommy's grandmother, sixpence a day wouldnot suffice for bare shelter. So he held his tongue. 

"Thank me by minding Mr. Maidstone's interests, " returned hisbenefactor. "If you don't do well by him, the blame will come uponme. "

"I will be very careful, sir, " answered Clare, who was too full ofhonesty to think of being honest; he thought only of minding orders. 

They reached the shop; the baker gave him a small loaf, and he hurriedhome with it The joy in his heart, spread over the days since he leftthe farm, would have given each a fair amount of gladness. 

Taking heed that no one saw him, he darted through the passage to thewell, got across it better this time, rushed over the wall like a cat, fell on the other side from the unsteadiness of his potsherds, roseand hurried into the house, with the feeble wail of his baby in hisears. 

Chapter XXXI. 

An addition to the family. 

The door to the kitchen was open: Tommy must be in the garden again!When he reached the nursery, as he called it to himself, he found thebaby as he had left her, but moaning and wailing piteously. She lookedas if she had cried till she was worn out. He threw down the clothesto take her. A great rat sprang from the bed. On one of the tiny feetthe long thin toes were bleeding and raw. The same instant arose aloud scampering and scuffling and squealing in the room. Clare's heartquivered. He thought it was a whole army of rats. He was not a bitafraid of them himself, but assuredly they were not company for baby!Already they had smelt food in the house, and come in a swarm! Whatwas to be done with the little one? If he stayed at home with her, shemust die of hunger; if he left her alone, the rats would eat her! Theyhad begun already! Oh, that wretch, Tommy! Into the water--but heshould go!

I hope their friends will not take it ill that, all his life after, Clare felt less kindly disposed toward rats than toward the rest ofthe creatures of God. 

But things were not nearly so bad as Clare thought: the scuffling camefrom quite another cause. It suddenly ceased, and a sharp screamfollowed. Clare turned with the baby in his arms. Almost at his feet, gazing up at him, the rat hanging limp from his jaws, stood the littlecastaway mongrel he had seen in the morning, his eyes flaming, and histail wagging with wild homage and the delight of presenting the rat toone he would fain make his master. 

"You darling!" cried Clare, and meant the dog this time, not thebaby. The animal dropped the dead rat at his feet, and glared, andwagged, and looked hunger incarnate, but would not touch the rat untilClare told him to take it. Then he retired with it to a corner, andmade a rapid meal of it. 

He had seen Clare pass the second time, had doubtless noted that nowhe carried a loaf, and had followed him in humble hope. Clare was toomuch occupied with his own joy to perceive him, else he wouldcertainly have given him a little peeling or two from the outside ofthe bread. But it was decreed that the dog should have the honour ofrendering the first service. Clare was not to do _all_ thebenevolences. 

What a happy day it had been for him! It was a day to be rememberedfor ever! He had work! he had sixpence a day! he had had a present ofmilk for the baby, and two presents of bread--one a small, and one alarge loaf! And now here was a dog! A dog was more than many meals!The family was four now! A baby, and a dog to take care of thebaby!--It was heavenly!

He made haste and gave his baby what milk and water was left. Then hewashed her poor torn foot, wrapped it in a pillow-case, for he wouldnot tear anything, and laid her in the bed. Next he cut a good bigcrust from the loaf and gave it to the dog, who ate it as if the ratwere nowhere. The rest he put in a drawer. Then he washed his face andhands--as well as he could without soap. After that, he took the dog, talked to him a little, laid him on the bed beside the baby and talkedto him again, telling him plainly, and impressing upon him, that hisbusiness was the care of the baby; that he must give himself up toher; that he must watch and tend, and, if needful, fight for thelittle one. When at length he left him, it was evident to Clare, bythe solemnity of the dog's face, that he understood his dutythoroughly. 

Chapter XXXII. 

Shop and baby. 

Once clear of the well and the wall, Clare set off running like agaze-hound. Such was the change produced in him by joy and thesatisfaction of hope, that when he entered the shop, no one at firstknew him. His face was as the face of an angel, and none the lessbeautiful that it shone above ragged garments. But Mr. Maidstone, themoment he saw him, and before he had time to recognize him, turnedfrom the boy with dislike. 

"What a fool the beggar looks!" he said to himself;--then aloud to oneof the young men, "Hand over that parcel of sheets. --Here, you!--what's your name?"

"Clare, sir. "

"I declare against it!" he rejoined, with a coarse laugh of pleasureat his own fancied wit. "I shall call you Jack!"

"Very well, sir!"

"Don't you talk. --Here, Jack, take this parcel to Mrs. Trueman's. You'll see the address on it. --And look sharp. --You canread, can't you?"

The people in the shop stood looking on, some pitifully, allcuriously, for the parcel was of considerable size, and linen isheavy, while the boy looked pale and thin. But Clare was strong forhis age, and present joy made up for past want. He scarcely looked atthe parcel which the draper proceeded to lay on his shoulder, stoopeda little as he felt its weight, heaved it a little to adjust itsbalance, and holding it in its place with one hand, started for thedoor, which the master himself held open for him. 

"Please, sir, which way do I turn?" he asked. 

"To the left, " answered Mr. Maidstone. "Ask your way as you go. "

Clare forgot that he had heard only the lady's name. Her address wason the parcel, no doubt, but if he dropped it to look, he could notget it up again by himself. A little way on, therefore, meeting a boyabout his own age returning from school, he asked him to be kindenough to read the address on his back and direct him. The boy read italoud, but gave him false instructions for finding the place. Clarewalked and walked until the weight became almost unendurable, and atlast, though loath, concluded that the boy must have deceived him. Heasked again, but this time of a lady. She took pains not only to tellhim right, but to make him understand right: she was pleased with thetired gentle face that looked up from beneath the heavyburden. Perhaps she thought of the proud souls growing pure of theirpride, in Dante's _Purgatorio_. Following her directions, he needed nofurther questioning to find the house. But it was hours after theburden was gone from his shoulder before it was rid of the phantom ofits weight. 

His master rated him for having been so long, and would not permit himto explain his delay, ordering him to hold his tongue and not answerback; but the rest of his day's work was lighter; there was no otherheavy parcel to send out. There were so many smaller ones, however, that, by the time they were all delivered, he had gained somethingmore than a general idea of how the streets lay, and was a weary wightwhen, with the four-pence his master hesitated to give him on theground that he was doubtful of his character, he set out at last, walking soberly enough now, to spend it at Mr. Ball's and themilk-shop. Of the former he bought a stale three-penny loaf, and thebaker added a piece to make up the weight. Clare took this forliberality, and returned hearty thanks, which Mr. Ball, I am sorry tosay, was not man enough to repudiate. The other penny he laid out onmilk--but oh, how inferior it was to that the farmer's wife had givenhim! The milk-woman, however, not ungraciously granted him the twomatches he begged for. 

On his way to baby, he almost hoped Tommy would not return: he wouldgladly be saved putting him in the water-but!

He forgot him again as he drew near the nursery, and for a long whileafter he reached it. He found the infant and the dog lying as he hadleft them. The only sign that either had moved was the strangecleanness of the tiny gray face which Clare had not ventured towash. It gave indubitable evidence that the dog had been licking itmore than a little--probably every few minutes since he was leftcurate in charge. 

And now Clare did with deliberation a thing for which his sensitiveconscience not unfrequently reproached him afterward. His defence was, that he had hurt nobody, and had kept baby alive by it. Having in hismind revolved the matter many a time that day, he got some stickstogether from the garden, and with one of the precious matches lighteda small fire of coals that were not his own, and for which he couldmerely hope one day to restore amends. But baby! Baby was more thancoals! He filled a rusty kettle with water, and while it was growinghot on the fire, such was his fear lest the smoke should betray them, that he ran out every other minute to see how much was coming from thechimney. 

While the fire was busy heating the water, he was busier preparing abottle for baby--making a hole through the cork of a phial, putting thebroken stem of a clean tobacco pipe he had found in the street throughthe hole, tying a small lump of cotton wool over the end of the pipe-stem, and covering that with a piece of his pocket-handkerchief, carefully washed with the brown Windsor soap, his mother's last present. For the day held yet another gladness: in looking for a kettle he hadfound the soap--which probably the rat had carried away and hiddenbefore finding baby. Through the pipe-stem and the wool and thehandkerchief he could without difficulty draw water, and hoped thereforebaby would succeed in drawing her supper. As soon as the water was warmhe mixed some with the milk, but not so much this time, and put themixture in the bottle. To his delight, the baby sucked it up splendidly. The bottle, thought out between the heavy linen and the hard street, wasa success! Labour is not unfriendly to thought, as the annals of weavingand shoe-making witness. 

And now at last was Clare equipped for a great attempt: he was goingto wash the baby! He was glad that disrespectful Tommy was not in thehouse. With a basin of warm water and his precious piece of soap heset about it, and taking much pains washed his treasure perfectlyclean. It was a state of bliss in which, up to that moment, I presume, she had never been since her birth. In the process he handled her, ifnot with all the skill of a nurse, yet with the tenderness of amother. His chief anxiety was not to hurt, more than could not behelped, the poor little rat-eaten toes. He felt he must wash them, butwhen in the process she whimpered, it went all through the calves ofhis legs. When the happy but solicitous task was over, during whichthe infant had shown the submission of great weakness, he wrapped herin another blanket, and laid her down again. Soothed and comfortable, as probably never soothed or comfortable before, she went to sleep. 

As soon as she was out of his arms, he took a piece of bread, and withsome of the hot water made a little sop for the dog, which the smallhero, whose four legs carried such a long barrel of starvation, atewith undisguised pleasure and thankfulness. For his own supper Clarepreferred his bread dry, following it with a fine draught of waterfrom the well. 

Then, and not till then, returned the thought--what had Tommy donewith himself? Left to himself he was sure to go stealing! He mighthave been taken in the act! Clare could hardly believe he had actuallyrun away from him. On the other hand, he had left the baby, and knewthat if he returned he would be put in the water-but! He might havecome to the conclusion that he could do better without Clare, whowould not let him steal! It was clear he did not like taking his sharein the work of the family, and looking after the baby! Had he beenanything of a true boy, Clare would have taken his bread in his handand gone to look for him; being such as he was, he did not think itnecessary. He felt bound to do his best for him if he came back, buthe did not feel bound to leave the baby and roam the country to find aboy with whom baby's life would be in constant danger. 

Chapter XXXIII. 

A bad penny. 

Before Clare had done his thinking, darkness had fallen, and, weary tothe very bones, he threw himself on the bed beside the baby. The dogjumped up and laid himself at his feet, as if the place had been hisfrom time immemorial--as it had perhaps been, according to time indog-land. The many pleasures of that blessed day would have kept Clareawake had they not brought with them so much weariness. He fell fastasleep. Tommy had not had a happy day: he had been found out inevil-doing, had done more evil, and had all the day been in dread ofpunishment. He did not foresee how ill things would go for him--didnot see that a rat had taken his place beside the baby, and that hewould not get back before Clare; but the vision of the water-but hadoften flashed upon his inner eye, and it had not been the bliss of hissolitude. He deserted his post in the hope of finding something toeat, and had not had a mouthful of anything but spongy turnip, anddried-up mangel-wurzel, or want-root. If he had been minding his work, he would have had a piece of good bread--so good that he would havewanted more of it, whereas, when he had eaten the turnip and thebeetroot, he had cause to wish he had not eaten so much! He had beenset upon by boys bigger than himself, and nearly as bad, who, notbeing hungry, were in want of amusement, and had proceeded to get itout of Tommy, just as Tommy would have got it out of the baby had hedared. They bullied him in a way that would have been to his heart'scontent, had he been the bully instead of the bullied. They made himactually wish he had stayed with the baby--and therewith came thethought that it was time to go home if he would get back beforeClare. As to what had taken place in the morning, he knew Clare'sforgivingness, and despised him for it. If he found the baby dead, oranything happened to her that he could not cover with lying, it wouldbe time to cut and run in earnest! So the moment he could escape fromhis tormenters, off went Tommy for home. But as he ran he rememberedthat there was but one way into the house, and that was by the verylip of the water-but. 

Clare woke up suddenly--at a sound which all his life would wake himfrom the deepest slumber: he thought he heard the whimpering of achild. The baby was fast asleep. Instantly he thought of Tommy. Heseemed to see him shut out in the night, and knew at once how it waswith him: he had gone out without thinking how he was to get back, anddared not go near the water-but! He jumped out of bed, put on hisshoes, and in a minute or two was over the wall and walking along thelane outside of it, to find the deserter. 

The moon was not up, and the night was dark, yet he had not lookedlong before he came upon him, as near the house as he could get, crouching against the wall. 

"Tommy!" said Clare softly. 

Tommy did not reply. The fear of the water-but was upon him--a feardarker than the night, an evil worse than hunger or cold--and Clareand the water-but were one. 

"You needn't think to hide, Tommy; I see you, you bad boy!" whisperedClare. "After all I said, you ran away and left the baby to the rats!They've been biting her horribly--one at least has. You can stay awayas long as you like now; I've got a better nurse. Good-night!" Tommygave a great howl. 

"Hold your tongue, you rascal!" cried Clare, still in awhisper. "You'll let the police know where we are!"

"Do let me in, Clare! I'm so 'ungry and so cold!"

"Then I shall have to put you in the water-but! I said I would!"

"If you don't promise not to, I'll go straight to the police. They'lltake the brat from you, and put her in the workhouse!"

Clare thought for a moment whether it would not be right to kill sucha traitor. His mind was full of history-tales, and, like Dante, he puttreachery in its own place, namely the deepest hell. But with thethought came the words he had said so many times without thinking whatthey meant--"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them thattrespass against us, " and he saw that he was expected to forgiveTommy. 

"Tommy, I forgive you, " he said solemnly, "and will be friends withyou again; but I have said it, and I was right to say it, and into thewater-but you must go! I can't trust your word now, and I think Ishall be able to trust it after that. "

Ere he had finished the words, Tommy lifted up his voice in a mostunearthly screech. 

Instantly Clare had him by the throat, so that he could not utter asound. 

"Tommy, " he said, "I'm going to let you breathe again, but the momentyou make a noise, I'll choke you as I'm doing now. "

With that he relaxed his hold. But Tommy had paid no heed to what hesaid, and began a second screech the moment he found passage forit. Immediately he was choked, and after two or three attempts, finally desisted. 

"I won't!" he said. 

"You shall, Tommy. You're going head over in the but. We're going toit now!"

Tommy threw himself upon the ground and kicked, but dared notscream. It was awful! He would drop right through into the great placewhere the moon was!

Clare threw him over his shoulder, and found him not half the weightof the parcel of linen. Tommy would have bitten like a weasel, but hefeared Clare's terrible hands. He was on the back of Giant Despair, inthe form of one of the best boys in the world. Clare took him roundthe wall, and over the fence into the blacksmith's yard. The smithywas quite dark. 

"Please, I didn't mean to do it!" sobbed Tommy from behind him, asClare bore him steadily up the yard. It was all he could do to say thewords, for the thought of what they were approaching sent a screaminto his throat every time he parted his lips to speak. 

Clare stopped. 

"What didn't you mean to do?" he asked. 

"I didn't mean to leave the baby. "

"How did you do it then?"

"I mean I didn't mean to stay away so long. I didn't know how to getback. "

"I told you not to leave her! And you could have got back perfectly, you little coward!"

Tommy shuddered, and said no more. Though hanging over Clare's back heknew presently, by his stopping, that they had come to the heap. Therewas only that heap and the wall between him and the water-but! Up andup he felt himself slowly, shakingly carried, and was gathering hisbreath for a final utterance of agony that should rouse the wholeneighbourhood, when Clare, having reached the top, seated himself uponthe wall, and Tommy restrained himself in the hope of what a parleymight bring. But he sat down only to wheel on the pivot of his spine, as he had seen them do on the counter in the shop, and sit with hislegs alongside of the water-but. Then he drew Tommy from his shoulder, in spite of his clinging, and laid him across his knees; and Tommy, divining there were words yet to be said, and hoping to get off with abeating, which he did not mind, remained silent. 

"Your hour is come, Tommy!" said Clare. "If you scream, I will dropyou in, and hold you only by one leg. If you don't scream, I will holdyou by both legs. If you scream when I take you out, in you go again!I do what I say, Tommy!"

The wretched boy was nearly mad with terror. But now, much as hefeared the water, he feared yet more for the moment him in whom laythe power of the water. Clare took him by the heels. 

"I'm sorry there's no moon, as I promised you, " he said; "she won'tcome up for my calling. I should have liked you to see where you weregoing. But if you ain't an honest boy after this, you shall haveanother chance; and next time we will wait for the moon!"

With that he lifted Tommy's legs, holding him by the ankles, and wouldhave shoved his body over the edge of the but into the water. ButTommy clung fast to his knees. 

"Leave go, Tommy, " he said, "or I'll tumble you right in. "

Tommy yielded, his will overcome by a greater fear. Clare let him hangfor a moment over the black water, and slowly lowered him. Tommy clungto the side of the but. Clare let go one leg, and taking hold of hishands pulled them away. Tommy's terror would have burst in a frenziedyell, but the same instant he was down to the neck in the water, andlifted out again. He spluttered and gurgled and tried to scream. 

"Now, Tommy, " said Clare, "don't scream, or I'll put you in again. "

But Tommy never believed anything except upon compulsion. The momenthe could, that moment he screamed, and that moment he was in the wateragain. The next time he was taken out, he did not scream. Clare laidhim on the wall, and he lay still, pretending to be drowned. Clare gotup, set him on his feet in front of him, and holding him by thecollar, trotted him round the top of the wall to the door, and droppedhim into the garden. He was quiet enough now--more thansubdued--incapable even of meditating revenge. But when they enteredthe nursery, the dog, taking Tommy for a worse sort of rat, made aleap at him right off the bed, as if he would swallow him alive, andthe start and the terror of it brought him quite to himself again. 

"Quiet, Abdiel!" said Clare. 

The dog turned, jumped up on the bed, and lay down again close to thebaby. 

Clare, who, I have said, was in old days a reader of _Paradise Lost_, had already given him the name of _Abdiel_. 

"Please, I couldn't help yelling!" said Tommy, very meekly. "I didn'tknow you'd got _him_!"

"I know you couldn't help it!" answered Clare. "What have you had toeat to-day?"

"Nothing but a beastly turnip and a wormy beet, " said Tommy. "I'mawful hungry. "

"You'd have had something better if you'd stuck by the baby, and notleft her to the rats!"

"There ain't no rats, " growled Tommy. 

"Will you believe your own eyes?" returned Clare, and showed him theskin of the rat Abdiel had slain. "I've a great mind to make you eatit!" he added, dangling it before him by the tail. 

"Shouldn't mind, " said Tommy. "I've eaten a rat afore now, an' I'mthat hungry! Rats ain't bad to eat. I don't know about their skins!"

"Here's a piece of bread for you. But you sha'n't sleep with honestpeople like baby and Abdiel. You shall lie on the hearth-rug. Here's ablanket and a pillow for you!"

Clare covered him up warm, thatching all with a piece of loose carpet, and he was asleep directly. 

The next day all terror of the water-but was gone from the littlevagabond's mind. He was now, however, thoroughly afraid of Clare, andhis conceit that, though Clare was the stronger, he was the cleverer, was put in abeyance. 

Chapter XXXIV. 

How things went for a time. 

Clare's next day went much as the preceding, only that he was early atthe shop. When his dinner-hour came, he ran home, and was glad to findTommy and the dog mildly agreeable to each other. He had but time togive baby some milk, and Tommy and Abdiel a bit of bread each. 

His look when he returned, a look of which he was unaware, but whichone of the girls, who had a year ago been hungry for weeks together, could read, made her ask him what he had had for dinner. He said hehad had no dinner. 

"Why?" she asked. 

"Because there wasn't any. "

"Didn't your mother keep some for you?"

"No; she couldn't. "

"Then what will you do?"

"Go without, " answered Clare with a smile. 

"But you've got a mother?" said the girl, rendered doubtful by hissmile. 

"Oh, yes! I've got two mothers. But their arms ain't long enough, "replied Clare. 

The girl wondered: was he an idiot, or what they called a poet?Anyhow, she had a bun in her pocket, which she had meant to eat atfive o'clock, and she offered him that. 

"But what will you do yourself? Have you another?" asked Clare, unready to take it. 

"No, " she answered; "why shouldn't I go without as well as you?"

"Because it won't make things any better. There will be just as muchhunger. It's only shifting it from me to you. That will leave it allthe same!"

"No, not the same, " she returned. "I've had a good dinner--as much asI could eat; and you've had none!"

Clare was persuaded, and ate the girl's bun with much satisfaction andgratitude. 

When he had his wages in the evening, he spent them as before--a pennyfor the baby, and fivepence at Mr. Ball's for Tommy, Abdiel, andhimself. 

Observing that he came daily, and spent all he earned, except onepenny, on bread; seeing also that the boy's cheeks, though plainly hewas in good health, were very thin, Mr. Ball wondered a little: a boyought to look better than that on five pennyworth of bread a day!

They were a curious family--Clare, and Tommy, and the baby, andAbdiel. But the only thing sad about it was, that Clare, who was thehead and the heart of it, and provided for all, should be upheld by nohuman sympathy, no human gratitude; that he should be so high abovehis companions that, though he never thought he was lonely, he couldnot help feeling lonely. Not once did he wish himself rid of anysingle member of his adopted family. It was living on his very body;he was growing a little thinner every day; if things had gone on so, he must before long have fallen ill; but he never thought of himselfat all, body or soul. 

He had no human sympathy or gratitude, I say, but he had both sympathyand gratitude from Abdiel. The dog never failed to understand whatClare wished and expected him to understand. In Clare's absence hetook on himself the protection of the establishment, and was Tommy'ssuperior. 

Though Tommy was of no use to earn bread, Clare did not thereforeallow him to be idle. He insisted on his keeping the place clean andtidy, and in this respect Tommy was not quite a failure. He even madehim do some washing, though not much could be accomplished in that waywhere there was so little to wash. Now that Abdiel was nurse, Tommyhad the run of the garden, and often went beyond it for an hour or twowithout Clare's knowledge, but always took good care to be back beforehis return. 

A bale of goods happening to be unpacked in his presence one day, Clare begged the head-shopman, who was also a partner, for a piece ofwhat it was wrapped in; and he, having noted how well he worked, andbeing quite aware they could not get another such boy at such wages, gave him a large piece of the soiled canvas. Now Mrs. Person hadtaught Clare to work, --as I think all boys ought to be taught, so asnot to be helpless without mother or sister, --and with the help of aneedle and some thread the friendly girl gave him, he soon made of thepacking-sheet a pair of trousers for Tommy, of a primitive but notunserviceable cut, and a shirt for himself, of fashion more primitivestill. He managed it this way: he cut a hole in the middle of a pieceof the stuff, through which to put his head, and another hole on eachside of that, through which to put his arms, and hemmed them allround. Then, having first hemmed the garment also, he indued it, andlet the voluminous mass arrange itself as it might, under as much ofhis jacket and trousers as cohered. 

My reader may well wonder how, in what was called a respectable shop, he could be permitted to appear in such poverty; but Mr. Maidstonedisliked the boy so much that he meant to send him away the moment hefound another to do his work, and gave orders that he should nevercome up from the basement except when wanted to carry a parcel. Thefact was that his still, solemn, pure face was a haunting rebuke tohis master, although he did not in the least recognize the nature, orthis as the cause, of his dislike. 

Chapter XXXV. 

Clare disregards the interests of his employers. 

Things went on for nearly a month, every one thriving but Clare. Yetwas Clare as peaceful as any, and much happier than Tommy, to whosesatisfaction adventure was needful. 

One day, a lady, attracted by a muff in the shop-window labelled witha very low price, entered, and requested to see it. 

"We can offer you a choice from several of the sort, madam, " said theshopman. "It is one of a lot we bought cheap, but quite uninjured, after a fire. "

"I want to see the one in the window, " the lady answered. 

"I hope you will excuse me, madam, " returned the shopman. "The muff isin a position hard to reach. Besides, we must ask leave to takeanything down after the window is dressed for the day, and the masteris out. But I will bring you the same fur precisely. "

So saying, he went, and returned presently with a load of muffs andother furs, which he threw on the counter. But the lady had heard that"there's tricks i' the world, " and persisted in demanding a sight ofthe muff in the window. Being a "tall personage" and cool, she carriedher point. The muff was hooked down and brought her--notgraciously. She glanced at it, turned it over, looked inside, andsaid, "I will take it. Please bring a bandbox for it. "

"I will, madam, " said the man, and would have taken the muff. But sheheld it fast, sought her purse, and laid the price on the counter. Theshopman saw that she knew what both of them were about, took up themoney, went and fetched a bandbox, put the muff in it before her eyes, and tied it up. The lady held out her hand for it. 

"Shall I not send it for you, madam?" he said. 

"I do not live here, " she answered. "I am on my way to the station. "

"Here, Jack, " cried the shopman to Clare, whom he caught sight of thatmoment going down to the basement, "take this bandbox, and go with thelady to the station. "

If his transaction with the lady had pleased the man, he would nothave sent such a scarecrow to attend her, although she did not belongto the town, and they might never see her again! The lady, on herpart, was about to insist on carrying the bandbox herself; but whenClare came forward, and looked up smiling in her face, she was at onceaware that she might trust him. The man stood watching for the momentwhen she should turn her back, that he might substitute anotherbandbox for the one Clare carried; but Clare never looked at him, andwhen the lady walked out of the shop, walked straight out afterher. Along the street he followed her steadily, she looking roundoccasionally to see that he was behind her. 

They had gone about half-way to the station, when from a side streetcame a lad whom Clare knew as one employed in the packing-room. Hecarried a box exactly like that Clare had in his hand, and came softlyup behind him. Clare did not turn his head, for he did not want totalk to him while he was attending on the lady. 

"Look spry!" he said in a whisper. "She don't twig! It's all right!Maidstone sent me. "

Clare looked round. The lad held out his bandbox for him to take, andhis empty hand to take Clare's instead. But Clare had by this timebegun to learn a little caution. Besides, the lady's interests were inhis care, and he could be party to nothing done behind her back! Hehad not time to think, but knew it his duty to stick by thebandbox. If we have come up through the animals to be what we are, Clare must have been a dog of a good, faithful breed, for he did rightnow as by some ancient instinct. He held fast to the box, neitherslackening his pace nor uttering a word. The lad gave him a greatpunch. Clare clung the harder to the box. The lady heard something, and turned her head. The boy already had his back to her, and waswalking away, but she saw that Clare's face was flushed. 

"What is the matter?" she asked. 

"I don't rightly know, ma'am. He wanted me to give him my bandbox forhis, and said Mr. Maidstone had sent him. But I couldn't, youknow!--except he asked you first. You did pay for it--didn't you, ma'am?"

"Of course I did, or he wouldn't have let me take it away! But if youdon't know what it means, I do. --You haven't been in that shop long, have you?"

"Not quite a month, ma'am. "

"I thought so!"

She said no more, and Clare followed in silence, wondering not alittle. When they reached the station, she took the bandbox, andlooked at the boy. He returned her gaze, his gray eyes wondering. Shesearched her purse for a shilling, but, unable to find one, was notsorry to give him a half-crown instead. 

"You had better not mention that I gave you anything?" she said. 

"I will not, ma'am, except they ask me, " he answered. 

"But, " he added, his face in a glow of delight, "is all this for me?"

"To be sure, " she answered. "I am much obliged to you for--carrying myparcel. Be a honest boy whatever comes, and you will not repent it. "

"I will try, ma'am, " said Clare. 

But, to speak accurately, he did not know what it was to _try_ to behonest: he had never been tempted to be anything else, and hadscarcely had the idea of dishonesty in his mind except in relation toTommy. Do you say, "Then it was no merit to him"? Certainly it wasnone. Who was thinking of merit? Not Clare. He is a sneak who thinksof merit. He is a cad who can't do a gentlemanly action withoutthinking himself a fine fellow! It might be a merit in many a man toact as Clare did, but in Clare it was pure rightness--or, if you likethe word better, righteousness. 

Clare as little thought what awaited him. Had there been any truth, any appreciation of honesty in his vulgar heart, Mr. Maidstone couldnot have done as now he did. When his messenger came back with thetale of how he had been foiled, he said nothing, but his lips grewwhite. He closed them fast, and went and stood near the door. WhenClare, unsuspecting as innocent, opened it, he was met by a blow thatdazed him, and a fierce kick that sent him on his back to thecurbstone. Almost insensible, but with the impression that somethingwas interfering between him and his work, he returned to the door. Ashe laid his hand on it, it opened a little, and his master's face, with a hateful sneer upon it, shot into the crack, and spit inhis. Then the door shut so sharply that his fingers caught anagonizing pinch. At last he understood: he was turned off, and hisday's wages were lost!

What would have become of him now but for the half-crown the lady hadgiven him! She was not _quite_ a lady, or she would have walked out ofthe shop, and declined to gain by frustrating a swindle; but she was agood-hearted woman, and God's messenger to Clare. He bought a biggerloaf than usual, at which, and the time of the day when he bought it, and the half-crown presented in payment, Mr. Ball wondered; butneither said anything--Mr. Ball from indecision, Clare from eagernessto get home to his family. 

Chapter XXXVI. 

The policeman. 

But, alas! Clare had made another enemy--the lad whose attempt tochange the bandboxes he had foiled. The fellow followed him, lurkingly, all the way home--on the watch for fit place to pounce uponhim, and punish him for doing right when he wanted him to do wrong. Hesaw him turn into the opening that led to the well, and thought now hehad him. But when he followed him in, he was not to be seen! He didnot care to cross the well, not knowing what might meet him on theother side; but here was news to carry back! He did so; and his mastersaw in them the opportunity of indulging his dislike and revenge, anda means of invalidating whatever Clare might reveal to his discredit!

Clare and the baby and Tommy and Abdiel had taken their supper withsatisfaction, and were all asleep. It was to them as the middle of thenight, though it was but past ten o'clock, when Abdiel all at oncejumped right up on his four legs, cocked his ears, listened, leapedoff the bed, ran to the door, and began to bark furiously. He wassuddenly blinded by the glare of a bull's-eye-lantern, and received akick that knocked all the bark out of him, and threw him to the otherside of the room. A huge policeman strode quietly in, sending theglare of his bull's-eye all about the room like a vital, inquiringglance. It discovered, one after the other, every member of thefamily. So tired was Clare, however, that he did not wake until seizedby a rough hand, and at one pull dragged standing on the floor. 

"Take care of the baby!" he cried, while yet not half awake. 

"_I'll_ take care o' the baby, never fear!--an' o' you too, you youngrascal!" returned the policeman. 

He roused Tommy, who was wide awake, but pretending to be asleep, witha gentle kick. 

"Up ye get!" he said; and Tommy got up, rubbing his ferret eyes. 

"Come along!" said the policeman. 

"Where to?" asked Clare. 

"You'll see when you get there. "

"But I can't leave baby!"

"Baby must come along too, " answered the policeman, more gently, forhe had children of his own. 

"But she has no clothes to go in!" objected Clare. 

"She must go without, then. "

"But she'll take cold!"

"She don't run naked in the house, do she?"

"No; she can't run yet. I keep her in a blanket. But the blanket ain'tmine; I can't take it with me. "

"You're mighty scrup'lous!" returned the policeman. "You don't mindtakin' a 'ole 'ouse an' garding, but you wouldn' think o' takin' ablanket!--Oh, no! Honest boy _you_ are!"

He turned sharp round, and caught Tommy taking a vigorous sight athim. Tommy, courageous as a lion behind anybody's back, dropped on therug sitting. 

"We've done the house no harm, " said Clare, "and I will _not_ take theblanket. It would be stealing!"

"Then I will take it, and be accountable for it, " rejoined the man. "Ihope that will satisfy you!"

"Certainly, " answered Clare. "You are a policeman, and that makes itall right. "

"Rouse up then, and come along. I want to get home. "

"Please, sir, wouldn't it do in the morning?" pleaded Clare. "I've nowork now, and could easily go then. That way we should all have asleep. "

"My eye ain't green enough, " replied the policeman. "Look sharp!"

Clare said no more, but went to the baby. With sinking but courageousheart, he wrapped her closer in her blanket, and took her in hisarms. He could not help her crying, but she did not scream. Indeed shenever really screamed; she was not strong enough to scream. 

"Get along, " said the policeman. 

Clare led the way with his bundle, sorely incommoded by the size andweight of the wrapping blanket, the corners of which, one after theother, would keep working from his hold, and dropping and trailing onthe ground. Behind him came Tommy, a scarecrow monkey, withmischievous face, and greedy beads for eyes--type not unknown to thepoliceman, who brought up the rear, big enough to have all their sizescut out of him, and yet pass for a man. Down the stair they went, andout at the front door, which Clare for the first time saw open, and soby the iron gate into the street. 

"Which way, please?" asked Clare, turning half round with thequestion. 

"To the right, straight ahead. The likes o' you, young un, might knowthe way to the lock-up without astin'!"

Clare made no answer, but walked obedient. It was a sadprocession--comical indeed, but too sad when realized to continueludicrous. The thin, long-bodied, big-headed, long-haired, long-tailed, short-legged animal that followed last, seemed to closeit with a never-ending end. 

There was no moon; nothing but the gas-lamps lighted Clare's _Viadolorosa_. He hugged the baby and kept on, laying his cheek to hers tocomfort her, and receiving the comfort he did not seek. 

They came at last to the _lock-up_, a new building in the rear of thetown-house. There this tangle of humanity, torn from its rock andafloat on the social sea, drifted trailing into a bare brilliant room, and at its head, cast down but not destroyed, went heavy-laden Clare, with so much in him, but only his misery patent to eyes too much usedto misery to reap sorrow from the sight. 

The head policeman--they called him the inspector--received thecharge, that of house-breaking, and entered it. Then they were takenaway to the lock-up--all but the faithful Abdiel, who, following, received another of the kicks which that day rained on every member ofthat epitome of the human family except the baby, who, small enoughfor a mother to drown, was too small for a policeman to kick. The doorwas shut upon them, and they had to rest in that grave till theresurrection of the morning should bring them before the magistrate. 

Their quarters were worse than chilly--to all but the baby in herblanket manifoldly wrapped about her, and in Clare's arms. Tommy wouldgladly have shared that blanket, more gladly yet would have taken itall for himself and left the baby to perish; but he had to lie on thebroad wooden bench and make the best of it, which he did by snoringall the night. It passed drearily for Clare, who kept wide awake. Hewas not anxious about the morrow; he had nothing to be ashamed of, therefore nothing to fear; but he had baby to protect and cherish, andhe dared not go to sleep. 

Chapter XXXVII. 

The magistrate. 

The dawn came at last, and soon after the dawn footsteps, but theyapproached only to recede. When the door at length opened, it was butto let a pair of eyes glance round on them, and close again. The hoursseemed to be always beginning, and never going on. But at the longlast came the big policeman. To Clare's loving eyes, how friendly helooked!

"Come, kids!" he said, and took them through a long passage to a roomin the town-hall, where sat a formal-looking old gentleman behind atable. 

"Good morning, sir!" said Clare, to the astonishment of themagistrate, who set his politeness down as impudence. 

Nor was the mistake to be wondered at; for the baby in Clare's armshid, with the mountain-like folds of its blanket, the greater part ofhis face, and the old gentleman's eyes fell first on Tommy; and ifever _scamp_ was written clear on a countenance, it was written clearon Tommy's. 

"Hold your impudent tongue!" said a policeman, and gave Clare a cuffon the head. 

"Hold, John, " interposed the magistrate; "it is my part to punish, notyours. "

"Thank you, sir, " said Clare. 

"I will thank _you_, sir, " returned the magistrate, "not to speak tillI put to you the questions I am about to put to you. --What is thecharge against the prisoners?"

"Housebreaking, sir, " answered the big man. 

"What! Housebreaking! Boys with a baby! House-breakers don't generallygo about with babies in their arms! Explain the thing. "

The policeman said he had received information that unlawfulpossession had been taken of a building commonly known as The HauntedHouse, which had been in Chancery for no one could tell how manyyears. He had gone to see, and had found the accused in possession ofthe best bedroom--fast asleep, surrounded by indications that they hadmade themselves at home there for some time. He had brought themalong. 

The magistrate turned his eyes on Clare. 

"You hear what the policeman says?" he said. 

"Yes, sir, " answered Clare. 

"Well?"

"Sir?"

"What have you to say to it?"

"Nothing, sir. "

"Then you allow it is true?"

"Yes, sir. "

"What right had you to be there?"

"None, sir. But we had nowhere else to go, and nobody seemed to wantthe place. We didn't hurt anything. We swept away a multitude of deadmoths, and killed a lot of live ones, and destroyed a whole granary ofgrubs; and the dog killed a great rat. "

"What is your name?"

"Clare--Porson, " answered Clare, with a little intervening hesitation. 

"You are not quite sure?"

"Yes; that is my name; but I have another older one that I don'tknow. "

"A bad answer! The name you go by is not your own! Hum! Is that boyyour brother?"

"No, sir. "

"Your cousin?"

"No, sir; he's not any relation of mine. He's a tramp. "

"And what are you?"

"Something like one now, sir, but I wasn't always. "

"What were you?"

"Not much, sir. I didn't _do_ anything till just lately. "

He could not bear at the moment to talk of his be-loved dead. He feltas if the old gentleman would be rude to them. 

"Is the infant there your sister?"

"She's my sister the big way: God made her. She's not my sister anyother way. "

"How does she come to be with you then?"

"I took her out of the water-but. Some one threw her in, and I heardthe splash, and went and got her out. "

"Why did you not take her to the police?"

"I never thought of that. It was all I could do to keep her alive. Icouldn't have done it if we hadn't got into the house. "

"How long ago is that?"

"Nearly a month, sir. "

"And you've kept her there ever since?"

"Yes, sir--as well as I could. I had only sixpence a day. "

"And what's that boy's name?"

"Tommy, sir. --I don't know any other. "

"Nice respectable company you keep for one who has evidently been wellbrought up!"

"Baby's quite respectable, sir!"

"Hum!"

"And for Tommy, if I didn't keep him, he would steal. I'm teaching himnot to steal. "

"What woman have you got with you?"

"Baby's the only woman we've got, sir. "

"But who attends to her?"

"I do, sir. She only wants washing and rolling round in the blanket;she's got no clothes to speak of. When I'm away, Tommy and Abdiel takecare of her. "

"Abdiel! Who on earth is that? Where is he?" said the magistrate, looking round for some fourth member of the incomprehensible family. 

"He's not on earth, sir; he's in heaven--the good angel, you know, sir, that left Satan and came back again to God. "

"You must take him to the county-asylum, James!" said the magistrate, turning to the tall policeman. 

"Oh, he's all right, sir!" said James. 

"Please, sir, " interrupted Clare eagerly, "I didn't mean the dog wasin heaven yet. I meant the angel I named him after!"

"They _had_ a little dog with them, sir!"

"Yes--Abdiel. He wanted to be a prisoner too, but they wouldn't lethim in. He's a good dog--better than Tommy. "

"So! like all the rest of you, you can keep a dog!"

"He followed me home because he hadn't anybody to love, " saidClare. "He don't have much to eat, but he's content. He would eatthree times as much if I could give it him; but he never complains. "

"Have you work of any sort?"

"I had till yesterday, sir. "

"Where?"

"At Mr. Maidstone's shop. "

"What wages had you?"

"Sixpence a day. "

"And you lived, all three of you, on that?"

"Yes; all four of us, sir. "

"What do you do at the shop?"

"Please your worship, " interposed policeman James, "he was sent abouthis business yesterday. "

"Yes, " rejoined Clare, who did not understand the phrase, "I was sentwith a lady to carry her bandbox to the station. "

"And when you came back, you was turned away, wasn't you?" said James. 

"Yes, sir. "

"What had you done?" asked the magistrate. 

"I don't quite know, sir. "

"A likely story!"

Clare made no reply. 

"Answer me directly. "

"Please, sir, you told me not to speak unless you asked me aquestion. "

"I said, 'A likely story!' which meant, 'Do you expect me to believethat?'"

"Of course I do, sir. "

"Why?"

"Because it is true. "

"How am I to believe that?"

"I don't know, sir. I only know I've got to speak the truth. It's theperson who hears it that's got to believe it, ain't it, sir?"

"You've got to prove it. "

"I don't think so, sir; I never was told so; I was only told I mustspeak the truth; I never was told I must prove what I said. --I've beenseveral times disbelieved, I know. "

"I should think so indeed!"

"It was by people who did not know me. "

"Never by people who did know you?"

"I think not, sir. I never was by the people at home. "

"Ah! you could not read what they were thinking!"

"Were you not believed when you were at home, sir?"

The magistrate's doubt of Clare had its source in the fact that, although now he was more careful to speak the truth than are mostpeople, it was not his habit when a boy, and he had suffered severelyin consequence. He was annoyed, therefore, at his question, set himdown as a hypocritical, boastful prig, and was seized with a strongdesire to shame him. 

"I remand the prisoner for more evidence. Take the children to theworkhouse, " he said. 

Tommy gave a sudden full-sized howl. He had heard no good of theworkhouse. 

"The baby is mine!" pleaded Clare. 

"Are you the father of it?" said the big policeman. 

"Yes, I think so: I saved her life. --She would have been drowned if Ihadn't looked for her when I heard the splash!" reasoned Clare, hisface drawn with grief and the struggle to keep from crying. 

"She's not yours, " said the magistrate. "She belongs to theparish. Take her away, James. "

The big policeman came up to take her. Clare would have held hertight, but was afraid of hurting her. He did draw back from theoutstretched hands, however, while he put a question or two. 

"Please, sir, will the parish be good to her?" he asked. 

"Much better than you. "

"Will it let me go and see her?" he asked again, with an outbreakingsob. 

"You can't go anywhere till you're out of this, " answered the bigpoliceman, and, not ungently, took the baby from him. 

"And when will that be, please?" asked Clare, with his empty armsstill held out. 

"That depends on his worship there. "

"Hold your tongue, James, " said the magistrate. "Take the boy away, John. "

"Please, sir, where am I going to?" asked Clare. 

"To prison, till we find out about you. "

"Please, sir, I didn't mean to steal her. I didn't know the parishwanted her!"

"Take the boy away, I tell you!" cried the magistrate angrily. "Histongue goes like the hopper of a mill!"

James, carrying the baby on one arm, was already pushing Tommy beforehim by the neck. Tommy howled, and rubbed his red eyes with what wasleft him of cuffs, but did not attempt resistance. 

"Please, don't let anybody hold her upside down, policeman!" criedClare. "She doesn't like it!--Oh, baby! baby!"

John tightened his grasp on his arm, and hurried him away in anotherdirection. 

Where the big policeman issued with his charge, there was Abdielhovering about as if his spring were wound up so tight that itwouldn't go off. How he came to be at that door, I cannot imagine. 

When he spied Tommy, he rushed at him. Tommy gave him a kick thatrolled him over. 

"Don't want _you_, you mangy beast!" he said, and tried to kick himagain. 

Abdiel kept away from him after that, but followed the party to theworkhouse, where also, to his disgust, plainly expressed, he wasrefused admittance. He returned to the entrance by which Clare hadvanished from his eyes the night before, and lay down there. I suspecthe had an approximate canine theory of the whole matter. He knew atleast that Clare had gone in with the others at that door; that he hadnot come out with them at the other door; that, therefore, in allprobability, he was within that door still. 

The police made inquiry at Mr. Maidstone's shop. Reasons for hisdismissal were there given involving no accusation: there was littledesire in that quarter to have the matter searched into. There wastherefore nothing to the discredit of the boy, beyond his running toearth in the neglected house like a wild animal. After three days hewas set at liberty. 

As the big policeman led the way to the door to send him out, Clareaddressed him thus:

"Please, Mr. James, may I go back to the house for a little while?"

"Well, you _are_ an innocent!" said James; "--or, " he added, "thebiggest little humbug ever I see!--No, it's not likely!"

"I only wanted, " explained Clare, "to set things straight a bit. Thehouse is cleaner than it was, _I_ know, but it is not in such goodorder as when we went into it. I don't like to leave it worse than wefound it. "

"Never you heed, " said James, believing him perfectly before he knewwhat he was about. "The house don't belong to nobody, so far as ever Iheerd, an' the things'll rot all the same wherever they stand. "

"But I should like, " persisted Clare. 

"I couldn't do it off my own hook, an' his worship would think youonly wanted to steal something. The best thing you can do is to leavethe place at once, an' go where nobody knows nothing agin you. "

Thought Clare with himself, "If the house doesn't belong to anybody, why wouldn't they let me stay in it?"

But the policeman opened the door, and as he was turning to saygood-bye to him, gave him a little shove, and closed it behind him. 

Chapter XXXVIII. 

The workhouse. 

He went into the street with a white face and a dazed look--not fromany hardship he had experienced during his confinement, for he hadbeen in what to him was clover, but because he had lost the baby andAbdiel, and because his mind had been all the time in perplexity withregard to the proceedings of justice: he did not and could not seethat he had done anything wrong. Throughout his life it never matteredmuch to Clare to be accused of anything wrong, but it did trouble him, this time at least, to be punished for doing what was right. He tookit very quietly, however. 

Indignation may be a sign of innocence, but it is no necessaryconsequence of innocence any more than it is a proof ofrighteousness. A man will be fiercely indignant at an accusation thathappens to be false, who did the very thing last week, and is ready todo it again. Indignation against wrong to another even, is no proof ofa genuine love of fair play. Clare hardly resented anything done tohimself. His inward unconscious purity held him up, and made him lookevents in the face with an eye that was single and therefore at onceforgiving and fearless. The man who has no mote in his own eye cannotbe knocked down by the beam in his neighbour's; while he who is busywith the mote in his neighbour's may stumble to destruction over thebeam in his own. 

White and dazed as he came out, the moment he stepped across thethreshold, Clare met the comfort of God waiting for him. His eyesblinded with the great light, for it was a glorious morning in thebeginning of June, he found himself assailed in unknightly fashionbelow the knee: there, to his unspeakable delight, was Abdiel, clinging to him with his fore-legs, and wagging his tail as if, likethe lizards for terror, he would shake it off for gladness! What ablessed little pendulum was Abdiel's tail! It went by that weight ofthe clock of the universe called devotion. It was the escapement ofthat delight which is of the essence of existence, and which, when Godhas set right "our disordered clocks, " will be its very consciousness. 

Clare stood for a moment and looked about him. The needle of hiscompass went round and round. It had no north. He could not go back tothe shop; he could not go back to the house; baby was in theworkhouse, but he could not stay there even if they would let him!Neither could he stop in the town; the policeman said he must go away!Where was he to go? There was not in the world one place for himbetter than another! But they would let him see baby before hewent!--and off he set to find the workhouse. 

Abdiel followed quietly at his heel, for his master walked lost inthought, and Abdiel was too hungry to make merry without hisnotice. Clare, fresh to the world, had been a great reader for one soyoung, and could encounter new experience with old knowledge. In hismind stood a pile of fir-cones, and dried sticks, and old olive wood, which the merest touch of experience would set in a blaze of practicalconclusion. But the workhouse was so near that his reflections beforehe reached it amounted only to this--that there are worse places thana prison when you have done nothing to deserve being put in it. Apalace may be one of them. You get enough to eat in a prison; in apalace you do not; you get too much!

The porter at the workhouse informed him it was not the day for seeingthe inmates; but the tall policeman had given Clare a hint, and herequested to see the matron. After much demur and much entreaty, theman went and told the matron. She, knowing the story of the baby, wanted to see Clare, and was so much pleased with his manners andlooks, that his sad clothes pleaded for and not against him. She tookhim at once to the room where the baby was with many more, telling himhe must prove she was his by picking her out. It was not wonderfulthat Clare, who knew the faces of animals so well, should know his ownbaby the moment he saw her, notwithstanding that she was decentlyclothed, and had already improved in appearance. But the nursesdeclared they had never before seen a man, not to say a boy, who couldtell one baby from another. 

"Why, " rejoined Clare, "my dog Abdiel could pick out the baby he wasnurse to!"

"Ah, but he's a dog!"

"And I'm a boy!" said Clare. 

He descried her on the lap of an old woman, seeming to him very old, who was at the head of the nursery-department. Old as she was, however, she had a keen eye, and a handsome countenance, with aquantity of white hair. Unlike the rest of the women, though not farremoved from them socially, she knew several languages, so far as toread and enjoy books in them. Now and then a great woman may be foundin a workhouse, like a first folio of Shakspere on a bookstall, among--oh, such companions!

"Let me take her, " said Clare modestly, holding out his hands for thebaby. 

"Are you sure you will not let her drop?"

"Why, ma'am, " answered Clare, "she's my own baby! It was I took herout of the water-but! I washed and fed her every day!--not that Icould do it so well as you, ma'am!"

She gave him the baby, and watched him with the eye of a seeress, forshe had a wonderful insight into character, and that is one of theroots of prophecy. 

"You are a good and true lad, " she said at length, "and a hard successlies before you. I don't know what you will come to, but, with thoseeyes, and that forehead, and those hands, if you come to anything butgood, you will be terribly to blame. "

"I will try to be good, ma'am, " said Clare simply. "But I wish I knewwhat they put me in prison for!"

"What, indeed, my lamb!" she returned; and her eyes flashed withindignation under the cornice of her white hair. "They'll be put inprison one day themselves that did it!"

"Oh, I don't mind!" said Clare. "I don't want them to be punished. Yousee I'm only waiting!"

"What are you waiting for, sonny?" asked the old woman. 

"I don't exactly know--though I know better than what I was put inprison for. Nobody ever told me anything, but I'm always waiting forsomething. "

"The something will come, child. You will have what you want! Only goon as you're doing, and you'll be a great man one day. "

"I don't want to be a great man, " answered Clare; "I'm only waitingtill what is coming does come. "

The woman cast down her eyes, and seemed lost in thought. Claredandled the baby gently in his arms, and talked loving nonsense toher. 

"Well, " said the old woman, raising at length her eyes, with a look ofreverence in them, to Clare's, "I can't help you, and you want no helpof mine. I've got no money, but--"

"I've got plenty of money, ma'am, " interrupted Clare. "I've got awhole shilling in my pocket!"

"Bless the holy innocent!" murmured the woman. "--Well, I can onlypromise you this--that as long as I live, the baby sha'n't forget you;and I ain't so old as I look. "

Here the matron came up, and said he had better be going now; but ifhe came back any day after a month, he should see the baby again. 

"Thank you, ma'am, " replied Clare. "Keep her a good baby, please. Iwill come for her one day. "

"Please God I live to see that day!" said the old woman. "I think Ishall. "

She did live to see it, though I cannot tell that part of the storynow. 

Chapter XXXIX. 

Away. 

So Clare went once more into the street, where Abdiel was againwatching for him, and stood on the pavement, not knowing which way toturn. The big policeman had told him that no one there would give himwork after what had happened; and now, therefore, he was only waitingfor a direction to present itself. In a moment it occurred to himthat, having come in at one end of the town, he had better go out atthe other. He followed the suggestion, and Abdiel followed him--hishead hanging and his tail also, for the joy of recovering his masterhad used up all the remnant of wag there was in his clock. He had nomore frolic or scamper in him now than when Clare first saw him. Howthe poor thing had subsisted during the last few days, it were hard totell. It was much that he had escaped death from ill-usage. Meanest ofwretches are the boys or men that turn like grim death upon thehelpless. Except they change their way, helplessness will overtakethem like a thief, and they will look for some one to deliver them andfind none. Traitors to those whom it is their duty to protect, theywill one day find themselves in yet more pitiful plight than ever werethey. But I fear they will not believe it before their fate has themby the throat. 

Clare saw that the dog was famished. He stopped at a butcher's andbought him a scrap of meat for a penny. Then he had elevenpence withwhich to begin the world afresh, and was not hungry. 

Out on the highway they went, in a perfect English summer day, withall the world before them. It was not an oyster for Clare to open withsword, pen, or _sesame_; but he might find a place on the outside ofit for all that, and a way over it into a better--one that he _could_open and get at the heart of. The sun shone as on the day of theearthquake--deep in Clare's dimmest memorial cavern;--shone as if heknew, come what might, that all was well; that if he shone his heartout and went dark, nothing would go wrong; while, for the present, everything depended on his shining his glorious best. 

"Come along, Abdiel, " said Clare; "we're going to see what comesnext. At the worst, you know what hunger is, doggie, and that a gooddeal of it can be borne pretty well--though I'm not fond of it anymore than you, doggie! We'll not beg till we're downright forced, andwe won't steal. When that's the next thing, we'll just sit down, wagour tails, and die. --There!"

He gave him the last piece of his meat, and they trudged on for sometime without speaking. 

The sun was very hot, for it was past noon an hour or two, when theycame to a public-house, with a pump before it, and a trough. Claregrew very thirsty when he saw the pump, and imagined the rush of athick sparkling curve from its spout. But its handle was locked with achain, to keep men and women from having water instead of beer. Hewent with longing to the trough, but the water in it was so uncleanthat, thirsty as he was, he could not look on it even as a lastresource. He walked into the house. 

"Please, ma'am, " he said to the woman at the bar, "would you allow meto pump myself a little water to drink?"

"You think I've got nothing to do but serve tramps with water!" sheanswered, throwing back her head till her nostrils were at rightangles with the horizon. 

"I'm not a tramp, ma'am, " said Clare. 

"Show me your money, then, for a pot of beer, like other honest folk. "

"I'm afraid I told you wrong, ma'am, " returned Clare. "I'm afraid I_am_ a tramp after all; only _I_'m looking for work, and most trampsain't, I fancy. "

"They all _say_ they are, " answered the woman. "That's your story, andthat's theirs!"

"I've got elevenpence, ma'am; and could, I dare say, buy a pot ofbeer, though I don't know the price of one; but I don't see where I'mgoing to get any more money, and what we have must serve Abdiel and metill we do. "

"What right have _you_ to a dog, when you ain't fit to pay your pennyfor a half-pint o' beer?"

"Don't be hard on the young 'un, mis'ess; he don't look a bad sort!"said a man who stood by with a pewter pot in his hand. 

Clare wondered why he had his cord-trousers pulled up a few inches andtied under his knees with a string, which made little bags of themthere. He had to think for a mile after they left the public-housebefore he discovered that it was to keep them from tightening on hisknees when he stooped, and so incommoding him at his work. 

"Thank you, sir, " he said. "I'm not a bad sort. I didn't know it wasany harm to ask for water. It ain't begging, is it, sir?"

"Not as I knows on, " replied the man. "Here, take the lot!"

He offered Clare his nearly emptied pewter. 

"No, thank you, sir, " answered Clara "I am thirsty--but not so thirstyas to take your drink from you. I can get on to the next pump. Perhapsthat won't be chained up like a bull!"

"Here, mis'ess!" cried the man. "This is a mate as knows a neighbourwhen he sees him. I'll stand him a half-pint. There's yer money!"

Without a word the woman flung the man's penny in the till, and drewClare a half-pint of porter. Clare took it eagerly, turned to the man, said, "I thank you, sir, and wish your good health, " and drained thepewter mug. He had never before tasted beer, or indeed any drinkstronger than tea, and he did not like it. But he thanked hisbenefactor again, and went back to the trough. 

"Dogs don't drink beer, " he said to himself. "They know better!" andlifting Abdiel he held him over the trough. Abdiel was not sofastidious as his master, and lapped eagerly. Then they pursued theiruncertain way. 

Ready to do anything, he thought the shabbiness of his clothes wouldbe a greater bar to indoor than to outdoor work, and applied thereforeat every farm they came to. But he did not look so able as he was, andboys were not much wanted. He never pitied himself, and neverentreated: to beg for work was beggary, and to beggary he would notdescend until driven by approaching death. But now and then sometender-hearted woman, oftener one of ripe years, struck with hislook--its endurance, perhaps, or its weariness mingled withhope--would perceive the necessity of the boy, and offer him the foodhe did not ask--nor like him the less that, never doubting what cameto one was for both, he gave the first share of it to Abdiel. 

Chapter XL. 

Maly. 

Travelling on in vague hope, meeting with kindness enough to keep himalive, but getting no employment, sleeping in what shelter he couldfind, and never missing the shelter he could not find, for the weatherwas exceptionally warm for the warm season, he came one day to avillage where the strangest and hardest experience he ever encounteredawaited him. What part of the country he was in, or what was the nameof the village, he did not know. He seldom asked a question, seldomuttered word beyond a polite greeting, but kept trudging on and on, asif the goal of his expectation were ever drawing nigher. He felt nocuriosity as to the names of the places he passed through. Why shouldthe names of towns and villages strung on a road to nowhere inparticular, interest him? He did, however, long afterward, come toknow the name of this village, and its topographical relations: theplace itself was branded on his brain. 

He entered it in the glow of a hot noon, and had walked nearly throughit without meeting any one, for it was the dinner-hour, and savouryodours filled the air, when a little girl came from a neat house, andran farther down the street. He was very tired, very dusty, had eatennothing that day, had begun to despair of work, and was wishinghimself clear of the houses that he might throw himself down. Butsomething in the look of the child made him quicken his weary step ashe followed her. He overtook her, passed her, and saw her face. Heavens! it was Maly, grown wonderfully bigger! He turned and caughther up in his arms. She gave a screech of terror, and he set her downin keenest dismay. Finding that he was not going to run away with her, she did not run farther from him than to safe parleying distance. 

"You bad boy!" she cried; "you're not to touch me! I will tell mamma!"

"Why, Maly! don't you know me?"

"No, I don't You are a dirty boy!"

"But, Maly!--"

"My name is not Maly; it's Mary; and I don't know you. "

"Have you forgotten Clare, Maly?--Clare that used to carry you aboutall day long?"

"Yes; I have forgotten you. You're a dirty, ragged beggar-boy! You'rea bad boy! Boys with holes in their clothes are bad boys. --Nursie toldme so, and she knows everything! She told me herself she kneweverything!"

She gave another though milder scream: involuntarily, Clare had takena step toward her, with his hand in his pocket, searching, as in theold days when she cried, for something to give her. But, alas, hispockets were now as empty as his stomach! there was _nothing_ inthem--not even a crumb saved from a scanty meal! While he was yetsearching, the little child, his heart's love--if indeed it wasshe--stooped, gathered a handful of dust, and threw it at him. The bigboy burst into tears. The child mocked him for a minute, and whenClare looked up again, drying his eyes with a rag, she was gone. 

He felt no resentment; love, old memories, his strange gentleness, andpity for Maly and Maly's mother, saved him from it. The child was bigand plump and rosy, but oh, how fallen from his little Maly! And, herchild grown such, the mother was poor indeed, though up in the dome ofthe angels! If she did not know the change in her, it was the worse, for she could not help! Clare, like most of my readers, had not yetlearned to trust God for everything. But he was true toMaly. Miserable over her backsliding, he said to himself that evilcounsellors were more to blame than she. 

"Did she know me at all?" he pondered; "or has she forgot mealtogether?"

He began to doubt whether the girl was really Maly, or one very likeher. About half an hour after, he met a poor woman with a bundle onher bowed back, who gave him a piece of bread. When he had eaten that, he began to doubt whether he had met any little girl. He rememberedthat he had often come to himself, as he wandered along the road, tofind he had been lost in fancies of old scenes or imaginary new ones;waked up, he did not at once realize himself a poor lad on the trampfor work he could not find: his conceptions were for a time strongerthan the things around him. He was thereupon comforted with the hopethat he had not in reality seen Maly, but had imagined the wholeaffair. How was it possible, though, that he should imagine suchhorrible things of his little sister? On the other hand, was it notmore possible for a fainting brain to imagine such a misery, than forthe live child to behave in such a fashion? Every day for many days hetormented himself with like reasonings; but by degrees the occurrence, whether fancy or fact, receded, and he grew more conscious oftramping, tramping along. He grew also more hopeless of getting work, but not more doubtful that everything was right. For he knew ofnothing he had done to bring these things upon him. 

His quiet content never left him. At the worst pinch of hunger andcold, he never fell into despair. I do not know what merit he had inthis, for he was constituted more hopeful and placid than I ever knewanother. What he had merit in was, that not for a hungry boy's mostpowerful temptation, something to eat, would he even imagine himselfdoing what must not be done. He would not lead himself intotemptation. Thus he pleased the Power--let me rather say, ten timesmore truly--the Father from whom he came. 

Chapter XLI. 

The caravans. 

Within a fortnight or so after the police had dismissed him, blowinghim loose on the world like a dandelion-seed in the wind, Clare had anadventure which not only gave him pleasure, but led to work and foodand interest in life. 

Passing one day from a cross-country road into the highway, he camestraight on the flank of a travelling menagerie. It was one of somesize, and Clare saw at a glance that its horses were in faircondition. The front part of the little procession had already goneby, and an elephant was passing at the moment with a caravan--offeline creatures, as Clare afterwards learned, behind him. He drew itwith absolute ease, but his head seemed to be dragged earthward by theweight of his trunk, as he plodded wearily along. A world of delightwoke in the heart of the boy. He had read much about strange beasts, but had never seen one. His impulse was to run straight to theelephant, and tell him he loved him. For he was a live beast, andClare loved every creature, common or strange, wild or tame, ordinaryor wonderful. But prudent thought followed, and he saw it better tohover around, in the hope of a chance of being useful. Oh, thetreasures of wonder and knowledge on the other side of those thinwalls of wood, so slowly drawn along the dusty highway! If but for amoment he might gaze on their living marvels! He had no money, butthings came to him without money--not so plentifully as he couldsometimes wish--but they came, and so might this! Employment amongthose animals would be well worth the long hungry waiting! This mightbe the very work he had been looking for without knowing it! It wasfor this, perhaps, he had been kept so long waiting--till the caravansshould come along the road, and he be at the corner as they passed! Hedid not know how often a man may think thus and see it come tonothing--because there is better yet behind, for which more waiting iswanted. 

At the end of the procession came a bear, shuffling alonguncomfortably. It went to Clare's heart to see how far fromcomfortable the poor beast appeared. "What a life it would be, " hethought, "to have all the creatures in all those caravans to makehappy! That would be a life worth living!"

It was a worthy ambition--infinitely higher than that of boys who wantto do something great, or clever, or strong. As to those who want tobe rich--for their ambition I have an utter contempt. How gladly wouldI drive that meanness out of any boy's heart! To fall in with the workof the glad creator, and help him in it--that is the only ambitionworth having. It may not look a grand thing to do it in a caravan, butit takes the mind of Christ to do it anywhere. 

Behind the bear, closing the procession, came a stoutish, good-tempered-looking man, in a small spring-cart, drawn by a smallpony: he was the earthly owner of that caged life, with all itsgathered discomforts. Clare lifted his cap as he passed him--apoliteness of which the man took no notice, because the boy wasragged. The moment he was past, Clare fell in behind as one of theprocession. He was prudent enough, however, not to go so near as tolook intrusive. 

When he had followed thus for a mile or two, he saw, by signs patentto every wanderer, that they were coming near a town. Before reachingit, however, they arrived at a spot where the hedges receded from theroad, leaving a little green sward on the sides of it, and there thelong line came to a halt. 

The menagerie had, the day before, been exhibited at a fair, and wasnow on its way to another, to be held the next day in the town theywere approaching: they had made the halt in order to prepare theirentrance. To let a part of their treasure be seen, was the best way torouse desire after what was yet hidden: they were going, therefore, totake out an animal or two more to walk in parade. Clare sat down at alittle distance, and wondered what was coming next. 

Experience of tramps had made the men suspicious, and it may be theydisliked having their proceedings watched by anybody; but, happily forClare, it was the master himself who came up to him, not withoutsomething of menace in his bearing. The boy was never afraid, and hopestarted up full grown as the man approached. He rose and took off hiscap--a very ready action with Clare, which sprung from purepoliteness, and from nothing either selfish or cringing. But the manput his own interpretation on the civility. 

"What are you hanging about here for?" he said rudely. 

Now Clare had a perfect right to answer, had he so pleased, that hewas on the king's highway, where no one had a right to interfere withhim. But he had the habit--he could not help it; it was natural tohim--of thinking first of the other party's side of a question--a raregift, which served him better than he knew. For the other may be inthe right, and it is an ugly thing to interfere with any man's right;while a man's own rights are never so much good to him as when hewaives them. 

"I beg your pardon, sir, " he said; "I did not understand you wished tobe alone. I never thought you would mind me. Will it be far enough ifI go just out of sight, for I am very tired? It is pleasant, besides, to know there are friends near!"

The man recognized in Clare the modes and speech of a gentleman; andhaving, in the course of his wandering life, seen and known a goodmany strange things, he suspected under the rags a history. But he wasnot interested enough to stop and inquire into it. 

"Never mind, " he said, in altered tone; "I see you're after nomischief!" and with that walked away, leaving Clare to do as hepleased. 

A few minutes more went by. Clare sat hungry and sleepy on the grassby the roadside. Before he knew, he was on his feet, startled by aterrible noise. The lion had opened his great jaws, and his brownleathery sides, working like a pair of bellows, had sent from histhroat a huge blast, half roar, half howl. When Clare came to himselfhe knew, though he had never heard it before, that the fearful soundwas the voice of the lion. He did not know that all it meant was, thathis majesty had thought of his dinner. It was not indeed much morethan an audible gape. He stood for a moment, not at all terrified, buthalf expecting to see a huge yellow animal burst out of one of thecaravans--he could not guess which: the roar was much too loud toindicate one rather than another. He sat down again, but was not anylonger inclined to sleep. For a time, however, no second roar camefrom the ribs of the captive monarch. 

Chapter XLII. 

Nimrod. 

That there had been a fair not far off will partly account for whatfollows. As Clare sat resting, which was all he could do, with sleepfled and food nowhere, a roar of a different kind invaded his ears. Itcame along the road this time, not from the caravans. He looked, andspied what would have brought the heart into the throat of many agrown man. Away on the road, in the direction whence the menagerie hadcome, he saw a cloud of dust and a confused struggle, presentlyresolved into two men, each at the end of a rope, and an animalbetween them attached to the ropes by a ring in his nose. It was abull, in terrible excitement, bounding this way and that, dragging anddriving the men--doing his best in fact to break away, now from theone of them, now from the other, and now from both at once. It musthave tortured him to pull those strong men by the cartilage of hisnose, but he was in too great a rage to feel it much. Every othermoment his hoofs would be higher than his head, and again hoofs andhead and horns would be scraping the ground in a fruitless rush tosend one of his tormentors into space beyond the ken of bulls. Withswift divergence, like a scenting hound, he twisted and shot his hugebody. The question between men and bull seemed one of endurance. 

The pale-faced boy, though full of interest in the strife, yet havinghad no food that day, was not in sufficient spirits to run and meetthe animal whirlwind, so as to watch closer its chances; but thestruggle came at length near enough for him to follow almost everydetail of it: he could see the bloody foam drip from the poor beast'snostrils. When about fifty yards away, the bull, by a sudden twist, wrenched the rope from the hands of one of the men. He fell on hisback. The other dropped his rope and fled. The bull came scouring downthe highway. 

A second roar, as of muffled thunder, issued from the leathery flanksof the lion. The bull made a sudden stop, scoring up the ground withhis hoofs. It seemed as if in full career he started back. Then downwent his head, and like a black flash, its accompanying thunder abellow of defiant contempt and wrath, he charged one of thecaravans. He had taken the hungry lion's roar for a challenge tocombat. It was nothing to the bull that the voice was that of anunknown monster; he was ready for whatever the monster might prove. 

The men busy about the caravans and wagons, caught sight of himcoming, and in the first moment of terror at a beast to which theywere not accustomed, bolted for refuge behind or upon them: they wouldsooner have encountered their tiger broke loose. The same moment, withastounding shock, the head of the bull went crack against the nearhind-wheel of the caravan in whose shafts stood the elephant, patiently waiting orders. The bull had not caught sight of theelephant, or he would doubtless have "gone for" him, not thecaravan. His ear, finer than Clare's, must have distinguished whencethe roar proceeded: in that caravan, sure enough, was the lion, withthe rest of the great cats. He answered the blow of the bull's headwith a roar thunderously different from his late sleepy leoninesigh. It roused every creature in the menagerie. From the greatest tothe smallest each took up its cry. Out burst a tornado of terrificsound, filling with horror the quiet noontide. The roaring and yellingof lion, tiger, and leopard, the laughter of hyena, the howling ofjackal, and the snarling of bear, mingled in hideous dissonance withthe cries of monkeys and parrots; while certain strange gurgles madeClare's heart, lover of animals though he was, quiver, and his bloodcreep. The same instant, however, he woke to the sense that he mightdo something: he ran to the caravans. 

By this time the men, master and all, fully roused to the far worsethat might follow the attack of the bull, had caught up what weaponswere at hand, and rushed to repel the animal For more than one or twoof them it might have proved a fatal encounter, but that the enragedbeast had entangled his horns in the spokes and rim of the wheel. Interror of what might be approaching him from behind, he was strugglingwildly to extricate them. Peril upon peril! What if in the contortionsof his mighty muscles he pulled off the wheel, and the carriagetoppled over, every cage in it so twisted and wrenched that thebearings of its iron bars gave way! The results were too terrible toponder! This way and that, and every way at once, he was writhing andpushing and prising and dragging. The elephant turned the shaftsslowly round to see what was the matter behind. If the bull and theelephant yoked to the caravan came to loggerheads, ruin wasinevitable. The master thought whether he had not better loose theelephant while the bull was yet entangled by the horns. With one blowof his trunk he would break the ruffian's back and end the affray! Itwere good even, if one knew how, to loose the wicked-looking horns:the brute's struggles to free them were more dangerous far than couldbe the horns themselves!

While he hesitated, Clare came running up, with Abdiel at his heelsready as any hornet to fly at bull or elephant, let his master onlyspeak the word. But the moment Clare saw how the bull's horns weremixed up with the spokes and fellies of the wheel, a glad suspicionflashed across him: that was old Nimrod's way! could it be Nimrodhimself? If it were, the trouble was as good as over! The suspicionbecame a certainty the instant it woke. But never could Clarealtogether forgive himself for not at first sight recognizing his oldfriend. I believe myself that hunger was to blame, and not Clare. 

The men stood about the animal, uncertain what to do, as he struggledwith his horns, and heaved and tore at the wheel to get them out ofit, the roars and howls and inarticulate curses going on all thetime. The elephant must have been tired, to stand so and do nothing!For a moment Clare could not get near enough. He was afraid to callhim while the bull could not see him: Nimrod might but struggle themore, in order to get to him!

Up rushed a fellow, white with rage and running, bang into the middleof the spectators, and shook the knot of them asunder. It was one ofthe two men from whom Nimrod had broken. He had a pitchfork in hishands which he proceeded to level. Clare flung his weight against him, threw up his fork, shoved him aside, and got close to the maddenedanimal. It was his past come again! How often had he not interfered toprotect Nimrod--and his would-be masters also! With instinctive, unconscious authority, he held up his hand to the little crowd. 

"Leave him alone, " he cried. "I know him; I can manage him! Please donot interfere. He is an old friend of mine. "

They saw that the bull was already still: he had recognized the boy'svoice! They kept his furious attendant back, and looked on in anxioushope while Clare went up to the animal. 

"Nimrod!" he whispered, laying a hand on one of the creature's horns, and his cheek against his neck. 

Nimrod stood like a bull in bronze. 

"I'm going to get your horns out, Nimrod, " murmured Clare, and laidhold of the other with a firm grasp. "You must let me do as I like, you know, Nimrod!"

His voice evidently soothed the bull. 

By the horns Clare turned his head now one way, now another, Nimrodnot once resisting push or pull. In a moment more he would have themclear, for one of them was already free. Holding on to the latter, Clare turned to the bystanders. 

"You mustn't touch him, " he said, "or I won't answer for him. And youmustn't let either of those men there"--for the second of Nimrod'sattendants had by this time come up--"interfere with him or me. Theylet him go because they couldn't manage him. He can't bear them; andif he were to break loose from them again, it might be quite anotheraffair! Then he might distrust me!"

The menagerie men turned, and looking saw that the man with thepitchfork had revenge in his heart. They gave him to understand thathe must mind what he was about, or it would be the worse for him. Theman scowled and said nothing. 

Clare gently released the other horn, but kept his hold of the first, moving the creature's head by it, this way and that. A moment more andhe turned his face to the company, which had scattered a little. Whenthe inflamed eyes of Nimrod came into view, they scattered wider. Clare still made the bull feel his hand on his horn, and kept speakingto him gently and lovingly. Nimrod eyed his enemies, for such plainlyhe counted them, as if he wished he were a lion that he might eat aswell as kill them. At the same time he seemed to regard them withtriumph, saying in his big heart, "Ha! ha! you did not know what afriend I had! Here he is, come in the nick of time! I thought hewould!" Clare proceeded to untie the ropes from the ring in hisnose. The man with the pitchfork interfered. 

"That wonnot do!" he said, and laid his hand on Clare's arm. "Wouldyou send him ramping over the country, and never a hold to have onhim?"

"It wasn't much good when you had a hold on him--was it now?" returnedthe boy. "Where do you want to take him?"

"That's my business, " answered the man sulkily. 

"I fancy you'll find it's mine!" returned Clare. "But there he is!Take him. "

The man hesitated. 

"Then leave me to manage him, " said Clare. 

A murmur of approbation arose. The caravan people felt he knew what hewas saying. They believed he had power with the bull. 

While yet he was untying the first of the ropes from the animal'sbleeding nostrils, Clare's fingers all at once refused furtherobedience, his eyes grew dim, and he fell senseless at the bull'sfeet. 

"Don't tell Nimrod!" he murmured as he fell. 

"Oh, that explains it!" cried the man with the pitchfork to hismate. "He knows the cursed brute!" For Clare had hitherto spoken hisname to the bull as if it were a secret between them. 

Neither had the sense to perceive that the explanation lay in thebull's knowing Clare, not in Clare's knowing the bull. They made hasteto lay hold of the ropes. Nimrod stood motionless, looking down on hisfriend, now and then snuffing at the pale face, which thethorough-bred mongrel, Abdiel, kept licking continuously. Noses ofbull and dog met without offence on the loved human countenance. Buthad the men let the bull feel the ropes, that moment he would havebeen raging like a demon. 

The men of the caravan, admiring both Clare's influence over theanimal and his management of him, grateful also for what he had donefor them, hastened to his help. When they had got him to take a littlebrandy, he sat up with a wan smile, but presently fell sideways on hiselbow, and so to the ground again. 

"It's nothing, " he murmured; "it's only I'm rather hungry. "

"Poor boy!" said a woman, who had followed her brandy from thehouse-caravan, afraid it might disappear in occult directions, "whendid you have your last feed?"

She stood looking down on the white face, almost between the fore-feetof the bull. 

"I had a piece of bread yesterday afternoon, ma'am, " faltered Clare, trying to look up at her. 

"Bless my soul!" she cried, "who's been a murderin' of you, child?"

She thought he was in company with the two men; and they had beenill-treating him. 

"I can't get any work, ma'am, so I don't want much to eat. Now I thinkof it, I believe it was the gladness of seeing an old friend again, and not the hunger, that made me feel so queer all at once. "

"Where's your friend?" she asked, looking round the assembly. 

"There he is!" answered Clare, putting up his hand, and stroking thebig nose that was right over his face. 

"Couldn't you rise now?" said the woman, after a moment's silentregard of him. 

"I'll try, ma'am; I don't feel quite sure. "

"I want you to come into the house, and have a good square meal. "

"If you would be so kind, ma'am, as let me have a bit of bread here!Nimrod would not like me to leave him. He loves me, ma'am, and if Iwent away, he might be troublesome. Those men will never do anythingwith him: he doesn't like them! They've been rough to him, I don'tdoubt. Not that I wonder at that, for he is a terrible beast to mostpeople. They used to say he never was good with anybody but me. Isuppose he knew I cared for him!"

His eyes closed again. The woman made haste to get him something. In afew minutes she returned with a basin of broth. He took it eagerly, but with a look of gratitude that went to her heart Before he tastedit, however, he set it on the ground, broke in half the great piece ofbread she had brought with it, and gave the larger part to hisdog. Then he ate the other with his broth, and felt better than formany a day. Some of the men said he could not be very hungry to give acur like that so much of his dinner; but the evil thought did notenter the mind of the woman. 

"You'd better be taking your beast away, " said the woman, who by thistime understood the affair, to the two men. 

They were silent, evidently disinclined for such another tussle. 

"You'd better be going, " she said again. "If anything should happenwith that animal of yours, and one of ours was to get loose, the devilwould be to pay, and who'd do it?"

"They'd better wait for me, ma'am, " said Clare, rising. "I'm justready!--They won't tell me where they want to take him, but it's allone, so long as I'm with him. He's my friend!--Ain't you, Nimrod?We'll go together--won't we, Nimrod?"

While he spoke, he undid the ropes from the ring in the bull'snose. Gathering them up, he handed them politely to one of the men, and the next moment sprang upon the bull's back, just behind hisshoulders, and leaning forward, stroked his horns and neck. 

"Give me up the dog, please, " he said. 

The owner of the menagerie himself did as Clare requested. All stoodand stared, half expecting to see him flung from the creature's back, and trampled under his hoofs. Even Nimrod, however, would not easilyhave unseated Clare, who could ride anything he had ever tried, andhad tried everything strong enough to carry him, from a pigupward. But Nimrod was far from wishing to unseat his friend, who withhands and legs began to send him toward the road. 

"Are you going that way?" he asked, pointing. The men answered himwith a nod, sulky still. 

"Don't go with those men, " said the woman, coming up to the side ofthe bull, and speaking in a low voice. "I don't like the look ofthem. "

"Nimrod will be on my side, ma'am, " answered Clare. "They would neverhave got him home without me. They don't understand theirfellow-creatures. "

"I'm afraid you understand your fellow-creatures, as you call them, better than you do your own kind!"

"I think they are my own kind, ma'am. That is how they know me, and dowhat I want them to do. "

"Stay with us, " said the woman coaxingly, still speaking low. "You'llhave plenty of your fellow-creatures about you then!"

"Thank you, ma'am, a thousand times!" answered Clare, his facebeaming; "but I couldn't leave poor Nimrod to do those men a mischief, and be killed for it!"

"You'd have plenty to eat and drink, and som'at for your pocket!"persisted the woman. 

"I know I should have everything I wanted!" answered Clare, "and I'mvery thankful to you, ma'am. But you see there's always something, somehow, that's got to be done before the other thing!"

Here the master came up. He had himself been thinking the boy would bea great acquisition, and guessed what his wife was about; but he wasafraid she might promise too much for services that ought to be hadcheap. Few scruple to take advantage of the misfortune of another toget his service cheap. It is the economy of hell. 

"I sha'n't feel safe till that bull of yours is a mile off!" he said. 

"Come along, Nimrod!" answered Clare, always ready with the responsivedeed. 

Away went Nimrod, gentle as a lamb. 

Chapter XLIII. 

Across country. 

The two men came after at their ease. No sooner was Nimrod on theroad, however, than he began to quicken his pace. He quickened itfast, and within a minute or so was trotting swiftly along. The menran panting and shouting behind. The more they shouted, the fasterNimrod went. Ere long he was out of their sight, though Clare couldhear them cursing and calling for a time. 

He had endeavoured to stop Nimrod, but the bull seemed to have made uphis mind that he had obeyed enough for one day. He did not heed a wordClare said to him, but kept on and on at a swinging trot. Clare wouldhave jumped off had he been sure the proceeding would stop him; but, now that he would not obey him, he feared lest, in doing so, he mightlet him loose on the country, when there was no saying what mischiefhe might not work. On the other hand, he felt sure that he couldrestrain him from violence, though he might not prevent hisfrolicking. He must therefore keep his seat. 

For a few miles Nimrod was content with the highway, now trottingbeautifully, now breaking into a canter. But all at once he turned atright angles in the middle of the road, cleared the skirting fencelike a hunter, and took a bee-line across the fields. Compelledsometimes to abandon it, he showed great judgment in choosing theplace at which to get out of the enclosure, or cross the naturalobstruction. On and on he went, over hedge after hedge, through fieldafter field, until Clare began to wonder where all the people in theworld had got to. Then a strange feeling gradually came overhim. Surely at some time or other he had seen the meadow he wascrossing! Was he asleep, and dreaming the jolly ride he was having onNimrod's back? What a strong creature Nimrod was! Would he never betired? How oddly he felt! Were his senses going from him? It was likethe strangest mixture of a bad dream and a good!

There seemed at length no further room for doubt ormistake. Everything was in its place! It was plain why Nimrod was soobstinate! The dear old fellow was carrying him back to where they hadbeen together so many happy days! They were nigh Mr. Goodenough'sfarm, and making straight for it! How strange it was! he had felthimself a measureless distance from it! But in his wandering he hadtaken many turns he did not heed, and Nimrod had come the shortestway. Delight filled his heart at the thought of seeing once more theplaces where his father and mother seemed yet to live. But instantlycame the thought of Maly, and drowned the other thought inbitterness. Then he felt how worthless place is, when those who madeit dear are gone. Father and mother are home--not the house we wereborn in!

They were soon upon the farm where once he had abundance of labour, abundance to eat, and abundance of lowly friendship. Nimrod was makingfor his old stable. He was weary now, and breathing heavily, thoughnot at all spent. Was he dreaming of a golden age, in which Clareshould be ever at his beck and call?

Clare had little inclination to encounter any of the people of thefarm. He would indeed have been glad, from a little way off, to get asight of his once friend and master, the farmer himself; and verygladly would he have gone into the stable in the hope of a greetingfrom old Jonathan; but he would not willingly meet "the mistress!"Nimrod should take him to his old stall; there he would tie him up, and flee from the place! The evening was now come, and in the dusk hewould escape unseen. 

When they reached Nimrod's door, they found it closed; and Clare, stiff enough by this time, slipped off to open it. Nimrod began to pawthe stones, and blow angry puffs from his wounded nose. When Clare gotthe door open, he saw, to his confusion, a vague dark bulk, anotherbull, in Nimrod's stall! The roar that simultaneously burst from eachwas ferocious, and down went Nimrod's head to charge. It was aterrible moment for Clare: the new bull was fast by the head, and, unable to turn it to his adversary, would be gored to death almost ina moment! He could not let Nimrod be guilty of such unfairness! Andthe mistress would think he had brought him back for the very purpose!He all but jumped on the horns of his friend, making him yield justground enough for the shutting of the door. He knew well, however, that not three such doors in one would keep Nimrod from an enemy. Withhis back to it he stood facing him and talking to him, and all thewhile they heard the bull inside struggling to get free. He stoodbetween two horned rages, only a chain and a plank betwixt him and theone at his back, with which he had no influence. A coward would haveescaped, and left the two bullies to settle between them which had thebetter right to the stall--not without blood, almost as certainly notwithout loss of life, perhaps human as well as bovine. But Clare wasmade of other stuff. 

Before he could get Nimrod away, the bellowing brought out thefarmer. All his men had gone to the village; only himself and his wifewere at home. 

"What's got the brute?" he cried on the threshold, but instantly beganto run, for he saw through the gathering darkness a darker shape heknew, roaring and pawing at the door of his old quarters, and a boystanding between him and it, with marvellous courage in mortal danger. He understood at once that Nimrod had broken loose and come back. Butwhen he came near enough to recognize Clare, astonishment, andsomething more sacred than astonishment, held him dumb. Ever since theunjust blow that sent the boy from him, his heart had been aware of alittle hollow of remorse in it. Now all his former relations with himwhile his adoptive father yet lived, came back upon him. He rememberedhim dressed like the little gentleman he always was--and there hestood, the same gentle fearless creature, in absolute rags! If hiswife saw him! The farmer had no fear of Nimrod in his worst rages, buthe feared his wife in her gentlest moods. Happily for both, a criticalmoment in the cooking of the supper had arrived. 

"Clare!" he stammered. 

"Yes, sir, " returned Clare, and laid hold of Nimrod's horn. The animalyielded, and turned away with him. The farmer came nearer, and put hisarm round the boy's neck. The boy rubbed his cheek against the arm. 

"I'm sorry I struck you, Clare!" faltered the big man. 

"Oh, never mind, sir! That was long ago!" answered the boy. 

"Tell me how you've been getting on. "

"Pretty well, sir! But I want to tell you first how it is I'm herewith Nimrod. Only it would be better to put him somewhere before Ibegin. "

"It would, " agreed the farmer; and between them, with the enticementsof a pail of water and some fresh-cut grass, they got him into a shed, where they hoped he would forget the proximity of the usurper, and, with the soothing help of his supper, go to sleep. 

Then Clare told his story. Mr Goodenough afterward asseverated that, if he had not known him for a boy that would not lie, he would nothave believed the half of it. 

"Come, Abdiel!" said Clare, the moment he ended--and would havestarted at once. 

"Won't you have something after your long ride?" said the farmer. 

Clare looked down at his clothes, and laughed. The farmer knew what hemeant, and did not ask him into the house. 

"When had you anything to eat?" he inquired. 

"I shall do very well till to-morrow, " answered Clare. 

"Then if you will go, I'm glad of the opportunity of paying you thewages I owed you, " said the farmer, putting his hand in his pocket. 

"You gave me my food! That was all I was worth!" protested Clare. 

"You were worth more than that! I knew the difference when I hadanother boy in your place! I wish I had you again!--But it wouldn'tdo, you know! it wouldn't do!" he added hastily. 

With that he succeeded in pulling a sovereign from the depth of atrowser-pocket, and held it out to Clare. It was neither large wagesnor a greatly generous gift, but it seemed to the boy wealthenormous. He could not help holding out his hand, but he was ashamedto open it. What the giver regarded as a debt, the receiver regardedas a gift. He stood with his hand out but clenched. There was a combatinside him. 

"It's too much!" he protested, looking at the sovereign almost withfear. "I never had so much money in my life!"

"You earned it well, " said the farmer magnanimously. 

The moral cramp forsook his hand. He took the money with a hearty"Thank you, sir. " As he put it in his pocket, he felt its cornerscarefully, lest there should be a hole. But his pockets had not hadhalf the wear of the clothes they inhabited. 

"Where are you going?" asked the farmer. 

Clare mentioned the small town in whose neighbourhood he had left thecaravans, and said he thought the people of the menagerie would likehim to help them with the beasts. The farmer shook his head. 

"It's not a respectable occupation!" he remarked. 

Clare did not understand him. 

"Do they cheat?" he asked. 

"No; I don't suppose they cheat worse than anybody else. But it ain'trespectable. "

Had he known a little more, Clare might have asserted that the menabout the menagerie were at least as respectable as almost any farmerwith a horse to sell. But he knew next to nothing of wickedness, whence many a man whose skull he had brains enough to fill threetimes, regarded him as a simpleton. 

Clare thought everything honest honourable. When people saidotherwise, he did not understand, and continued to act according as heunderstood. A thousand dishonourable things are done, and largelyapproved, which Clare would not have touched with one of his fingers:he could see nothing more dishonourable in having to do with wildbeasts than in having to do with tame ones. If any boy wants to knowthe sort of thing I count in that thousand, I answer him--"The nextthing you are asked to do, or are inclined to do--if you have anydoubt about it, DON'T DO IT. " That is the way to know the honourablething from the dishonourable. 

Clare made no attempt to argue the question with the farmer. Heinquired of him the nearest way to the town, and went--the quickerthat he heard the voice of Mrs. Goodenough, calling her husband tosupper. 

Chapter XLIV. 

A third mother. 

Who ever had a sovereign for the first time in his life, and did notfeel rich? Clare trudged along merrily, and Abdiel shared hisjoy. They had to sleep out of doors nevertheless; for by this timeClare knew that a boy, especially a boy in rags, must mind whom heasks to change a sovereign. In the lee of a hay-mow, on a little loosehay, they slept, Abdiel in Clare's bosom, and slept well. 

There was not much temptation to lie long after waking, and thecompanions were early on their way. It was yet morning when they cameto the public house where Clare had his first and last half-pint ofbeer. The landlady stood at the newly opened door, with her fists inher sides, looking out on the fresh world, lost in some such thoughtas was possible to her. Clare pulled off his cap, and bade her goodmorning as he passed. Perhaps she knew she did not deserve politeness;anyhow she took Clare's for impudence, and came swooping upon him. Hestopped and waited her approach, perplexed as to the cause of it; andwas so unprepared for the box on the ear she dealt him, that it almostthrew him down. Her ankle was instantly in Abdiel's sharp teeth. Shegave a frightful screech, and Clare, coming to himself, though stillstupid from her blow and his own surprise, called off the dog. Thewoman limped raging to the house, and Clare thought it prudent to gohis way. He talked severely to Abdiel as they went; but though the dogcould understand much, I doubt if he understood that lecture. ForAbdiel was one of the few, even among dogs, with whom the defence ofmaster or friend is an inborn, instinctive duty; and strong temptationeven has but a poor chance against the sense of duty in a dog. 

It was night when they entered the town. They were already a wearypair when the far sounds of the brass band of the menagerie, mostlymade up of attendants on the animals, first entered their ears. Themarketing was over; the band was issuing its last invitation to themerry-makers to walk up and see strange sights; its notes were justdying to their close, when the wayfarers arrived at the foot of thesteps leading to the platform where the musicians stood. Clareascended, and Abdiel crept after him. 

At a table in a small curtained recess on the platform, sat themistress to receive the money of those that entered. Clare laid hissovereign before her. She took it up without looking at him, but at itshe looked doubtfully. She threw it on her table. It would not ring. She bit it with her white teeth, and looked at it again; then atlength gave a glance at the person who offered it. Her dull lampflickered in the puffs of the night-wind, and she did not recognizeClare. She saw but a white-faced, ragged boy, and threw him back hissovereign. 

"Won't pass, " she said with decision, not unmingled with contempt. Shesat at the receipt of money, where too many men and women cease to beladies and gentlemen. 

Clare did not at first understand. He stood motionless and, for thesecond time that day, bewildered. How could money be no money?

"'Ain't you got sixpence?" she asked. 

"No, ma'am, " answered Clare. "I haven't had sixpence for many a day. "

The moment he spoke, the woman looked him sharply in the face, andknew him. 

"Drat my stupid eyes!" she said fervently. "That I shouldn't ha' knownyou! Walk in, walk in. Go where you please, and do as youplease. You're right welcome. --Where did you get that sov. ?"

"From Farmer Goodenough. "

"Good enough, I hope, not to take advantage of an innocent prince! Wasit for taking home the bull?"

"No, ma'am. I didn't take the bull home. The bull took me to the oldhome where we used to be together. He didn't want a new one!"

"Well, never mind now. Give me the sovereign. I'll talk to you by andby. Go in, or the show 'ill be over. Look after your dog, though. Wedon't like dogs. He mustn't go in. "

"I'll send him right outside, if you wish it, ma'am. "

"I do. --But will he stay out?"

"He will, ma'am. "

Clare took up Abdiel, and setting him at the top of the steps, toldhim to go down and wait. Abdiel went hopping down, like a dirty littlewhite cataract out on its own hook, turned in under the steps, anddeposited himself there until his master should call him. 

Chapter XLV. 

The menagerie. 

A strange smell was in Clare's nostrils, and as he went down the stepsinside, it grew stronger. He did not dislike it; but it set himthinking why it should so differ from that of domestic animals. He waspresently in the midst of a vision attractive to all boys, but whichfew had ever looked upon with such intelligent wonder as he; for Clarehad read and re-read every book about animals upon which he could layhis hands. He had a great power too of remembering what he read; forhe never let a description glide away over the outside of his eyes, but always put it inside his thinking place. What with pictures anddescriptions, he seemed to know, as he looked around him, every animalon which his eyes fell. 

The area was by no means crowded. There had been many visitors duringthe day, but now it was late. He could see into all the cages thatformed the sides of the enclosure. Many of the creatures seemedrestless, few sleepy: night was the waking time for most of them. Howshould a great roaming, hunting cat go to sleep in a little cube ofdarkness! "Oh, " thought Clare, "how gladly would I help them to bearit! I could bear it myself with somebody near to be kind to me!"

He had begun to feel that the quiet happiness to which he was once soaccustomed that he did not think much about it, was his because it was_given_ him. He had begun to see that it did not come to him ofitself, but from the love of his father and mother. He had yet tolearn that it was given to them to give to him by the Father offathers and mothers. But he was beginning to prize every leastkindness shown him. This re-acted on his desire to make the happinessgreater and the pain less everywhere about him. He had little chanceof doing much for people, he thought; but he knew how to do things forsome animals, and perhaps it was only necessary to know others to beable to do something for them too!

Thoughts like these passing through his mind, and his gaze wanderinghither and thither over the shifting shapes, his eyes rested on thetenant of one of the cages, and his heart immediately grew very sore, for he seemed unable to lift his head. He was a big animal, alone inhis prison, of a blackish colour, and awkward appearance. He wentnearer, and found he had a big ring in his nose like Nimrod. But tothe ring was fastened a strong chain, and the chain was bolted down tothe floor of the cage, which was of iron covered with boards, in theirturn covered with a thick sheet of lead. The chain was so short thatit held the poor creature's head within about a foot of the floor. Hecould not lift it higher, or move it farther on either side; but hekept moving it constantly. It was a pitiful sight, and Clare wentnearer still, drawn far more by compassion, and indeed sympathy, thanby curiosity. He was a terrible brute, a big grizzly bear, ugly torepulsiveness. The snarling scorn, the sneering, lip-writhing hate ofthe demoniacal grin with which he received the boy, was hideous; therattling, pebble-jarring growl that came from his devilish throat wasloathing embodied. What if spirits worse than their own get into someof the creatures by virtue of the likeness between them! One day willbe written, perhaps, a history of animals very different from anyattempted by mere master in zoology. Clare spoke to the beast againand again, but was unvaryingly answered by the same odious snarl, curling his lip under his nose-ring. It seemed to express the imagineddelight of tearing him limb from limb. 

"Poor fellow!" said Clare, "how can he be good-tempered with thattorturing ring and chain! His unalterable position must make his everybone ache!"

But had his nose been set free, such a raging-bear-struggle to get atthe nearest of his fellow-prisoners would have ensued, as must soonhave torn to shreds the partition between them. For he was abeast-bedlamite, an animal volcano, a furnace of death, an incarnateparoxysm of wrath. The inspiration of the creature, so far as onecould see, was pure hate. 

The boy turned aside with quivering heart--sore for the grizzly'snose, and sorer still for the grizzly himself that he was sounfriendly. 

Right opposite, a creature of a far differing disposition seemedcasting defiance to all the ills of life. As he turned with a saddespair from the grizzly, Clare caught sight of his pranks, andhastened across the area. The creature kept bounding from side to sideof his cage, agile and frolicsome as a kitten. But the light was poor, and Clare could not even conjecture to which of the cat-kinds hebelonged. When he came near his cage, he saw that he was yellowishlike a lion, and thought perhaps he might be a young lion. He had nomane. Clare judged him four feet in length without the tail--orperhaps four and a half. A little way off was the real lion--a youngone, it is true, but quite grown, with a thin ruffy mane, and lordlycarriage and gaze. It was he whose roar had challenged Nimrod, givingthe topmost flutter to the flame of his wrath. But Clare was so takenwith the frolicsome creature before him, that he gave but a glance atthe grand one as he walked up and down his prison, and turned again tothe merry one disporting himself alone, who seemed to find thepleasure of life in great games with companions no one saw buthimself. For minutes he stood regarding the gladness of God'screature. A wild thing of the woods and plains, he made the most ofthe bars and floor and roof of his cage. No one careless of libertycould make such bounds as those; yet he was joyous in closestimprisonment! His liberty gone, his freedom contracted to a few cubicfeet, his space diminished almost to the mould of his body, the greatwild philosopher created his own liberty, made it out of his own loveof it. Like a live, erratic shuttle he went to and fro, unweaving, unravelling, unwinding, drawing out the knot of confinement, flingingout, radiating and spreading and breathing out space in alldirections, by multitudinous motion of disentanglement! Space gonefrom him, space in the abstract should replace it! He would not beslave to condition! Space unconditioned should be his! For him libertyshould not lie in space, but in his own soul. Room should be but thepoor out-aide symbol of his inward freedom! He would spin out, hewould weave, he would unroll essential liberty into spiritual space!His mind to him a kingdom was. Not a grumble, not a snarl! He leftdiscontent to men, to build their own prisons withal. A proud man witheverything he longs for, if such a man there be, is but a slave; thiscreature of the glad creator was and would be free, because he was afree soul. Prison bars could not touch that by whose virtue he was andwould be free!

The germ of this thinking was in the mind of Clare while he stood andgazed; and as he told me the story, its ripeness came thus, or nearlythus, from his lips; for he had thought much in lonely places. 

As he gazed and sympathized, there awoke within him that strangeconsciousness which my reader must, at one time or another, haveknown--of being on the point of remembering something. It was not amemory that came, but a memory of a memory--the shadow of a memorygone, but trying to come out from behind a veil--a sense of havingonce known something. It gave another aspect to the blessed creaturebefore him. The creature and himself seemed for a moment to belongtogether to another time. Could he have seen such an animal before? Hedid not think so! He could never have visited a menagerie andforgotten it! If he had known such a creature, his after-reading wouldhave recalled it, he would know it now! He could tell the lion and thetiger and the leopard, although he seemed to know he had never seenone of them; he could not tell this animal, and yet--and yet!--whatwas it? The feeling itself lasted scarce an instant, and went nofarther. No memory came to him. The foiled expectation was all hehad. The very reasoning about it helped to obliterate the shape of thefeeling itself. He could not even recall how the thing had felt; hecould only remember it had been there. It was now but the shadow ofthe shadow of a dream--a yet vaguer memory than that thinnest ofpresences which had at the first tantalized him. We remember what wecannot recall. 

Perhaps the rousing of the odd, fantastic feeling had been favoured bythe slumber beginning to encroach on tody and brain. While he stoodlooking at the one creature, all the wonderful creatures began to getmixed up together, and he thought it better to go and search for somefield of sleep, where he might mow a little for his use. He saidgood-night to the great, gentle, jubilant cat, turned from himunwillingly, and went up the steps. Almost every spectator wasgone. At the top of them he turned for a last look, but coulddistinguish nothing except the dim form of the young lion, as hethought him, still gamboling in the presence of his maker. 

He thought to see the mistress of the menagerie, but she was no longerin her curtained box. He went out on the deserted platform, and downthe steps. Abdiel was already at the foot when he reached it, wagginghis weary little tail. 

They set out to look for a shelter. Their search, however, was so muchin vain, that at last they returned and lay down under one of thewagons, on the hard ground of the public square. Sleeping so often outof doors, he had never yet taken cold. 

Chapter XLVI. 

The angel of the wild beasts. 

When Clare looked up he saw nothing between him and the sky. They haddragged the caravan from above him, and he had not moved. Abdielindeed waked at the first pull, but had lain as still as amouse--ready to rouse his master, but not an instant before it shouldbe necessary. 

Clare saw the sky, but he saw something else over him, better than thesky--the face of Mrs. Halliwell, the mistress of the menagerie. In it, as she stood looking down on him, was compassion, mingled withself-reproach. 

Clare jumped up, saying, "Good morning, ma'am!" He was yet but halfawake, and staggered with sleep. 

"My poor boy!" answered the woman, "I sent you to sleep on the coldearth, with a sovereign of your own in my pocket! I made sure youwould come and ask me for it! You're too innocent to go about theworld without a mother!"

She turned her face away. 

"But, ma'am, you know I couldn't have offered it to anybody, " saidClare. "It wasn't good!--Besides, before I knew that, " he went on, finding she did not reply, "there was nobody but you I dared offer itto: they would have said I stole it--because I'm so shabby!" he added, looking down at his rags. "But it ain't in the clothes, ma'am--is it?"

Getting the better of her feelings for a moment, she turned her faceand said, --

"It was all my fault! The sov. Is a good one. It's only cracked! Iought to have known, and changed it for you. Then all would have beenwell!"

"I don't think it would have made any difference, ma'am. We wouldrather sleep on the ground than in a bed that mightn't beclean--wouldn't we, Abby?" The dog gave a short little bark, as healways did when his master addressed him by his name. --"But I'm soglad!" Clare went on. "I was sure Mr. Goodenough thought the sovereignall right when he gave it me!--Were you ever disappointed in asovereign, ma'am?"

"I been oftener disappointed in them as owed 'em!" she answered. "Butto think o' me snug in bed, an' you sleepin' out i' the dark night! Ican't abide the thought on it!"

"Don't let it trouble you, ma'am; we're used to it. Ain't we, Abby?"

"Then you oughtn't to be! and, please God, you shall be no more! Butcome along and have your breakfast We don't start till the last. "

"Please, ma'am, may Abdiel come too?"

"In course! 'Love me, love my dog!' Ain't that right?"

"Yes, ma'am; but some people like dogs worse than boys. "

"A good deal depends on the dog. When folk brings up their dogs as badas they do their childern, I want neither about me. But your dog's awell-behaved dog. Still, he must learn not to come in sight o' theanimals. "

"He will learn, ma'am!--Abdiel, lie down, and don't come till I callyou. "

At the word, the dog dropped, and lay. 

The house-caravan stood a little way off, drawn aside when they beganto break up. They ascended its steps behind, and entered an enchantinglittle room. It had muslin curtains to the windows, and a small stovein which you could see the bright red coals. On the stove stood acoffee-pot and a covered dish. How nice and warm the place felt, afterthe nearly shelterless night!

The breakfast-things were still on the table. Mr. Halliwell had hadhis breakfast, but Mrs. Halliwell would not eat until she had foundthe boy. She had been unhappy about him all the night. Her husband hadassured her the sovereign was a good one, and the boy had told her hehad no money but the sovereign! She little knew how seldom he faredbetter than that same night! When he got among hay or straw, that wasluxury. 

They sat down to breakfast, and the good woman was very soon confirmedin the notion that the boy was a gentleman. 

"Call your dog now, " she said, "an' let's see if he'll come!"

"May I whistle, ma'am?"

"Why not!--But will he hear you?"

"He has very sharp ears, ma'am. "

Clare gave a low, peculiar whistle. In a second or two, they heard ananxious little whine at the door. Clare made haste to open it. Therestood Abdiel, with the words in his eyes, as plain almost as if hespoke them--"Did you call, sir?" The woman caught him and held him toher bosom. 

"You blessed little thing!" she said. 

And surely if there be a blessing to be had, it is for them that obey. 

Clare heard and felt the horses put-to, but the hostess of thisScythian house did not rise, and he too went on with hisbreakfast. When they were in motion, it was not so easy to eat nicely, but he managed very well. By the time he had done, they had left thetown behind them. He wanted to help Mrs. Halliwell with thebreakfast-things, but whether she feared he would break some of them, or did not think it masculine work, she would not allow him. 

Nothing had been said about his going with them; she had taken thatfor granted. Clare began to think perhaps he ought to take his leave:there was nothing for him to do! He and Abdiel ought at least to getout and walk, instead of burdening the poor horses with their weight, when they were so well rested, and had had such a good breakfast! Butwhen he said so to Mrs. Halliwell, she told him she must have a littletalk with him first, and formally proposed that he should enter theirservice, and do whatever he was fit for in the menagerie. 

"You're not frightened of the beasts, are you?" she said. 

"Oh no, ma'am; I love them!" answered Clare. "But are you sureMr. Halliwell thinks I could be of use?"

"Don't you think yourself you could?" asked Mrs. Halliwell. 

"I know I could, ma'am; but I should not like him to take me justbecause he was sorry for me!"

"You innocent! People are in no such hurry to help theirneighbours. My husband's as good a man as any going; but it don't meanhe would take a boy because nobody else would have him. A fool of awoman might--I won't say; but not a man I ever knew. No, no! He sawthe way you managed that bull!--a far more unreasonable creature thanany we have to do with!"

"Ah! you don't know Nimrod, ma'am!"

"I don't, an' I don't want to!--Such wild animals ought to be put incaravans!" she added, with a laugh. 

"Well, ma'am, " said Clare, "if you and Mr. Halliwell are of one mind, nothing would please me so much as to serve you and the beasts. But Ishould like to be sure about it, for where husband and wife are not ofone mind--well, it is uncomfortable!"

Thereupon he told her how he had stood with the farmer and his wife;and from that she led him on through his whole story--notunaccompanied with tears on the part of his deliverer, for she was atender-souled as well as generous and friendly woman. In her heart sherejoiced to think that the boy's sufferings would now be at an end;and thenceforward she was, as he always called her, his third mother. 

"My poor, ill-used child!" she said. "But I'll be a mother to you--ifyou'll have me!"

"You wouldn't mind if I thought rather often of my two other mothers, ma'am--would you?" he said. 

"God forbid, boy!" she answered. "If I were your real mother, would Ihave my own flesh and blood ungrateful? Should I be proud of him forloving nobody but me? That's like the worst of the beasts: they lovenone but their little ones--and that only till they're tired of thetrouble of them!"

"Thank you! Then I will be your son Clare, please, ma'am. "

The next time they stopped, she made her husband come into hercaravan, and then and there she would and did have everythingarranged. When both her husband and the boy would have left his wagesundetermined, she would not hear of it, but insisted that so much aweek should be fixed at once to begin with. She had no doubt, shesaid, that her husband would soon be ready enough to raise his wages;but he must have his food and five shillings a week now, andMr. Halliwell must advance money to get him decent clothes: he mightkeep the wages till the clothes were paid for!

Everything she wished was agreed to by her husband, and at the nexttown, Clare's new mother saw him dressed to her satisfaction, and tohis own. She would have his holiday clothes better than his presentpart in life required, and she would not let his sovereign go towardpaying for them: that she would keep ready in case he might want it!Her eyes followed him about with anxious pride--as if she had been hismother in fact as she was in truth. 

He had at once plenty to do. The favour of his mother saved him fromno kind of work, neither had he any desire it should. Every morning hetook his share in cleaning out the cages, and in setting water for thebeasts, and food for the birds and such other creatures as took itwhen they pleased. At the proper intervals he fed as many as he mightof those animals that had stated times for their meals; and found theadvantage of this in its facilitating his friendly approaches tothem. He helped with the horses also--with whose harness and ways hewas already familiar. In a very short time he was known as a friend byevery civilized animal in and about the caravans. 

He did all that was required of him, and more. Not everyone of coursehad a right to give him orders, but Clare was not particular as to whowanted him, or for what. He was far too glad to have work to look atthe gift askance. He did not make trouble of what ought to be none, bysaying, with the spirit of a slave, "It's not my place. " He did manythings which he might have disputed, for he never thought of disputingthem. Thus, both for himself and for others, he saved a great deal oftime, and avoided much annoyance and much quarrelling. Thus also hegained many friends. 

Chapter XLVII. 

Glum Gunn. 

He had but one enemy, and he did not make him such: he was one bynature. For he was so different from Clare that he disliked him themoment he saw him, and it took but a day to ripen his dislike intohatred. Like Mr. Maidstone, he found the innocent fearlessness ofClare's expression repulsive. His fingers twitched, he said, to have atwist at the sheep-nose of him. Unhappily for Clare, he was ofconsequence in the menagerie, having money in the concern. He washalf-brother to the proprietor, but so unlike him that he might nothave had a drop of blood from the same source. An ill-tempered, imperious man, he would hurt himself to have his way, for he was themerest slave to what he fancied. When a man _will_ have a thing, rightor wrong, that man is a slave to that thing--the meanest of slaves, awilling one. He was the terror of the men beneath him, heeding no manbut his brother--and him only because he knew "he would stand nononsense. " To his sister-in-law he was civil: she was his brother'swife, and his brother was proud of her! Also he knew that she wasperfect in her part of the business. So it was reason to stand as wellas he might with her!

Clare had no suspicion that he more than disliked him. It took himdays indeed to discover even that he did not love him--notwithstandingthe bilious eye which, when its owner was idle, kept constantlyfollowing him. And idle he often was, not from laziness, but from thelove of ordering about, and looking superior. 

It was natural that such a man should also be cruel. There are whofind their existence pleasant in proportion as they make that ofothers miserable. He had no liking for any of the animals, regardingthem only as property with never a right;--as if God would makeanything live without thereby giving it rights! To Glum Gunn, as hewas commonly called behind his back, the animals were worth so muchmoney to sell, and so much to show. Yet he prided himself that he hada great influence as well as power over them, an occult superioritythat made him their lord. It was merely a phase of the vulgarestself-conceit. He posed to himself as a lion-tamer! He had never tameda lion, or any creature else, in his life; but when he had a wildthing safe within iron bars, then he "let him know who was hismaster!" By the terror of his whip, and means far worse, he compelledobedience. The grizzly alone, of the larger animals, he neverinterfered with. 

From the first he received Clare's "_Good-morning, sir_, " with asilent stare; and the boy at last, thinking he did not like to be sogreeted, gave up the salutation. This roused Gunn's anger andincreased his hate. But indeed any boy petted by his sister-in-law, would have been odious to him; and any boy whatever would have foundhim a hard master. Clare was for a while protected by the man'sunreadiness to have words with his brother, who always took his wife'spart; but the tyrant soon learned that he might venture far. 

For he saw, by the boy's ready smile, that he never resented anything, which the brute, as most boys would have done, attributed tocowardice; and he learned that he never carried tales to his sister, of which, instead of admiring him for his reticence, he tookadvantage, and set about making life bitter to him. 

It was some time before he began to succeed, for Clare was hard toannoy. Patient, and right ready to be pleased, he could hardly imagineoffence intended; the thought was all but unthinkable to Clare'snature; so he let evil pass and be forgotten as if it had never been. Once, as he ran along with a heavy pail of water, Gunn shot out hisfoot and threw him down: he rose with a cut in his forehead, and asmile on his lips. He carried the mark of the pail as long as hecarried his body, but it was long before he believed he had beentripped up. Had it been proved to him at the time, he would have takenit as a joke, intending no hurt. He did not see the lurid smile on theman's face as he turned away, a smile of devilish delight at thediscomfiture of a hated fellow-creature. Gunn put him to the dirtiestwork--only to find that it did not trouble him: the boy was a raregentleman--unwilling another should have more that he might have lessof the disagreeable. I have two or three times heard him say that noman had the right to require of another the thing he would thinkdegrading to himself. He said he learned this from the New Testament. "But, " he said, "nothing God has made necessary, can possibly bedegrading. It may not be the thing for this or that man, at this orthat time, to do, but it cannot in itself be degrading. "

The boy had to take his turn with several in acting showman to thegazing crowd, and by and by the part fell to him oftenest. Each hadhis own way of filling the office. One would repeat his informationlike a lesson in which he was not interested, and expected no one elseto be interested. Another made himself the clown of the exhibition, and joked as much and as well as he could. Gunn delighted in tellingas many lies as he dared: he must not be suspected of making fools ofhis audience! Clare, who from books knew far more than any of theothers concerning the creatures in their wild state, and who, bywatching them because he loved them, had already noted things none ofthe others had observed, and was fast learning more, talked to thespectators out of his own sincere and warm interest, giving them fromhis treasure things new and old--things he had read, and things he hadfor himself discovered. Group after group of simple country peoplewould listen intently as he led them round, eager after every word;and as any peg will do to hang hate upon, even this success was notedwith evil eye by Glum Gunn. Almost anything served to increase hismalignity. Whether or not it grew the faster that he had as yet foundno wider outlet for it, I cannot tell. 

At last, however, the tyrant learned how to inflict the keenest painon the tender-hearted boy, counting him the greater idiot that hecould so "be got at, " as he phrased it, and promising himself muchenjoyment from the discovery. But he did not know--how should heknow--what love may compel!

Chapter XLVIII. 

The puma. 

I need hardly say that by this time all the beasts with anyfriendliness in them had for Clare a little more than their usualamount of that feeling. But there was one between whom and him--Iprefer _who_ to _which_ for certain animals--a real friendship hadbegun at once, and had grown and ripened rapidly till it was strong onboth sides. Clare's new friend--and companion as much as circumstancepermitted--was the same whose lonely gambols had so much attracted himthe night he first entered the menagerie. The animal, whom Clare hadtaken for a young lion--without being so far wrong, for he has oftenbeen called the American lion--was the puma, or couguar, peculiar toAmerica, with a relation to the jaguar, also American, a littlesimilar to that of the lion to the tiger. But while the jaguar is aswicked a beast as the tiger, the puma possesses, in relation to man, far more than the fabulous generosity of the lion. Like every goodcreature he has been misunderstood and slandered, but a few have knownhim, He has doubtless degenerated in districts, for as the wild animalmust gradually disappear before the human, he cannot help becoming inthe process less friendly to humanity; but an essential anddistinctive characteristic of the puma is his love for the humanbeing--a love persistent, devoted, and long-suffering. 

Between such an animal and Clare, it is not surprising that friendshipshould at once have blossomed. He stroked the paw of the Indian lionthe first morning, but the day was not over when he was stroking thecheek of the puma; while all he could do with the grizzly at the endof the month was to feed him a little on the sly, and get for thanks agrowl of the worse hate. There are men that would soonest tear theirbenefactors, loathing them the more that they cannot get at them. Isuspect that in some mysterious way Glum Gunn and the bear were ownbrothers. With the elephant Clare did what he pleased--never pleasinganything that was not pleasing to the elephant. 

They came to a town where they exhibited every day for a week, andthere it was that the friendship of Clare and the puma reached itsperfection. One night the boy could not sleep, and drawn by his love, went down among the cages to see how his fellow-creatures were gettingthrough the time of darkness. There was just light enough from a smallmoon to show the dim outlines of the cages, and the motion without theform of any moving animal. The puma, in his solitary yet joyousgymnastics, was celebrating the rites of freedom according to hiscustom. When Clare entered, he made a peculiar purring noise, andceased his amusement--a game at ball, with himself for the ball. Clarewent to him, and began as usual to stroke him on the face and nose;whereupon the puma began to lick his hand with his dry roughtongue. Clare wondered how it could be nice to have such a dry thingalways in his mouth, but did not pity him for what God had givenhim. He had his arm through between the bars of the cage, and his facepressed close against them, when suddenly the face of the animal wasrubbing itself against what it could reach of his. The end was, thatClare drew aside the bolt of the cage-door, and got in beside thepuma. The creature's gladness was even greater than if he had found afriend of his own kind. Noses and cheeks and heads were rubbedtogether; tongue licked, and hand stroked and scratched. Then theybegan to frolic, and played a long time, the puma jumping over Clare, and Clare, afraid to jump lest he should make a noise, tumbling overthe puma. The boy at length went fast asleep; and in the morning foundthe creature lying with his head across his body, wide awake butmotionless, as if guarding him from disturbance. Nobody was stirring;and Clare, who would not have their friendship exposed to everycomment, crept quietly from the cage, and went to his own bed. 

The next night, as soon as the place was quiet, Clare went down, andhad another game with the puma. Before their sport was over, he hadbegun to teach him some of the tricks he had taught Abdiel; but hecould not do much for fear of making a noise and alarming some keeper. 

The same thing took place, as often as it was possible, for someweeks, and Clare came to have as much confidence, in so far at leastas good intention was concerned, in the puma as in Abdiel. If only hecould have him out of the cage, that the dear beast might have alittle taste of old liberty! But not being certain how the puma wouldbehave to others, or if he could then control him, he felt he had noright to release him. 

Now and then he would fall asleep in the cage, whereupon the pumawould always lie down close beside him. Whether the puma slept, I donot know. 

On one such occasion, Clare started to his feet half-awake, roused bya terrific roar. Right up on end stood the couguar, flattening hisfront against the bars of the cage, which he clawed furiously, snarling and spitting and yelling like the huge cat he was, everyindividual hair on end, and his eyes like green lightning. Clatter, clatter, went his great feet on the iron, as he tore now at this barnow at that, to get at something out in the dim open space. It was toodark for Clare to see what it was that thus infuriated him, but hisear discovered what his eye could not. For now and then, woven intothe mad noise of the wild creature, in which others about him werebeginning to join, he heard the modest whimper of a very tameone--Abdiel, against whose small person, gladly as he would have been"naught a while, " this huge indignation was levelled. Must there notbe a deeper ground for the enmity of dogs and cats than evil humanincitement? Their antipathy will have to be explained in that historyof animals which I have said must one day be written. 

Clare had taken much pains to make Abdiel understand that he was notto intrude where his presence was not desired--that the show was notfor him, and thought the dog had learned perfectly that never on anypretence, or for any reason, was he to go down those steps, howeveroften he saw his master go down. This prohibition was a great trial toAbdiel's loving heart, but it had not until this night been a trialtoo great for his loving will. 

When Clare left him, he thought he had taken his usual pains inshutting him into a small cage he had made to use on such occasions, lest he might be tempted to think, when he saw nobody about, that thelaw no longer applied. But he had not been careful enough; and Abdiel, sniffing about and finding his door unfastened, had interpreted thefact as a sign that he might follow his master. Hence all thecoil. For pumas--whereby also must hang an explanation in that book ofzoology, have an intense hatred of dogs. Tame from cubhood, they neverget over their antipathy to them. With pumas it is "Love you, hateyour dog. " In the present case there could be no individual jealousy, of which passion beasts and birds are very capable, for Pummy hadnever seen Abby before. There may be in the puma an inborn jealousy ofdogs, as a race more favoured than pumas by the man whom yet they loveperhaps more passionately. 

As soon as Clare saw what the matter was, he slipped out of the cage, and catching up the obnoxious offender--where he stood wagging allover as if his entire body were but a self-informed tail--sped withhim to his room, and gave him a serious talking-to. 

The puma was quiet the moment the dog was out of his sight. Doubtlesshe regarded Clare as his champion in distress, and blessed him for theremoval of that which his soul hated. But, alas, mischief was alreadyafoot! Gunn, waked by the roaring, came flying with his whip, and theremnants of poor Pummy's excitement were enough to betray him to theeyes of the tamer of caged animals. Clare would have recognized by theroar itself the individual in trouble; but Glum Gunn had littleknowledge even of the race. He counted the couguar a coward, becausehe showed no resentment. A man may strike him or wound him, and hewill make no retaliation; he will even let a man go on to kill him, and make no defence beyond moans and tears. But Gunn knew nothing ofthese facts; he only knew that this puma would not touch _him_. He wasnot aware that if he turned the two into the arena of the show, thepuma would kill the grizzly; or that in their own country, the pumapersecutes the jaguar as if he hated him for not being like himself, the friend of man: the Gauchos of the Pampas call him "The Christians'Friend. " Gunn did not even know that the horse is the puma's favouritefood: he will leap on the back of a horse at full speed, with his pawsbreak his neck as he runs, and come down with him in a rollingheap. Neither did he know that, while submissive to man--as if themaker of both had said to him, "Slay my other creatures, but do myanointed no harm, "--he could yet upon occasion be provoked to punishthough not to kill him. 

Glum Gunn rushed across the area, jumped into the cage of the puma, and began belabouring him with his whip. The beast whimpered and wept, and the brute belaboured him. Clare heard the changed cry of hisfriend, and came swooping like the guardian angel he was. When he sawthe patient creature on his haunches like a dog, accepting Gunn'sbrutality without an attempt to escape it--except, indeed, by dodgingany blows at his head so cleverly that the ruffian could not once hitit--he bounded to the cage, wild with anger and pity. But Gunn stoodwith his back against the door of it, and he was reduced to entreaty. 

"Oh, sir! sir!" he cried, in a voice full of tears; "it was all myfault! Abby came to look for me, and I didn't know Pummy dislikeddogs!"

"Do you tell me, you rascal, that you were down among the hanimalswhen I supposed you in your bed?"

"Yes, sir, I was. I didn't know there was any harm. I wasn't doinganything wrong. "

"Hold your jaw! What _was_ you doing?"

"I was only in the cage with the puma. "

"You was! You have the impudence to tell me that to my face! I'llteach you, you cotton-face! you milk-pudding! to go corrupting thehanimals and making them not worth their salt!"

He swung himself out of the cage-door in a fury, but Clare, with hisfriend in danger, would not run. The wretch seized him by the collar, and began to lash him as he had been lashing the puma. Happily he wastoo close to him to give him such stinging blows. 

With the first hiss of the thong, came a tearing screech from thepuma, as he flung himself in fury upon the door of his cage. Gunn inhis wrath with Clare had forgotten to bolt it. Dragging with hisclaws, he found it unfastened, pulled it open, and like a huge shellfrom a mortar, shot himself at Gunn. Down he went. For one moment thepuma stood over him, swinging his tail in great sweeps, and looking athim, doubtless with indignation. Then before Clare could lay hold ofhim, for Clare too had fallen by the onset, Pummy turned a scornfulback upon his enemy, and walking away with a slow, careless stride, asif he were not worth thinking of more, leaped into his cage, and laydown. The thing passed so swiftly that Clare did not see him touch theman with his paw, and thought he had but thrown him down with hisweight. The beast, however, had not left the brute without the lessonhe needed; he had given him just one little pat on the side of thehead. 

Gunn rose staggering. The skin and something more was torn down hischeek from the temple almost to the chin, and the blood wasstreaming. Clare hastened to help him, but he flung him aside, muttering with an oath, "I'll make you pay for this!" and went out, holding his head with both hands. 

Clare went and shot the bolt of the cage. Pummy sprang up. His tailand swift-shifting feet showed eager expectation of a romp. He hadalready forgotten the curling lash of the terrible whip! But Clarebade him good-night with a kiss through the bars. 

Glum Gunn kept his bed for more than a week. When at length heappeared, a demonstration of the best art of the surgeon of the town, he was not beautiful to look upon. To the end of his evil earthly dayshe bore an ugly scar; and neither his heart nor his temper were thebetter for his well deserved punishment. 

Mrs. Halliwell questioned Clare about the whole thing, inquiringfurther and further as his answers suggested new directions. Hercatechism ended with a partial discovery of Gunn's behaviour to her_protegé_, whom she loved the more that he had been so silentconcerning it. She stood perturbed. One moment her face flushed withanger, the next turned pale with apprehension. She bit her lip, andthe tears came in her eyes. 

"Never mind, mother, " said Clare, who saw no reason for such emotion;"I'm not afraid of him. "

"I know you're not, sonny, " she answered; "but that don't make me theless afraid for you. He's a bad man, that brother-in-law of mine! Ifear he'll do you a mischief. I'm afraid I did wrong in taking you! Iought to have done what I could for you without keeping you aboutme. We can't get rid of him because he's got money in the business. Not that he's part owner--I don't mean that! If we'd got the moneyhandy, we'd pay him off at once!"

"I don't care about myself, " said Clare. "I don't mean I like to bekicked, but it don't make me miserable. What I can't bear is to seehim cruel to the beasts. I love the beasts, mother--even cross oldGrizzly. --But Mr. Gunn don't meddle much with _him_!"

"He respects his own ugly sort!" answered Mrs. Halliwell, with alaugh. 

For a while it was plain to Clare that the master kept an eye on hisbrother, and on himself and the puma. On one occasion he told theassembled staff that he would have no tyranny: every one knew therewas among them but one tyrant. Gunn saw that his brother was awake andwatching: it was a check on his conduct, but he hated Clare theworse. For the puma, he was afraid of him now, and went no more intohis cage. 

With the rest of the men Clare was a favourite, for they knew him trueand helpful, and constantly the same: they could always depend on him!Abdiel shared in the favour shown his master. They said the dog was nobeauty, and had not a hair of breeding, but he was almost a humancreature, if he wasn't too good for one, and it was a shame to kickhim. 

Chapter XLIX. 

Glum Gunn's revenge. 

They had opened the menagerie in a certain large town. It was theevening-exhibition, and Clare was going his round with his wand ofoffice, pointing to the different animals, and telling of them what hethought would most interest his hearers, when another attendant, themost friendly of all, came behind him, and whispered that Glum Gunnhad got hold of Abby, and must be going to do the dog amischief. Clare instantly gave him his wand, and bolted through thecrowd, reproaching himself that, because Abby seemed restless, he hadshut him up: if he had not been shut up, Gunn would not have got holdof him!

When he reached the top of the steps, there was Gunn on the platform, addressing the crowd. It was plain to the boy, by this time notinexperienced, that he had been drinking, and, though not drunk, hadtaken enough to rouse the worst in him. He had the poor dog by thescruff of the neck, and was holding him out at arm's-length. Abdielwas the very picture of wretchedness. Except in colour and size, hewas more like a flea than like any sort of dog--with his hind legsdrawn up, his tail tucked in tight between them, and his back-bonecurved into a half circle. In this uncomfortable plight, the tyrantwas making a burlesque speech about him. 

"Here you see, ladies and gentlemen, " he said, resuming a little, fora few fresh spectators were in the act of joining the border of thecrowd, "as I have already had the honour of informing you, one of themost extraordinary productions of the vegetable kingdom. It is notunnatural that you should be, as I see you are, inclined to disputethe assertion. I am, indeed, far from being surprised at yourscepticism; the very strangeness of the phenomenon consists in hisbeing to all appearance neither more nor less than a dog. But when Ihave the honour of leaving you to your astonishment, I shall haveconvinced you that he is in reality nothing but a vegetable. I wouldplainly call him what he is--a cucumber, did I not fear the statementwould demand of you more than your powers of credence, evidentlylimited, could well afford. But when I have, before your eyes, cut thethroat of this vegetable, so extremely like an ugly mongrel, and whenthose eyes see no single drop of blood follow the knife, then you willbe satisfied of the truth of my assertion; and, having gazed on such aspecimen of Nature's jugglery, will, I hope, do me the honour to walkup and behold yet greater wonders within. "

He ceased, and set about getting his knife from his pocket. 

Clare, watching Gunn's every motion, had partially sheltered himselfbehind the side of the doorway. One who did not know Gunn, might wellhave taken the thing for a practical joke, as innocent as it wasfoolish, the pretended conclusion of which would be met by somecomical frustration, probably the dog's escape; but Clare saw that hisfriend was in mortal peril. With the eye of one used to wild animalsand the unexpectedness of their sudden motions, he stood followingevery movement of Gunn's hands, ready to anticipate whatever actionmight indicate its own approach: he watched like the razor-clawedlynx. While Gunn held Abdiel as he did, he could not seriously injurehim; and although he was hurting him dreadfully, his hate-possessedfingers, like a live, writhing vice, worrying and squeezing the skinof his poor little neck, it yet was better to wait the right moment. 

When he saw the arm that held the dog drawn in, and the other handmove to the man's pocket, he knew that in a moment more, with atheatrical cry of dismay from the murderer, the body of his friendwould be dashed on the ground, his head half off, and the bloodstreaming from his neck. They were mostly a rather vulgar people thatstood about the platform, not a few of them capable of being delightedwith such an end to a joke poor without some catastrophe. 

The wretch had stooped a little, and slightly relaxed his hold on thedog to open his knife, when with a bound that doubled the force of theblow Clare struck him on the side of the head. He had no choice whereto hit him, and his fist fell on the spot so lately torn by the clawsof Pummy. The tyrant fell, and lay for a moment stunned. Abdiel flunghimself on his master, exultant at finding the thing after all thejoke he had been trying in vain to believe it. Clare caught him up anddashed down the steps, one instant before Glum Gunn rose, cursingfuriously. Clare charged the crowd: it was not a time to be civil!Abdiel's life was in imminent danger! That his own was in the samepredicament did not occur to him. 

His sudden rush took the crowd by surprise, or those next the caravanswould, I fear, have stopped him. Some started to follow him, but theportion of the crowd he came to next, had more in it of a better sort, and closed up behind him. There all the women and most of the men tookthe part of the boy that loved his dog. 

"What be you a-shovin' at?" bawled a huge country-man, against whomGunn made a cannon as he rushed in pursuit. "Aw'll knock 'ee flat--awwull! Let little un an's dawg aloan! Aw be for un! Hit me an'yechoose--aw doan't objec'!"

Every attempt Gunn made to pass him, the man pushed his great body inhis way, and he soon saw there was no chance of overtaking Clara Thewings of Hate are swift, but not so swift as those of rescuing Love;and Help is far readier to run to Love than to Hate. 

Chapter L. 

Clare seeks help. 

Clare got out of the crowd, and was soon beyond sight of anyone thatknew what had taken place, his heart exulting that he had saved hisfriend who trusted in him. He hurried on, heedless whither, his onlythought to get away from the man that would murder Abby; and the townwas a long way behind ere the question of what they were to do forsupper and shelter presented itself. This had grown a strange thought, so long had the caravan been to him a house of warmth and plenty. Butcomfort has its disadvantages; and Clare discovered, with some dismay, that he was not quite so free as ere the luxurious life of the lastfew weeks began: both Abby and he would be less able, he feared, tobear hunger and cold. It was but to start afresh, however, and growabler! One consolation was, that, if they felt hunger more, it couldnot do them so much harm: they had more capital to go upon. He mustnot gather cowardice instead of courage from a season of prosperity!He was glad for Abdiel, though, that he grew his own clothes: he hadleft his warmest behind him. 

It made him ashamed to find himself regretting his clothes when he hadlost a mother! Then it pleased him to think that she had hissovereign, and the wages due since his clothes were paid for. Theywould help to give Glum Gunn his own, and set the beasts free fromhim! Then he would go back and spend his life with his mother andPummy! Poor Pummy! But though Gunn hated him, he was now afraid of himtoo; and his fear would be the creature's protection! He had imaginedit his might that cowed the puma, when it was the animal's humangentleness that made him submissive to man: he knew better now! Clareclasped Abdiel to his bosom, and trudged on. They had gone miles ereit occurred to him that it might be more comfortable for both if eachcarried his individual burden. He set Abdiel down, and the dog ranvibrating with pleasure. Clare felt himself set down, but with no tailto wag. 

It was late in the autumn: they could do without supper, but they mustif possible find shelter! A farm-house came in sight. It recalled sovividly Clare's early experiences of houselessness, that beasts andcaravans, his mother and Glum Gunn, grew hazy and distant, and the oldtime drew so near that he seemed to have waked into it out of a longdream. They were back in the old misery--a misery in which, however, his heart had not been pierced as now with the pangs of innocentcreatures unable or unwilling to defend themselves from their naturalguardian! It was long before he learned that for weeks Gunn was unableto hurt one of them; that his drinking, his late wound, and the blowClare had given him, brought on him a severe attack of erysipelas. 

When they reached the farm-yard, Clare knew by the aspect of thingsthat the cattle were housed and the horses suppered. He crept unseeninto one of the cow-houses: the bodies and breath of the animals wouldkeep them warm! How sweet the smell seemed to him after that of thecaravans! An empty stall was before him, like a chamber prepared forhis need. He gathered a few straws from under each of the cows, takingcare that not one of them should be the less comfortable, and spreadwith them for Abby and himself a thin couch. 

But with the excitement of what had happened, his wonder as to whatwould come next, and the hunger that had begun to gnaw at him, Clarecould not sleep. And as he lay awake, thoughts came to him. 

Whence do the thoughts come to us? Of one thing I am sure--that I donot make or even send for my own thoughts. If some greater one did notthink about us, we should not think about anything. Then what a wonderis the night! How it works compelling people to think! Surely somehowGod comes nearer in the night! Clare began to think how helpless hewas. He was not thinking of food and warmth, but of doing things forthe beings he loved. It seemed to him hard that he could but love, andnothing more. There was his mother! he could do nothing to deliver herfrom that villainous brother-in-law! There was Pummy, exposed to thecruelty of the same evil man! and again he could do nothing for him!There was Maly! he could do nothing for her--nothing to make herfather and mother glad for her up in the dome of the angels!

Was it possible that he really could do nothing?

Then came the thought that people used to say prayers in the days whenhe went with his mother to church. He had been taught to say prayershimself, but had begun to forget them when there was no bed to kneelbeside. What did saying prayers mean? In the Bible-stories peopleprayed when they were in trouble and could not help themselves! Did itmatter that he had no church and no bedside? Surely one place must beas good as another, if it was true that God was everywhere! Surely hecould hear him wherever he spoke! Neither could there be any necessityfor speaking loud! God would hear, however low he spoke! Then heremembered that God knew the thoughts of his creatures: if so, hemight think a prayer to him; there was no need for any words!

From the moment of that conclusion, Clare began to pray to God. Andnow he prayed the right kind of prayer; that is, his prayers were realprayers; he asked for what he wanted. To say prayers asking God forthings we do not care about, is to mock him. When we ask for somethingwe want, it may be a thing God does not care to give us; but he likesus to speak to him about it. If it is good for us, he will give it us;if it is not good, he will not give it to us, for it would hurtus. But Clare only asked God to do what he is always doing: his prayerwas that God would be good to all his mothers, and to his two fathers, and Mr. Halliwell, and Maly, and Sarah, and his own baby, andTommy--and poor Pummy, and would, if Glum Gunn beat him, help him tobear the blows, and not mind them very much. He ended with somethinglike this:

"God, I can't do anything for anybody! I wish I could! You can getnear them, God: please do something good to every one of them becauseI can't. I think I could go to sleep now, if I were sure you hadlistened!"

Having thus cast all his cares on God, he did go to sleep; and woke inthe morning ready for the new day that arrived with his waking. 

Chapter LI. 

Clare a true master. 

It would take a big book to tell all the things of interest thathappened to Clare in the next few weeks. They would be mainly how andwhere he found refuge, and how he and Abdiel got things to eat. Verilythey did not live on the fat of the land. Now and then some benevolentperson, seeing him in such evident want, would contrive a job in orderto pay him for it: in one place, although they had no need of him, certain good people gave him ten days' work under a gardener, anddismissed him with twenty shillings in his pocket. 

One way and another, Clare and Abdiel did not die of hunger or ofcold. That is the summary of their history for a good many weeks. 

One night they slept on a common, in the lee of a gypsy tent, andcontrived to get away in the morning without being seen. For Clarefeared they might offer him something stolen, and hunger mightpersuade him to ask no questions. Many respectable people will laughat the idea of a boy being so particular. Such are immeasurably moreto be pitied than Clare. No one could be hard on a boy who in suchcircumstances took what was offered him, but he would not be so honestas Clare--though he might well be more honest than such as would laughat him. 

Another time he went up to a large house, to see if he might not thereget a job. He found the place, for the time at least, abandoned: Isuppose the persons in charge had deserted their post to makeholiday. He lingered about until the evening fell, and then got withAbdiel under a glass frame in the kitchen-garden. But the glass was soclose to them that Clare feared breaking it; so they got out again, and lay down on a bench in a shed for potting plants. 

Clare was waked in the morning by a sound cuff on the side of thehead. He got off the bench, took up Abdiel, and coming to himself, said to the gardener who stood before him in righteous indignation, "I'm much obliged to you for my bedroom, sir. It was very cold lastnight. "

His words and respectful manner mollified the gardener a little. 

"You have no business here!" he returned. 

"I know that, sir; but what is a boy to do?" answered Clare. "I wasn'thurting anything, and it was so cold we might have died if we hadslept out of doors. "

"That's no business of mine!"

"But it is of mine, " rejoined Clare; "--except you think a boy thatcan't get work ought to commit suicide. If he mustn't do that, hecan't always help doing what people with houses don't like!"

The gardener was not a bad sort of fellow, and perceived the truth inwhat the boy said. 

"That's always the story!" he replied, however. "Can't get work! Noidle boy ever could get work! I know the sort of you--well!"

"Would you mind giving me a chance?" returned Clare eagerly. "Iwouldn't ask much wages. "

"You wouldn't, if you asked what you was worth!"

"We'd be worth our victuals anyhow!" answered Clare, who alwayscounted the dog. 

"Who's we?" asked the man. "Be there a hundred of you?"

"No; only two. Only me and Abdiel here!"

"Oh, that beast of a mongrel?"

The gardener made a stride as if to seize the dog. Clare bounded fromhim. The man burst into a mocking laugh. 

"He's a good dog, indeed, sir!" said Clare. 

"You'll give him the sack before I give you a job. "

"We're old friends, sir; we can't be parted!"

"I thought as much!" cried the gardener. "They're always ready towork, an' so hungry! But will they part with the mangy dog? Not they!Hard work and good wages ain't nowhere beside a mongrel pup! Get out!Don't I know the whole ugly bilin' of ye!"

Clare turned away with a gentle good-morning, which the man did notget out of his heart for a matter of two days, and departed, huggingAbdiel. 

He was often cold and always hungry, but his life was anything butdull. The man who does not know where his next meal is to come from, is seldom afflicted with ennui. That is the monopoly of the enviablewith nothing to do, and everything money can get them. A foolishwest-end life has immeasurably more discomfort in it than that of astreet Arab. The ordinary beggar, while in tolerable health, finds farmore enjoyment than most fashionable ladies. 

Thus Clare went wandering long, seeking work, and finding next tonone--all the time upheld by the feeling that something was waitingfor him somewhere, that he was every day drawing nearer to it. Notonce yet had he lost heart. In very virtue of unselfishness and lackof resentment, he was strong. Not once had he shed a tear for himself, not once had he pitied his own condition. 

Chapter LII. 

Miss Tempest. 

Without knowing it, he was approaching the sea. Walking along a chainof downs, he saw suddenly from the top of one of them, for the firsttime in his memory though not in his life, the sea--a pale blue cloud, as it appeared, far on the horizon, between two low hills. The sightof it, although he did not at first know what it was, brought with ita strange inexplicable feeling of dolorous pleasure. For this he couldnot account. It was the faintest revival of an all but obliteratedimpression of something familiar to his childhood, lying somewheredeeper than the memory, which was a blank in regard to it. But thatfeeling was not all that the sight awoke in him. The pale blue cloudbore to him such a look of the eternal, that it seemed the very placefor God to live in--the solemn, stirless region of calm in which thebeing to whom now of late he had first begun in reality to pray, kepthis abode. The hungry, worn, tattered boy, with nothing to call hisown but a great hope and a little dog, fell down on his bare knees onthe hard road, and stretched out his hands in an ecstasy toward thelow cloud. 

The far-off ringing tramp of a horse's feet aroused him. He rose lightas an athlete, the great hope grown twice its former size, and hungerforgotten. 

The blue cloud kept in sight, and by and by he knew it was the sea hesaw, though how or at what moment the knowledge came to him he couldnot have told. The track was leading him toward one of the principalsouthern ports. 

By this time he was again very thin; but he had brown cheeks and cleareyes, and, save when suffering immediately from hunger, felt perfectlywell. Hunger is a sad thing notwithstanding its deep wholesomeness;but there is immeasurably more suffering in the world from eating toomuch than from eating too little. 

Well able by this time to read the signs of the road, he perceived atlength he must be drawing near a town. He had already passed a houseor two with a little lawn in front, and indications of a gardenbehind; and he hoped yet again that here, after all, he might getwork. To door after door he carried his modest request: some doorswere shut in his face almost before he could speak; at others he had acivil word from maid, or a rough word from man; from none came soundof assent. It had become harder too to find shelter. Ever as he went, space was more and more appropriated and enclosed; less and less roomwas left for the man for whom had been made no special cubic provisionof earth and air, and who had no money--the most disreputable ofconditions in the eyes of such as would be helpless if they hadnone. A rare philosopher for eyes capable of understanding him, he wasa despicable being in the eyes of the common man. To know a humanbeing one must be human--that is, the divine must be strong in him. 

For some days now, neither Clare nor Abdiel had come even within sightof food enough to make a meal. The dog was rather thinner than hismaster. 

"Abdiel, " said Clare to him one day, "I fear you will soon be aserpent! Your body gets longer and longer, and your legs get shorterand shorter: you'll be crawling presently, rubbing the hair off youruseless little belly on the dusty road! Never mind, Abdiel; you'll bea good serpent. Satan was turned into a bad serpent because he was abad angel; you will be a good serpent, because you are a good dog! Ihope, however, we shall yet put a stop to the serpent-business!"

Abdiel wagged his tail, as much as to say, "All right, master!"

The nights were now very cold; winter was coming fast. Had Clare beenlong enough in one place for people to know him, he would never havebeen allowed to go so cold and hungry; but he had always to move on, and nobody had time to learn to care about him. So the terriblesunless season threatened to wrap him in its winding-sheet, and layhim down. 

One evening, just before sunset, grown sleepy in spite of thegathering cold, he sat down on one of the two steep grassy slopes thatbordered the road. His feet were bare now, bare and brown, for hisshoes had come to such plight that it was a relief to throw them away;but his soles had grown like leather. They rested in the dry shallowrain-channel, and his body leaned back against the slope. Abdiel, instead of jumping on the bank and lying in the soft grass, lay downon the leathery feet, and covered them from the night with his longfaithful body and its coat of tangled hair. 

The sun was shooting his last radiance along the road, and its rednesscaressed the sleeping companions, when an elderly lady came to hergate at the top of the opposite slope, and looked along the road withthe sun. Her reverting glance fell upon the sleepers--the Knight ofHope lying in rags, not marble, his feet not upon his dog, but his dogupon his feet. It was a touching picture, and the old lady's heart wasone easily touched. She looked and saw that the face of the boy, whosehunger was as plain as his rags, was calm as the wintry sky. Shewondered, but she needed not have wondered; for storm of anger, drought of greed, nor rotting mist of selfishness, had passed orrested there, to billow, or score, or waste. 

Her mere glance seemed to wake Abdiel, who took advantage of hiswaking to have a lick at the brown, dusty, brave, uncomplaining feet, so well used to the world's _via dolorosa_. She saw, and was touchedyet more by this ministration of the guardian of the feet. Gentlyopening the gate she descended the slope, crossed the road, and stoodsilent, regarding the outcasts. No cloudy blanket covered the sky: eremorning the dew would lie frozen on the grass!

"You shouldn't be sleeping there!" she said. 

Abdiel started to his four feet and would have snarled, but with onelook at the lady changed his mind. Clare half awoke, half sat up, madean inarticulate murmur, and fell back again. 

"Get up, my boy, " said the old lady. "You must indeed!"

"Oh, please, ma'am, must I?" answered Clare, slowly rising to hisfeet. "I had but just lain down, and I'm so tired!--If I mayn't sleep_there_, " he continued, "where _am_ I to sleep?--Please, ma'am, why iseverybody so set against letting a boy sleep? It don't cost themanything! I can understand not giving him work, if he looks too muchin want of it; but why should they count it bad of him to lie down andsleep?"

The lady wisely let him talk; not until he stopped did she answer him. 

"It's because of the frost, my boy!" she said. "It would be the deathof you to sleep out of doors to-night!"

"It's a nice place for it, ma'am!"

"To sleep in? Certainly not!"

"I didn't mean that, ma'am. I meant a nice place to go away from--todie in, ma'am!"

"That is not ours to choose, " answered the old lady severely, but thetone of her severity trembled. 

"I sha'n't find anywhere so nice as this bank, " said Clare, turningand looking at it sorrowfully. 

"There are plenty of places in the town. It's but a mile farther on!"

"But this is so much nicer, ma'am! And I've no money--none at all, ma'am. When I came out of prison, --"

"Came out of _where_?"

"Out of prison, ma'am. "

He had never been in prison in a legal sense, never having beenconvicted of anything; but he did not know the difference betweendetention and imprisonment. 

"Prison!" she exclaimed, holding up her hands in horror. "How dare youmention prison!"

"Because I was in it, ma'am. "

"And to say it so coolly too! Are you not ashamed of yourself?"

"No, ma'am. "

"It's a shame to have been in prison. "

"Not if I didn't do anything wrong. "

"Nobody will believe that, I'm afraid!"

"I suppose not, ma'am! I used to feel very angry when people wouldn'tbelieve me, but now I see they are not to blame. And now I've got usedto it, and it don't hurt so much. --But, " he added with a sigh, "theworst of it is, they won't give me any work!"

"Do you always tell people you've come out of prison?"

"Yes, ma'am, when I think of it. "

"Then you can't wonder they won't give you work!"

"I don't, ma'am--not now. It seems a law of the universe!"

"Not of the universe, I think--but of this world--perhaps!" said theold lady thoughtfully. 

"But there's one thing I do wonder at, " said Clare. "When I say I'vebeen in prison, they believe me; but when I say I haven't doneanything wrong, then they mock me, and seem quite amused at beingexpected to believe that. I can't get at it!"

"I daresay! But people will always believe you against yourself. --Whatare you going to do, then, if nobody will give you work? You can'tstarve!"

"Indeed I _can_, ma'am! It's just the one thing I've got to do. We'vebeen pretty near the last of it sometimes--me and Abdiel! Haven't we, Abby?"

The dog wagged his tail, and the old lady turned aside to control herfeelings. 

"Don't cry, ma'am, " said Clare; "I don't mind it--not _much_. I'm tooglad I didn't _do_ anything, to mind it much! Why should I! Ought I tomind it much, ma'am? Jesus Christ hadn't done anything, and theykilled _him_! I don't fancy it's so very bad to die of only hunger!But we'll soon see!--Sha'n't we, Abby?"

Again the dog wagged his tail. 

"If you didn't do anything wrong, what _did_ you do?" said the oldlady, almost at her wits' end. 

"I don't like telling things that are not going to be believed. It'slike washing your face with ink!"

"I will _try_ to believe you. "

"Then I will tell you; for you speak the truth, ma'am, and so, perhaps, will be able to believe the truth!"

"How do you know I speak the truth?"

"Because you didn't say, 'I will believe you. ' Nobody can be sure ofdoing that. But you can be sure of _trying_; and you said, 'I will_try_ to believe you. '"

"Tell me all about it then. "

"I will, ma'am. --The policeman came in the middle of the night when wewere asleep, and took us all away, because we were in a house that wasnot ours. "

"Whose was it then?"

"Nobody knew. It was what they call in chancery. There was nobody init but moths and flies and spiders and rats;--though I think the ratsonly came to eat baby. "

"Baby! Then the whole family of you, father, mother, and all, weretaken to prison!"

"No, ma'am; my fathers and my mothers were taken up into the dome ofthe angels. "--What with hunger and sleepiness, Clare was talking likea child. --"I haven't any father and mother in this world. I have twofathers and two mothers up there, and one mother in this world. She'sthe mother of the wild beasts. "

The old lady began to doubt the boy's sanity, but she went onquestioning him. 

"How did you have a baby with you, then?"

"The baby was my own, ma'am. I took her out of the water-but. "

Once more Clare had to tell his story--from the time, that is, whenhis adoptive father and mother died. He told it in such a simplematter-of-fact way, yet with such quaint remarks, from their verysimplicity difficult to understand, that, if the old lady, for all hertrying, was not able quite to believe his tale, it was because shedoubted whether the boy was not one of God's innocents, with anangel-haunted brain. 

"And what's become of Tommy?" she asked. 

"He's in the same workhouse with baby. I'm very glad; for what Ishould have done with Tommy, and nothing to give him to eat, I can'tthink. He would have been sure to steal! I couldn't have kept him fromit!"

"You must be more careful of your company. "

"Please, ma'am, I was very careful of Tommy. He had the best company Icould give him: I did try to be better for Tommy's sake. But my tryingwasn't much use to Tommy, so long as he wouldn't try! He was a littlebetter, though, I think; and if I had him now, and could give himplenty to eat, and had baby as well as Abdiel to help me, we mightmake something of Tommy, I think. --_You_ think so--don't you, Abdiel?"

The dog, who had stood looking in his master's face all the time hespoke, wagged his tail faster. 

"What a name to give a dog! Where did you find it?"

"In Paradise Lost, ma'am. Abdiel was the one angel, you remember, ma'am, who, when he saw what Satan was up to, left him, and went backto his duty. "

"And what was his duty?"

"Why of course to do what God told him. I love Abdiel, and because Ilove the little dog and he took care of baby, I call him Abdieltoo. Heaven is so far off that it makes no confusion to have the samename. "

"But how dare you give the name of an angel to a dog?"

"To a _good_ dog, ma'am! A good dog is good enough to go with anyangel--at his heels of course! If he had been a bad dog, it would havebeen wicked to name him after a good angel. If the dog had beenTommy--I mean if Tommy had been the dog, I should have had to call himMoloch, or Belzebub! God made the angels and the dogs; and if the dogsare good, God loves them. --Don't he, Abdiel?"

Abdiel assented after his usual fashion. The lady said nothing. Clarewent on. 

"Abdiel won't mind--the angel Abdiel, I mean, ma'am--he won't mindlending his name to my friend. The dog will have a name of his own, perhaps, some day--like the rest of us!"

"What is _your_ name?"

"The name I have now is, like the dog's, a borrowed one. I shall getmy own one day--not here--but there--when--when--I'm hungry enough togo and find it. "

Clare had grown very white. He sat down, and lay back on the grass. Hehad talked more in those few minutes than for weeks, and want had madehim weak. He felt very faint. The dog jumped up, and fell to lickinghis face. 

"What a wicked old woman I am!" said the lady to herself, and ranacross the road like some little long-legged bird, and climbed thebank swiftly. 

She disappeared within the gate, but to return presently with atumbler of milk and a huge piece of bread. 

"Here, boy!" she cried; "here is medicine for you! Make haste and takeit. "

Clare sat up feebly, and stared at the tumbler for a moment. Either hecould hardly believe his eyes, or was too sick to take it atonce. When he had it in his hand, he held it out to the dog. 

"Here, Abdiel, have a little, " he said. 

This offended the old lady. 

"You're never going to give the dog that good milk!" she cried. 

"A little of it, please, ma'am!"

"--And feed him out of the tumbler too?"

"He's had nothing to-day, ma'am, and we're comrades!"

"But it's not clean of you!"

"Ah, you don't know dogs, ma'am! His tongue is clean as clean asanybody's. "

Abdiel took three or four little laps of the milk, drew away, andlooked up at his master--as much as to say, "You, now!"

"Besides, " Clare went on, "he couldn't get at it so well in the bottomof the tumbler. "

With that he raised it to his own lips, drank eagerly, and set it onthe road half empty, looking his thanks to the giver with a smile shethought heavenly. Then he broke the bread, and giving the dog nearlythe half of it, began to eat the rest himself. The old lady stoodlooking on in silence, pondering what she was to do with the celestialbeggar. 

"Would you mind sleeping in the greenhouse, if I had a bed put up foryou?" she said at length, in tone apologetic. 

"This is a better place--though I wish it was warmer!" said Clare, with another smile as he looked up at the sky, in which a few starswere beginning to twinkle, and thought of the gardeners he hadmet. "--Don't you think it better, ma'am?"

"No, indeed, I don't!" she answered crossly; for to her the open airat night seemed wrong, disreputable. There was something unholy in it!

"I would rather stay here, " said Clare. 

"Why?"

"Because you don't quite believe me, ma'am. You can't; and you can'thelp it. You wouldn't be able to sleep for thinking that a boy justout of prison was lying in the greenhouse. There would be no sayingwhat he might not do! I once read in a newspaper how an old lady tooka lad into her house for a servant, and he murdered her!--No, ma'am, thank you! After such a supper we shall sleep beautifully!--Sha'n'twe, Abby? And then, perhaps, you could give me a job in the gardento-morrow! I daresay the gardener wants a little help sometimes! Butif he knew me to have slept in the greenhouse, he would hate me. "

The old lady said nothing, for, like most old ladies, she feared hergardener. She took the tumbler from the boy's hand, and went into thehouse. But in two minutes she came again, with another great piece ofbread for Clare, and a bone with something on it which she threw toAbdiel. The dog's ears started up, erect and alive, like individualcreatures, and his eyes gleamed; but he looked at his master, andwould not touch the bone without his leave--which given, he fell uponit, and worried it as if it had been a rat. 

Clare was now himself again, and when the old lady left them for thethird time, he walked with her across the way, bread in hand, to openthe gate for her. When she was inside, he took off his cap, and badeher good-night with a grace that won all that was left to be won ofher heart. 

Before she had taken three steps from the gate, the old lady turned. 

"Boy!" she called; and Clare, who was making for his couch under thestars, hastened back at the sound of her voice. 

"I shall not be able to sleep, " she said, "for thinking of you outthere in the bleak night!"

"I am used to it, ma'am!"

"Oh, I daresay! but you see I'm not! and I don't like the thought ofit! You may like hoarfrost-sheets, for what I know, but I don't! Youmay like the stars for a tester--because you want to die and go tothem, I suppose!--but I have no fancy for the stars! You are a foolishfellow, and I am out of temper with you. You don't give a thought tome--or to my feelings if you should die! I should never go to bedagain with a good conscience!--Besides, I should have to nurse you!"

The last member of her expostulation was hardly in logical sequence, but it had not the less influence on Clare for that. 

"I will do whatever you please, ma'am, " he answered humbly. "--Come, Abdiel!"

The dog came running across the road with his bone in his mouth. 

"You mustn't bring that inside the gate, Ab!" said Clare. 

The dog dropped it. 

"Good dog! It's a lady's garden, you know, Abdiel!" Then turning tohis hostess, Clare added, "I always tell him when I'm pleased withhim: don't you think it right, ma'am?"

"I daresay! I don't know anything about dogs. "

"If you had a dog like Abdiel, he would soon teach you dogs, ma'am!"rejoined Clare. 

By this time they were at the house-door. The lady told him to waitthere, went in, and had a talk with her two maids. In half an hour, Clare and his four-footed angel were asleep--in an outhouse, it istrue, but in a comfortable bed, such as they had not seen since theirflight from the caravans. The cold breeze wandered moaning like a lostthing round the bare walls, as if every time it woke, it went abroadto see if there was any hope for the world; but it did not touch them;and if through their ears it got into their dreams, it made theirsleep the sweeter, and their sense of refuge the deeper. 

But although the bewitching boy and his good dog were not lying in theopen air over against her gate, and although never a thought of murderor theft came to trouble her, it was long before the old lady foundrepose. Her heart had been deeply touched. 

Chapter LIII. 

The gardener. 

From the fact that his hostess made him no answer when he breathed thehope of a job in her garden, Clare concluded that he had presumed insuggesting the thing to her, and that she would be relieved by theirdeparture. When he woke in the morning, therefore, early after a grandsleep, he felt he had no right to linger: he had been invited tosleep, and he had slept! He also shrank from the idea of beingsupposed to expect his breakfast before he went. So, as soon as he gotup, he walked out of the gate, crossed the road, and sat down on thespot he had occupied the night before, there to wait until the houseshould be astir. For, although he could not linger within gates wherehe was unknown, neither could he slink away without morning-thanks forthe gift of a warm night. 

As he sat, he grew drowsy, and leaning back, fell fast asleep. 

The thoughts of his hostess had been running on very different lines, and she woke with feelings concerning the pauper very different fromthose the pauper imagined in her. She must do something for him; shemust give or get him work! As to giving him work, her difficulty layin the gardener. She resolved, however, to attempt over-coming it. 

She rose earlier than usual, therefore, and as the man, who did notsleep in the house, was not yet come, she went down to the gate tomeet him and have the thing over--so eager was she, and so nervous inprospect of such an interview with her dreaded servant. 

"Good gracious!" she murmured aloud, "does it rain beggars?" Forthere, on the same spot, lay another beggar, another boy, with a dogin his bosom the facsimile of the ugly white thing named afterMilton's angel! She did not feel moved to go and make hisacquaintance. It could not be another of the family, could it? thathad already heard of his brother's good luck, and come to see whetherthere might not be a picking for him too! She turned away hurriedlylest he should wake, and went back to the house. 

But looking behind her as she mounted the steps, she caught sight ofthe gardener at the other gate, casting a displeased look across theroad before he entered: he did not like to see tramps about! Her heartsank a little, but she was not to be turned aside. 

The gardener came in, and his mistress joined him and walked with himto his work, telling him as much as she thought fit concerning theboy, and interspersing her narrative with hints of the duty of givingevery one a chance. She took care not to mention that he had come outof a prison somewhere. 

"No one should be driven to despair, " she said, little thinking sheused almost the very words of the Lord, according to the Sinaiticreading of a passage in St. Luke's gospel. 

The argument had little force with the rough Scotchman: his mistresswas soft-hearted! He shook his head ominously at the idea of giving atramp the chance of doing decent work, but at last consented, with ashow of being over-persuaded to an imprudent action, to let the boyhelp him for a day, and see how he got on, stipulating, however, thathe should not be supposed to have pledged himself to anything. 

Miss Tempest's plans went beyond the gardener's scope. She had forsome months been inclined to have a boy to help in the house--aninclination justified by a late unexpected accession of income: ifthis boy were what he seemed, he would make a more than valuableservant; and nothing could clear her judgment of him better, shethought, than putting him to the test of a brief subjection to thecross-grained, exacting Scotchman. By that she would soon know whetherto dismiss him, or venture with him farther!

She had but just wrung his hard consent from the gardener, when thecook came running, to say the boy was gone. Upon poor Miss Tempest'sheart fell a cold avalanche. 

"But we've counted the spoons, ma'am, and they're all right!" said thecook. 

This additional statement, however, did not seem to give muchconsolation to the benevolent old lady. She stood for a moment withher eyes on the ground, too pained to move or speak. Then she started, and ran to the gate. The cook ran after, thinking her mistress goneout of her mind--and was sure of it when she saw her open the gate, and run straight down the bank to the road. But when she reached thegate herself, she saw her standing over a boy asleep on the grass ofthe opposite bank. 

Abdiel, lying on his bosom, watched her with keen friendly eyes. Clarewas dreaming some agreeable morning-dream; for a smile of suchpleasure as could haunt only an innocent face, nickered on it like asunny ripple on the still water of a pool. 

"No!" said Miss Tempest to herself; "there's no duplicity there!Otherwise, a tree is not known by its fruit!"

Clare opened his eyes, and started lightly to his feet, strong andrefreshed. 

"Good morning, ma'am!" he said, pulling off his cap. 

"Good morning--what am I to call you?" she returned. 

"Clare, if you please, ma'am. "

"What is your Christian name?"

"That is my Christian name, ma'am--Clare. "

"Then what is your surname?"

"I am called Porson, ma'am, but I have another name. Mr. Porsonadopted me. "

"What is your other name?"

"I don't know, ma'am. I am going to know one day, I think; but the dayis not come yet. "

He told her all he could about his adoptive parents, and little Maly;but the time before he went to the farm was growing strangelydreamlike, as if it had sunk a long way down in the dark waters of thepast--all up to the hour when Maly was carried away by the long blackaunt. 

The story accounted to Miss Tempest both for his good speech and thename of his dog. The adopted child of a clergyman might well beacquainted with _Paradise Lost_, though she herself had never readmore of it than the apostrophe to Light in the beginning of the thirdbook! That she had learned at school without understanding phrase orsentence of it; while Clare never left passage alone until heunderstood it, or, failing that, had invented a meaning for it. 

"Well, then, Clare, I've been talking to my gardener about you, " saidMiss Tempest. "He will give you a job. "

"God bless you, ma'am! I'm ready!" cried Clare, stretching out hisarms, as if to get them to the proper length for work. "Where shall Ifind him?"

"You must have breakfast first. "

She led the way to the kitchen. 

The cook, a middle-aged woman, looked at the dog, and her facepuckered all over with points of interrogation and exclamation. 

"Please, cook, will you give this young man some breakfast? He wantedto go to work without any, but that wouldn't do--would it, cook?" saidher mistress. 

"I hope the dog won't be running in and out of my kitchen all day, ma'am!"

"No fear of that, cook!" said Clare; "he never leaves me. "

"Then I don't think--I'm afraid, " she began, and stopped. "--Butthat's none of my business, " she added. "John will look after hisown--and more!"

Miss Tempest said nothing, but she almost trembled; for John, sheknew, had a perfect hatred of dogs. Nor could anyone wonder, for, gateopen or gate shut, in they came and ran over his beds. She dared notinterfere! He and Clare must settle the question of Abdiel or noAbdiel between them! She left the kitchen. 

The cook threw the dog a crust of bread, and Abdiel, after a look athis master, fell upon it with his white, hungry little teeth. Then sheproceeded to make a cup of coffee for Clare, casting an occasionalglance of pity at his garments, so miserably worn and rent, and hisbrown bare feet. 

"How on the face of this blessed world, boy, do you expect to work inthe garden without shoes?" she said at length. 

"Most things I can do well enough without them, " answered Clare;"--even digging, if the ground is not very hard. My feet used to besoft, but now the soles of them are like leather. --They've grown theirown shoes, " he added, with a smile, and looked straight in her eyes. 

The smile and the look went far to win her heart, as they had won thatof her mistress: she felt them true, and wondered how such afair-spoken, sweet-faced boy could be on the tramp. She poured him outa huge cup of coffee, fried him a piece of bacon, and cut him as muchbread and butter as he could dispose of. He had not often eatenanything but dry bread, in general very dry, since he left themenagerie, and now felt feasted like an emperor. Pleased with themaster, the cook fed the dog with equal liberality; and then, curiousto witness their reception by John, between whom and herself wascontinuous feud, she conducted Clare to the gardener. From a distancehe saw them coming. With look irate fixed upon the dog, he started tomeet them. Clare knew too well the meaning of that look, and saw inhim Satan regarding Abdiel with eye of fire, and the words on hislips--

 "And fly, ere evil intercept thy flight. "

The moment he came near enough, without word, or show of malice beyondwhat lay in his eye, he made, with the sharp hoe he carried, a suddendownstroke at the faithful angel, thinking to serve him as Gabrielserved Moloch. But Abdiel was too quick for him: he had read danger inhis very gait the moment he saw him move, and enmity in his eyes whenhe came nearer. He kept therefore his own eyes on the hoe, and nevermoved until the moment of attack. Then he darted aside. The weapontherefore came down on the hard gravel, jarring the arm of histreacherous enemy. With a muttered curse John followed him and madeanother attempt, which Abdiel in like manner eluded. John followed andfollowed; Abdiel fled and fled--never farther than a few yards, seeming almost to entice the man's pursuit, sometimes pirouetting onhis hind legs to escape the blows which the gardener, growing more andmore furious with failure, went on aiming at him. Fruitlessly didClare assure him that neither would the dog do any harm, nor allow anyone to hit him. It was from very weariness that at last he desisted, and wiping his forehead with his shirt-sleeve, turned upon Clare inthe smothered wrath that knows itself ridiculous. For all the time thecook stood by, shaking with delighted laughter at his every freshdiscomfiture. 

"Awa', ye deil's buckie, " he cried, "an tak' the little Sawtan wi' ye!Dinna lat me see yer face again. "

"But the lady told me you would give me a job!" said Clare. 

"I didna tell her I wad gie yer tyke a job! I wad though, gien he wadlat me!"

"He's given you a stiff one!" said the cook, and laughed again. 

The gardener took no notice of her remark. 

"Awa' wi' ye!" he cried again, yet more wrathfully, "--or--"

He raised his hand. 

Clare looked in his eyes and did not budge. 

"For shame, John!" expostulated the cook. "Would you strike a child?"

"I'm no child, cook!" said Clare. "He can't hurt me much. I've had agood breakfast!"

"Lat 'im tak' awa' that deevil o' a tyke o' his, as I tauld him, "thundered the gardener, "or I'll mak" a pulp o' 'im!"

"I've had such a breakfast, sir, as I'm bound to give a whole day'swork in return for, " said Clare, looking up at the angry man; "and Iwon't stir till I've done it. Stolen food on my stomach would turn mesick!"

"Gien it did, it wadna be the first time, I reckon!" said thegardener. 

"It _would_ be the first time!" returned Clara "You are very rude. --IfAbdiel understood Scotch, he would bite you, " he added, as the dog, hearing his master speak angrily, came up, ears erect, and took hisplace at his side, ready for combat. 

"Ye'll hae to tak' some ither mode o' payin' the debt!" said John. "Stick spaud in yird here, ye sall not! You or I maun flit first!"

With that he walked slowly away, shouldering his hoe. 

"Come, Abdiel, " said Clare; "we must go and tell Miss Tempest! Perhapsshe'll find something else for us to do. If she can't, she'll forgiveus our breakfast, and we'll be off on the tramp again. I thought wewere going to have a day's rest--I mean work; that's the rest we want!But this man is an enemy to the poor. "

The gardener half turned, as if he would speak, but changed his mindand went his way. 

"Never mind John!" said the cook, loud enough for John to hear. "He'san old curmudgeon as can't sleep o' nights for quarrellin' insidehim. I'll go to mis'ess, and you go and sit down in the kitchen till Icome to you. "

Chapter LIV. 

The Kitchen. 

Clare went into the kitchen, and sat down. The housemaid came in, andstood for a moment looking at him. Then she asked him what he wantedthere. 

"Cook told me to wait here, " he answered. 

"Wait for what?"

"Till she came to me. She's gone to speak to Miss Tempest. "

"I won't have that dog here. "

"When I had a home, " remarked Clare, "our servant said the cook wasqueen of the kitchen: I don't want to be rude, ma'am, but I must do asshe told me. "

"She never told you to bring that mangy animal in here!"

"She knew he would follow me, and she said nothing about him. But he'snot mangy. He hasn't enough to eat to be mangy. He's as lean as adried fish!"

The housemaid, being fat, was inclined to think the remark personal;but Clare looked up at her with such clear, honest, simple eyes, thatshe forgot the notion, and thought what a wonderfully nice boy helooked. 

"He's shamefully poor, though! His clothes ain't even decent!" sheremarked to herself. 

And certainly the white skin did look through in several places. 

"You won't let him put his nose in anything, will you?" she said quitegently, returning his smile with a very pleasant one of her own. 

"Abdiel is too much of a gentleman to do it, " he answered. 

"A dog a gentleman!" rejoined the housemaid with a merry laugh, willing to draw him out. 

"Abdiel can be hungry and not greedy, " answered Clare, and the youngwoman was silent. 

Miss Tempest and Mrs. Mereweather had all this time been turning overthe question of what was to be done with the strange boy. They agreedit was too bad that anyone willing to work should be prevented fromearning even a day's victuals by the bad temper of a gardener. But hismistress did not want to send the man away. She had found himscrupulously honest, as is many a bad-tempered man, and she did notlike changes. The cook on her part had taken such a fancy to Clarethat she did not want him set to garden-work; she would have him atonce into the house, and begin training him for a page. Now MissTempest was greatly desiring the same thing, but in dread of what thecook would say, and was delighted, therefore, when the firstsuggestion of it came from Mrs. Mereweather herself. The only obstaclein the cook's eyes was that same long, spectral dog. The boy could notbe such a fool, however, --she said, not being a lover of animals--aslet a wretched beast like that come betwixt him and a good situation!

"It's all right, Clare, " said Mrs. Mereweather, entering her queendomso radiant within that she could not repress the outshine of herpleasure. "Mis'ess an' me, we've arranged it all. You're to help me inthe kitchen; an' if you can do what you're told, an' are willin' tolearn, we'll soon get you out of your troubles. There's but one thingin the way. "

"What is it, please?" asked Clare. 

"The dog, of course! You must part with the dog. "

"That I cannot do, " returned Clare quietly, but with countenancefallen and sorrowful. "--Come, Abdiel!"

The dog started up, every hair of him full of electric vitality. 

"You don't mean you're going to walk yourself off in such a beastlyungrateful fashion--an' all for a miserable cur!" exclaimed the cook. 

"The lady has been most kind to us, and we're grateful to her, andready to work for her if she will let us;--ain't we, Abdiel? ButAbdiel has done far more for me than Miss Tempest! To part withAbdiel, and leave him to starve, or get into bad company, would besheer ingratitude. I should be a creature such as Miss Tempest oughtto have nothing to do with: I might serve her as that young butler Itold her of! It's just as bad to be ungrateful to a dog as to anyother person. Besides, he wouldn't leave me. He would be alwayshanging about. "

"John would soon knock him on the head. "

"Would he, Abdiel?" said Clare. 

The dog looked up in his master's face with such a comical answer inhis own, that the cook burst out laughing, and began to like Abdiel. 

"But you don't really mean to say, " she persisted, "that you'd go offagain on the tramp, to be as cold and hungry again to-morrow as youwere yesterday--and all for the sake of a dog? A dog ain't aChristian!"

"Abdiel's more of a Christian than some I know, " answered Clare: "hedoes what his master tells him. "

"There's something in that!" said the cook. 

"If I parted with Abdiel, I could never hold up my head among theangels, " insisted Clare. "Think what harm it might do him! He couldtrust nobody after, his goodness might give way! He might grow worsethan Tommy!--No; I've got to take care of Abdiel, and Abdiel's got totake care of me!--'Ain't you, Abby?"

"We can't have him here in the kitchen nohow!" said the cook inrelenting tone. 

"Poor fellow!" said the housemaid kindly. 

The dog turned to her and wagged his tail

"What wouldn't I give for a lover like that!" said the housemaid--butwhether of Clare or the dog I cannot say. 

"I know what I shall do!" cried Clare, in sudden resolve. "I will askMiss Tempest to have him up-stairs with her, and when she is tired ofeither of us, we will go away together. "

"A probable thing!" returned the cook. "A lady like Miss Tempest witha dog like that about her! She'd be eaten up alive with fleas! In tenminutes she would!"

"No fear of that!" rejoined Clare. "Abdiel catches all his _own_fleas!--Don't you, Abby?"

The dog instantly began to burrow in his fell of hair--an answer whichmight be taken either of two ways: it might indicate comprehension andcorroboration of his master, or the necessity for a fresh hunt. Thewomen laughed, much amused. 

"Look here!" said Clare. "Let me have a tub of water--warm, if youplease--he likes that: I tried him once, passing a factory, where alot of it was running to waste. Then, with the help of a bit of soap, I'll show you a body of hair to astonish you. "

"What breed is he?" asked the housemaid. 

"He's all the true breeds under the sun, I fancy, " returned hismaster; "but the most of him seems of the sky-blue terrier sort. "

The more they talked with Clare, the better the women liked him. Theygot him a tub and plenty of warm water. Abdiel was nothing loath to beplunged in, and Clare washed him thoroughly. Taken out and dried, heseemed no more for a lady's chamber unmeet. 

"Now, " said Clare, "will you please ask Miss Tempest if I may bringhim on to the lawn, and show her some of his tricks?"

The good lady was much pleased with the cleverness and instantobedience of the little animal. Clare proposed that she should keephim by her. 

"But will he stay with me? and will he do what _I_ tell him?" sheasked. 

Clare took the dog aside, and talked to him. He told him what he wasgoing to do, and what he expected of him. How much Abdiel understood, who can tell! but when his master laid him down at Miss Tempest'sfeet, there he lay; and when Clare went with the cook, he did notmove, though he cast many a wistful glance after the lord of hisheart. When his new mistress went into the house, he followed hersubmissively, his head hanging, and his tail motionless. He soonrecovered his cheerfulness, however, and seemed to know that hisfriend had not abandoned him. 

Chapter LV. 

The wheel rests for a time. 

That part of the human race which is fond of dolls, may now imaginethe pleasure of the cook in going to the town in the omnibus to buyeverything for a live doll so big as Clare! In a very few days she hadhim dressed to her heart's content, and the satisfaction of hermistress, who would not have him in livery, but in a plain suit ofdark blue cloth: for she loved blue, all her men-people being, orhaving been in the navy. Thus dressed, he looked as much of agentleman as before: his look of refinement had owed nothing to thecontrast of his rags. Better clothes make not a few seem commoner. 

When Mrs. Mereweather came back from the town the first day, she foundthat the ragged boy had got her kitchen and scullery as nice andclean, and everything as ready to her hand, as if she had got her workdone before she went, which the omnibus would not permit. Thisrejoiced her much; but being a woman of experience, she continued alittle anxious lest his sweet ways should go after his rags, lest hisnew garments should breed bumptiousness and bad manners. For such achange is no unfrequent result of prosperity. But such had beenMr. Porson's teaching and example, such Mrs. Person's management, andsuch the responsiveness of the boy's disposition, that the thoughtnever came to him whether this or that was a thing fit for him to do:if the thing was a right thing, and had to be done, why should not hedo it as well as another! To earn his own and Abdiel's bread, he woulddo anything honest, setting up his back at nothing. But when about athing, he forgot even his obligation to do it, in the glad endeavourto do it well. 

As the days went on, Mrs. Mereweather was not once disappointed inhim. He did everything with such a will that both she and thehousemaid were always ready to spare and help him. Very soon theybegan to grow tender over him; and on pretence of his being theearlier drest to open the door, did certain things themselves which hehad been quite content to do, but which they did not like seeing himdo. Many--I am afraid most boys would have presumed on theirgenerosity, but Clare was nowise injured by it. 

Nothing could be kinder than the way his mistress treated him. Havinglent him some books, and at once perceived that he was careful ofthem, she let him have the run of her library when his day's work wasover. For he not only read but respected books. Nothing showsvulgarity more than the way in which some people treat books. Nogentleman would write his remarks on the margins of another person'sbook; no lady would brush her hair as she read one of her own. 

From hungry days and cold nights, Clare and Abdiel found themselves_in clover_--the phrase surely of some lover of cows!--and they weremore than content. Clare had longed so much for work, and had for somany a weary day sought it in vain, that he valued it now just becauseit was work. And he seemed to know instinctively that a man ranks, notaccording to the thing he does, but according to the way he doesit. In life it is far higher to do an inferior thing well than to do asuperior thing passably. 

Clare made good use of his privileges, and read much, educatinghimself none the worse that he did it unconsciously. He read whatevercame in his way. He read really--not as most people read, leaving thesentences behind them like so many unbroken nuts, the kernel of whosemeaning they have not seen. He learned more than most boys at school, more even than most young men at college; for it is not what oneknows, but what one uses, that is the true measure of learning. Whatever he read, he read from the point of practice. In history orromance he saw--not merely what a man ought to be or do, but what hehimself must, at that moment, be or do. There is a very common sort ofman calling himself practical, but neglecting to practise the mostimportant things, who would laugh at the idea of Clare beingpractical, seeing he did not trouble his head about money, or "gettingon in the world"--what servants call "bettering themselves;" but sucha practical man will find he has been but a practical fool. Clare tookheed to do what was right, and grow a better man. Such a life is theonly really practical one. 

People wondered how Miss Tempest had managed to get hold of such anice-looking page, and the good lady was flattered by theirwonder. But she knew the world too well to be sure of him yet. Sheknew that it is difficult, in the human tree, to distinguish betweenblossom and fruit. Deeds of lovely impulse are the blossom; unvarying, determined Tightness is the fruit. 

Chapter LVI. 

Strategy. 

Miss Tempest was the last of an old family, with scarce a relation, and no near one, in the world. Hence the pieces of personal propertythat had continued in the possession of various branches of the familyafter land and money, through fault or misfortune, were gone, hadmostly drifted into the small pool of Miss Tempest's life now slowlysinking in the sands of time, there to gleam and sparkle out theirtale of its old splendour. She did not think often of theirmoney-worth: had she done so, she would have kept them at herbanker's; but she valued them greatly both for their beauty and theirassociations, constantly using as many of them as she could. More thanone of her friends had repeatedly tried to persuade her that it wasnot prudent to have so much plate and so many jewels in the house, forthe fact was sure to be known where it was least desirable it should:she always said she would think about it. At times she would for amoment contemplate sending her valuables to the bank; but her nextthought--by no means an unwise one--would always be, "Of what use willthey be at the bank? I might as well not have them at all! Better sellthem and do some good with the money!--No; I must have them about me!"

There are predatory persons in every large town, who either know orare learning to know the houses in it worth the risk of robbing. Whenit falls to the lot of this or that house to be attempted, one of thegang will make the acquaintance of some servant in it, with the objectof discovering beforehand where its treasure lies, and so reducing thetime to be spent in it, and the risk of frustration or capture. Oftenthey seduce one of the household to let them in, or hand out thethings they want. Any such gang, however, must soon have becomeconvinced that at Miss Tempest's corruption was impossible, and thatthey could avail themselves solely of their own internal resources. 

It was well now for Miss Tempest that she was so faithful herself asto encourage faithfulness in others: gladly would she have had Abdielsleep in her room, but she would not take the pleasure of his companyfrom his old master and companion in suffering. The dog thereforeslept on Clare's bed, just as he did when the bed was as hard todefine as to lie upon, only now he had to take the part neither ofblanket nor hot bottle. 

One night, about half-past twelve, watchful even in slumber, he sprangup in his lair at his master's feet, listened a moment, gave a lowgrowl, again listened, and gave another growl. Clare woke, and foundhis bed trembling with the tremor of his little four-footedguardian. Telling him to keep quiet, he rose on his elbow, and in histurn listened, but could hear nothing. He thought then he would lighthis candle and go down, but concluded it wiser to descend without alight, and listen under cloak of the darkness. If he could but saveMiss Tempest from a fright! He crept out of bed, and went first to thewindow--a small one in the narrowing of the gable-wall of his atticroom: the night was warm, and, loving the night air, he had itopen. Hearkening there for a moment, he thought he heard a slightmovement below. Very softly he put out his head, and lookeddown. There was no moon, but in the momentary flash of a lantern hecaught sight of a small pair of legs disappearing inside the scullerywindow, which was almost under his own. Swift and noiseless he hurrieddown, and reached the scullery door just in time for a little fellowwho came stealing out of it, to run against him. 

Now Clare had heard the housemaid read enough from the newspapers toguess, the moment he looked from the garret window, that the legs hesaw were those of a boy sent in to open a door or window, and when theboy, feeling his way in the dark, came against him, he gripped him bythe throat with the squeeze that used to silence Tommy. The prowlerknew the squeeze. The moment Clare relaxed it, in a piping whispercame the words, "Clare! Clare! they said they'd kill me if I didn't!"

"Didn't what?"

"Open the door to them. "

"If you utter one whimper, I'll throttle you, " said Clare. 

He tightened his grasp for an instant, and Tommy, who had notforgotten that what Clare said, he did, immediately gave in, and wasled away. Clare took him in his arms and carried him to his room, tiedhim hand and foot, and left him on the floor, fast to the bedstead. Then he crept swiftly to the servants' room, and with some difficultywaking them, told them what he had done, and asked them to help him. 

Both women of sense and courage, they undertook at once to do theirpart. But when he proposed that they should open a window, as if itwere done by Tommy, and so enticing the burglars to enter, secure thefirst of them, they, naturally enough, and wisely too, declined toencounter the risk. 

The burglars, perplexed by the lack of any sign from Tommy yet theutter quiet of the house, concluded probably that he had fallensomewhere, and was lying either insensible, or unable to move andafraid to cry out--in which case they would be at the mercy of what hemight say when he was found. 

Those within could hear as little noise without. They went from doorto window, wherever an attempt might be made, but all was still. Thenit occurred to Clare that he had left the scullery windowunwatched. He hastened to it--and was but just in time: two long thinlegs were sticking through, and showed by their movements thatconsiderable effort was being made by the body that belonged to them, to enter after them. Legs first was the wrong way, but the youthfeared the unknown fate of Tommy, and being pig-headed, would go thatway or not at all. 

A boy in courage equal to Clare, but of less coolness, would at oncehave made war on the intrusive legs; but Clare bethought him that, solong as that body filled the window, no other body could pass thatway; so it would be well to keep it there, a cork to the house, makingit like the nest of a trap-door-spider. He begged the women, therefore, who had followed him, to lay hold each of an ankle, andstick to it like a clamp, while he ran to get some string. 

The women, entering heartily into the business, held on bravely. Theowner of the legs made vigorous efforts to release them, more anxiousa good deal to get out than he had been to get in, but he was not verystrong, and had no scope. His accomplices laid hold of him and pulled;then, with good mother-wit, the women pulled away from each other, andso made of his legs a wedge. 

Clare came back with a piece of clothes-line, one end of which heslipped with a running knot round one ankle, and the other in likefashion round the other. Then he cut the line in halves, and drawingthem over two hooks in the ceiling, some distance apart, so that thelegs continued widespread like a V upside down, hauled the feet up ashigh as he could, and fastened the ends of the lines. Hold lines andhooks, it was now impossible to draw the fellow out. 

Leaving the women to watch, and telling them to keep a hand on each ofthe lines because the scullery was pitch-dark, he went next to hisroom and looked again from the window. He feared they might be tryingto get in at some other place, for they would not readily abandontheir accomplices, and doubtless knew what a small household it was!He would see first, therefore, what was doing outside the scullery, and then make a round of doors and windows!

Right under him when he looked out, stood a short, burly figure;another man was taking intermittent hauls at the arms of theirleg-tied companion, regardless of his stifled cries of pain when hedid so. Clare went and fetched his water-jug, which was half full, andleaning out once more, with the jug upright in his two hands, moved itthis way and that until he had it, as nearly as he could determine, just over the man beneath him, and then dropped it. The jug fellplumb, and might have killed the man but that he bent his head at themoment, and received it between his shoulders. It knocked the breathout of him, and he lay motionless. The other man fled. Thewindow-stopper, hearing the crash of the jug, wrenched and kicked andstruggled, but in vain. There he had to wait the sunrise, for not amoment sooner would the cook open the door. 

When they went out at last, the stout man too was gone. He had risenand staggered into the shrubbery, and there fallen, but had risen oncemore and got away. 

Their captive pretended to be all but dead, thinking to move theirpity and be set free. But Clare went to the next house and got theman-servant there to go for the police, begging him to make haste: heknew that his tender-hearted mistress, if she came down before thepolice arrived, would certainly let the fellow go, and Tommy with him;and he was determined the law should have its way if he could compassit What hope was there for the wretched Tommy if he was allowed toescape! And what right had they to let such people loose on theirneighbours! It was selfishness to indulge one's own pity to the dangerof others! He would be his brother's keeper by holding on to hisbrother's enemy!

Going at last to his room, he found Tommy asleep. The boy was betterdressed, but no cleaner than when first he knew him. Clare proceededto wash and dress. Tommy woke, and lay staring, but did not utter asound. 

"Have your sleep out, " said Clare. "The police won't be here, Idaresay, for an hour yet. "

"I believe you!" returned Tommy, as impudent as ever. Hiscontemplation of Clare had revived his old contempt for him. 'I meanto go. I 'ain't done nothing. "

"Go, then, " said Clare, and took no more heed of him. 

"If it's manners you want, Clare, " resumed Tommy, "_please_ let mego!"

Clare turned and looked at him. The evil expression was hardened onhis countenance. He gave him no answer. 

"You ain't never agoin' to turn agin an old pal, aire you?" saidTommy. 

"I ain't a pal of yours, Tommy, or of any other thief's!" answeredClare. 

"I'll take my oath on it to the beak!"

"You'll soon have the chance; I've sent for the police. " Tommy changedhis tone. 

"Please, Clare, let me go, " he whined. 

"I will not. I did what I could for you before, and I'll do what I canfor you now. You must go with the police. "

Tommy began to blubber, or pretend--Clare could not tell which. 

"This beastly string's a cuttin' into me!" he sobbed. 

Clare examined it, and found it easy enough. 

"I won't undo one knot, " he answered, "until there's a policeman inthe room. If you make a noise, I will stuff your mouth. "

His dread was that his mistress might hear, and spoil all. "It's herhouse, " he said to himself, "but they're my captives!"

Tommy lay still, and the police came. 

When they untied and drew out the cork of the scullery window, Clarethought he had seen him before, but could not remember where. One ofthe policemen, however, the moment his eyes fell on his face, criedout joyfully, "Ah, ha, my beauty! I've been a lookin' for you!"

"Never set eyes on ye afore, " growled the fellow. 

"Don't ye say now ye ain't a dear friend o' mine, " insisted thepoliceman, "when I carry yer pictur' in my bosom!"

He drew out a pocket-book, and from it a photograph, at which he gazedwith satisfaction, comparing it with the face before him. In anothermoment Clare recognized the lad sent by Maidstone to exchangeband-boxes with him. 

"Her majesty the queen wants you for that robbery, you know!" said thepoliceman. 

A boy who loved romance and generosity more than truth andrighteousness, would now have regretted the chance he had lost ofdoing a fine action, and sought yet to set the rascal free. There aremen who cheat and make presents; there are men who are saints abroadand churls at home, as Bunyan says; there are men who screw down thewages of their clerks and leave vast sums to the poor; men who buildchurches with the proceeds of drunkenness; men who promote bubblecompanies and have prayers in their families morning and evening; men, in a word, who can be very generous with what is not their own; fornothing ill-gotten is a man's own any more than the money in a thief'spocket: Clare was not of the contemptible order of the falselygenerous. 

Profiting, doubtless, by Maidstone's own example, the fellow had, asClare now learned, run away from his master, carrying with him thecontents of the till: whether he deserved punishment more than hismaster, may be left undiscussed. 

When first Miss Tempest's friends heard of the attempt to break intoher house, they said--what could she expect if she took tramps intoher service! They were consider-ably astonished, however, when theyread in the newspaper the terms in which the magistrate had spoken ofthe admirable courage and contrivance of Miss Tempest's page, and theresolution with which the women of her household had seconded him. Ifevery third house were as well defended, he said, the crime ofburglary would disappear. 

After the trial, Clare begged and was granted an interview with themagistrate. He told him what he knew about Tommy, and entreated hemight be sent to some reformatory, to be kept from bad company untilhe was able to distinguish between right and wrong, which he thoughthe hardly could at present The magistrate promised it should be done, and with kind words dismissed him. 

Things returned to their old way at Miss Tempest's. Her friends neverdoubted she would now at last commit her plate to her banker's strongroom, but they found themselves mistaken: she was convinced that, withsuch servants and Abdiel, it was safe where it was. 

The leader of the gang, injured by Clare's water-jug, was soon aftercaptured, and the gang was broken up. 

Chapter LVII. 

Ann Shotover. 

So void of self-assertion was Clare, so prompt at the call of whoeverneeded him, so quiet yet so quick, so silent in his sympatheticministrations, so studious and so capable, that, after two years, MissTempest began to feel she ought to do what she could to "advance hisprospects, " even at the loss to herself of his services. 

He never came to regard Miss Tempest as he did the other women who hadsaved him: he never thought of her as his fourth mother. Truly goodand kind she was, but she had a certain manner which prevented himfrom feeling entirely comfortable with her. It did not escape him, however, that Abdiel was thoroughly at his ease in her company; and hebelieved therefore that the dog knew her better, or at least was morejust to her, than he. 

The fact was Miss Tempest kept down all her feelings, with a vaguesense that to show them would be to waste her substance: it was theone shape that the yet lingering selfishness of a very unselfishperson took. Thus she kept him at a distance, and he stayed at adistance, she on her part wondering that he did not open out to hermore, but neither doubting that all was right between them. Nothing, indeed, was wrong--only they might have come a little nearer. Perhaps, also, Miss Tempest was a little too conscious of being his patroness, his earthly saviour. 

It was natural that, after the defeated robbery, Clare should become alittle known to the friends of the mistress he had so well served;when, therefore, Miss Tempest spoke to her banker concerning theability of her page, mentioning that, in his spare time, he had beenreading hard, as well as attending an evening-school for mathematics, where he gained much approbation from his master, she spoke of onealready known by him to one accustomed to regard character. 

The banker listened with a solemn listening from which she could nottell what he was thinking. No one ever could tell what Mr. Shotoverwas thinking: his face was not half a face; it was more a mask than aface. High in the world's regard, rich, and of unquestioned integrity, he was believed to have gathered a large fortune; but he kept hisaffairs to himself. That he liked his own way so much as never toyield it, I give up to the admiration of such as himself: oftenkind--when the required mode of the kindness pleased him, a constantchurch-goer and giver of money, always saying less the more he made uphis mind, he had generally no trouble in getting it. 

Priding himself on his moral discrimination, he had, now and then, assuited his need, taken from a lower position a young man he thoughtwould serve his purpose, and modelled him to it. He had had his eye onClare ever since reading the magistrate's eulogy of his contrivanceand courage; but when Miss Tempest spoke, he had not made up his mindabout him, for something in the boy repelled him. He had scarcelytroubled himself to ask what it was, nor do I believe he could havediscovered, for the root of the repulsion lay in himself. 

Moved in part, however, by the representations of Miss Tempest, inpart also, I think, by a desire to discover that the boy was ahypocrite, Mr. Shotover consented to give him a trial, whereupon MissTempest made haste to disclose to her _protegé_ the grand thing shehad done for him. 

She was disappointed at the coolness and lack of interest with whichClare heard her great news. She could not but be gratified that he didnot want to leave her, but she was annoyed that he seemed unaware ofany advantage to be gained in doing so--high as the social ascent fromservitude to clerkship would by most be considered. But Clare'shorizon was not that of the world. He had no inclination to more offigures and less of persons. Miss Tempest, however, insisting that sheknew what was best for him, and what it was therefore his duty to do, he listened in respectful silence to all she had to say. But what shecounted her most powerful argument--that he owed it to himself to risein the world--did not even touch him, did not move the slightestresponse in a mind nobly devoid of ambition. Her argument was in truthnonsense; for a man owes himself nothing, owes God everything, andowes his neighbour whatever his own conscience goes on to require ofhim for his neighbour. Feeling at the same time, however, that she hada huge claim on his compliance with her wishes, Clare consented toleave her kitchen for her friend's bank, where he had of course totake the lowest position, one counted by the rest of the clerks, especially the one just out of it, _menial_, requiring him to be inthe bank earlier by half an hour than the others, to be the last to goaway at night, and to sleep in the house--where a not uncomfortableroom in the attic story was appointed him. 

Mr. Shotover himself lived above the bank--with his family, consistingof his wife and two daughters. Mrs. Shotover suffered from a terribledisease--that of thinking herself ill when nothing was the matter withher except her paramount interest in herself--the source of at leasthalf the incurable disease among idle people. The elder daughter was ahigh-spirited girl about twenty, with a frank, friendly manner, indicating what God meant her to be, not what she was, or had yetchosen to be. She was not really frank, and seemed far more friendlythan she was, being more selfish than she knew, and far more selfishthan she seemed: she was merry, and that goes a great way inseeming. Her mother spent no regard upon her; her heart was too fullof herself to have in it room for a grown-up daughter as well, withinterests of her own. The younger was a child about six, of whom themother took not so much care by half as a tigress of her cub. 

One morning, a little before eight o'clock, as Clare was coming downfrom his room to open the windows of the bank, he just saved himselffrom tumbling over something on the attic stair, which was dark, andat that point took rather a sharp turn. The something was a child, whogave a low cry, and started up to run away: there was not light enoughfor either to discern easily what the other was like. But Clare, towhom childhood was the strongest attraction he yet knew, bent down hisface from where he stood on the step above her, and its moonlight glowof love and faith shone clear in the eyes of the little girl. Themoment she saw his smile, she knew the soul that was the light of thesmile, and her doll dropped from her hands as she raised them to layher arms gently about his neck. 

"Oh!" she said, "you're come!"

He saw now, in the dusk, a pale, ordinary little face, with ratherlarge gray eyes, a rather characterless, tiny, up-turned nose, and arather pretty mouth. 

"Yes, little one. Were you expecting me?" he returned, with his armsabout her. 

"Yes, " she answered, in the tone of one stating what the other mustknow. 

"How was it I frightened you, then?"

"Only at first I thought you was an ogre! That was before I sawyou. Then I knew!"

"Who told you I was coming?"

"Nobody. Nobody knew you was coming but me. I've known it--oh, forsuch a time!--ever since I was born, I think!"

She turned her head a little and looked down where the doll lay a stepor two below. 

"You can go now, dolly, " she said. "I don't want you any more. " Hereshe paused a while, as if listening to a reply, then went on: "I ammuch obliged to you, dolly; but what am I to do with you? You won'tnever speak! It has made me quite sad many a time, you know very well!But you can't help it! So go away, please, and be nobody, for younever would be anybody! I did my best to get you to be somebody, butyou wouldn't! Thank you all the same! I will take you and put youwhere you can be as dull as you please, and nobody will mind. "--Hereshe left Clare, went down, and lifted her plaything. --"Dolly, dolly, "she resumed, "he's come! I knew he would! And you don't know itbecause you're nobody!"

Without looking back, or a word of adieu to Clare, she went slowlydown the steps, one by one, with the doll in her arms, manifesting forit neither contempt nor tenderness. Many a child would have carriedthe discrowned favourite by one leg; she carried her in both hands. 

Clare waited a while on the narrow, closed-in, wooden stair, not alittle wondering, and full of thought. His wonder, however, had nopuzzlement in it. The child's behaviour involved no difficulty. Thetwo existences came together, and each understood the other in virtueof its essential nature. In after years Clare could put the thing intosuch words; he sought none at the time. The child was lonely. She haddone her best with her doll, but it had failed her. It was notcompanionable. The moment she looked in Clare's face, she knew that heloved her, and that she had been waiting for _him_! She was notsurprised to see him; how should it be otherwise than just so! He wascome: good bye, dolly! The child had imagination--next to consciencethe strongest ally of common sense. She knew, like St. Paul, that anidol is nothing. As men and women grow in imagination and commonsense, more and more will sacred silly dolls be cast to the moles andthe bats. But pretty Fancy and limping Logic are powerful usurpers incommonplace minds. 

Clare saw nothing more of her that day, neither tried to see her; buthe did his work in an atmosphere of roses. The work was not nearly sointeresting as house-work, but Clare was an honest gentleman, therefore did it well: that it was not interesting was of no account;it was his work! But to know that a child was in the house, not merelya child for him to love, but a child that already loved him so that hecould be her servant indeed, changed the stupid bank almost into thedome of the angels. 

His fellow clerks took little notice of him beyond what, in theroutine of the day, was unavoidable. He had been a page-boy: the lessthey did with him the better! Were they not wronged by hisintroduction into their company? The poorest creature of them believedhe would have served out the burglars better if the chance had beenhis. 

Chapter LVIII. 

Child-talk. 

As Clare came down the next morning but one, there was the child againon the dark narrow stair. She had no doll. Her hands lay folded in herlap. She sat on the same step, the very image of child-patience. As heapproached she did not move. I believe she held solemn revel ofexpectation. He laid his hand on the whitey-brown hair smoothed flaton her head with a brush dipped in water. Not much dressing was wastedon Ann--common little name!

She rose, turned to him, and again laid her arms about his neck. Nokiss followed: she had not been taught to kiss. 

"Where's dolly?" asked Clare. 

"Nowhere. Buried, " answered the child. 

"Where did you bury her? In the garden?"

"No. The garden wouldn't be nowhere!"

"Where, then?"

"Nowhere. I threw her out of the window. "

"Into the street?"

"Yes. She did fell on a horse's back, and he jumped. I was sorry. "

"It didn't hurt him. I hope it didn't hurt dolly!"

The moment he said it, Clare's heart reproached him: he was nottalking true! he was not talking out of his real heart to the child!Almost with indignation she answered:--

"_Things_ don't be hurt! Dolly was a thing! She's _no_ thing now!"

"Why?"

"Because she fell under the horse, and was seen no more. "

"Is she old enough, " thought Clare, "to read the Pilgrim's Progress?"

"Will you tell me, please, " he said, "_when_ a thing is only a thing?"

"When it won't mind what you do or say to it. "

"And when is a thing no thing any more?"

"When you never think of it again. "

"Is a fly a thing?"

"I _could_ make a fly mind, only it would hurt it!"

"Of course we wouldn't do that!"

"No; we don't want to make a fly mind. It's not one of our creatures. "

Clare thought that was far enough in metaphysics for one morning. 

"I waited for you yesterday, " he said, "but you didn't come!"

"Dolly didn't like to be buried. I mean, I didn't like buryingdolly. I cried and wouldn't come. "

"Then why did you bury dolly?"

"She _had_ to be buried. I told you she couldn't _be_ anybody! So I_made_ her be buried. "

"I see! I quite understand. --But what have you to amuse yourself withnow?"

"I don't want to be mused now. You's come! I'm growed up!"

"Yes, of course!" answered Clare; but he was puzzled what to say next. 

What could he do for her? Glad would he have been to take her down tothe sea, or to the docks, or into the country somewhere, tilldinner-time, and then after dinner take her out again! But there washis work--ugly, stupid work that had to be done, as dolly _had_ to beburied! Alas for the child who has discarded her toys, and is suddenlygrowed up! What is she to do with herself? Clare's coming had causedthe loss of Ann's former interests: he felt bound to make up to herfor that loss. But how? It was a serious question, and not being hisown master, he could not in a moment answer it. 

"I wish I could stay with you all day!" he said. "But your papa wantsme in the bank. I must go. "

Clare had not had a good sight of the child, and was at a loss tothink what must be her age. Her language, both in form and utterance, was partly precise and _grown-up_, and partly childish; but her wisdomwas child-like--and that is the opposite both of precise andchildish. It was the wisdom that comes of unity between thought andaction. 

"Is there anything I can do for you before I go--for I must go?" saidClare. 

"Who says _must_ to you? Nurse says _must_ to me. "

"Your papa says _must_ to me. "

"If you didn't say _yes_ when papa said _must_, what would come next?"

"He would say, 'Go out of my house, and never come in again. '"

"And would you do it?"

"I must: the house is his, not mine. "

"If I didn't say _yes_ when papa said _must_, what would happen?"

"He would try to make you say it. "

"And if I wouldn't, would he say, 'Go out of my house and never comein again'?"

"No; you are his little girl!"

"Then I think he shouldn't say it to you. --What is your name?"

"Clare. "

"Then, Clare, if my papa sends you out of his house, I will go withyou. --You wouldn't turn me out, would you, when I was a _little_naughty?"

"No; neither would your papa. "

"If he turned you out, it would be all the same. Where you go, I willgo. I must, you know! Would you mind if he said 'Go away'?"

"I should be very sorry to leave you. "

"Yes, but that's not going to be! Why do you stay with papa? Were youin the house always--ever so long before I saw you?"

"No; a very little while only. "

"Did you come in from the street?"

"Yes; I came in from the street. Your papa pays me to work for him. "

"And if you wouldn't?"

"Then I should have no money, and nothing to eat, and nowhere to sleepat night. "

"Would that make you uncomfable?"

"It would make me die. "

"Have you a papa?"

"Yes, but he's far away. "

"You could go to him, couldn't you?"

"One day I shall. "

"Why don't you go now, and take me?"

"Because he died. "

"What's _died_?"

"Went away out of sight, where we can't go to look for him till we goout of sight too. "

"When will that be?"

"I don't know. "

"Does anybody know?"

"Nobody. "

"Then perhaps you will never go?"

"We must go; it's only that nobody knows when. "

"I think the when that nobody knows, mayn't never come. --Is that whyyou have to work?"

"Everybody has to work one way or another. "

"I haven't to work!"

"If you don't work when you're old enough, you'll be miserable. "

"_You're_ not old enough. "

"Oh, yes, indeed I am! I've been working a long time now. "

"Where? Not for papa?"

"No; not for papa. "

"Why not? Why didn't you come sooner? Why didn't you come _much_sooner--_ever_ so much sooner? Why did you make me wait for you allthe time?"

"Nobody ever told me you were waiting. "

"Nobody ever told me you were coming, but I knew. "

"You had to wait for me, and you knew. I had to wait for you, and Ididn't know! When we have time, I will tell you all about myself, andhow I've been waiting too. "

"Waiting for me?"

"No. "

"Who for?"

"For my father and mother--and somebody else, I think. "

"That's me. "

"No; I'm waiting yet. I didn't know I was coming to you till I came, and there you were!"

The child was silent for a moment. Then she said thoughtfully, "You will tell me _all_ about yourself! That _will_ be nice!--Can youtell stories?" she added. "--Of course you can! You can do_every_thing!"

"Oh, no, I can't!"

"Can't you?"

"No; I can do _some_ things--not many. I can love you, littleone!--Now I must go, or I shall be late, and nobody ever ought to belate. "

"Go then. I will go to my nursery and wait again. "

She went down the stair without once looking behind her. Clarefollowed. On the next floor she went one way to her nursery, and heanother to the back-stairs. 

One of the causes and signs of Clare's manliness was, that he neveraimed at being a man. Many men continue childish because they arealways trying to act like men, instead of simply trying to doright. Such never develop true manliness, Clare's manhood stole uponhim unawares. That which at once made him a man and kept him a child, was, that he had no regard for anything but what was real, that is, true. 

All the day the thought kept coming, what could he do for the littlegirl Perhaps what stirred his feeling for her most, was a suspicionthat she was neglected. But the careless treatment of a nurse wasbetter for her than would have been the capricious blandishments andneglects of a mother like Mrs. Shotover. Clare, however, knew nothingyet about Ann's mother. He knew only, by the solemnly still ways ofthe child, that she must be much left to her own resources, and waswonderfully developed in consequence--whether healthily or not, hecould not yet tell. The practical question was--how to contrive to beher occasional companion; how to offer to serve her. 

After much thinking, he concluded that he must wait: opportunity mightsuggest mode; and he would rather find than make opportunity!

Chapter LIX. 

Lovers' walks. 

He had not long to wait. That very afternoon, going a message for thehead-clerk, he met Ann walking with a young lady--who must be MissShotover. Neither sister seemed happy with the other. Ann was verywhite, and so tired that she could but drag her little feet afterher. Miss Shotover, flushed with exertion, and annoyed with her partof nursemaid, held her tight and hauled her along by the hand. Shelooked good-natured, but not one of the ministering sort. Every nowand then she would give the little arm a pull, and say, though not_very_ crossly, "Do come along!" The child did not cry, but it wasplain she suffered. It was plain also she was doing her best to gethome, and avoid rousing her sister's tug. 

Keen-sighted, Clare had recognized Ann at some distance, and as heapproached had a better opportunity than on the dark stair of seeingwhat his little friend was like. He saw that her eyes were unusuallyclear, and, paces away, could distinguish the blue veins on herforehead: she looked even more delicate than he had thought her. Thelines of her mouth were straightened out with the painful effort shehad to make to keep up with her sister. Her nose continuedinsignificant, waiting to learn what was expected of it. 

For Miss Shotover, there was not a good feature in her face, and evento a casual glance it might have suggested a measure of meanness. Buta bright complexion, and the youthful charm which vanishes with youth, are pleasant in their season. Her figure was lithe, and in general shehad a look of fun; but at the moment heat and impatience clouded hercountenance. 

Clare stopped and lifted his hat. Then first the dazed child saw him, for she was short-sighted, and her observation was dulled byweariness. She said not a word, uttered no sound, only drew her handfrom her sister's, and held up her arms to her friend--in dumb prayerto be lifted above the thorns of life, and borne along without pain. He caught her up. 

"I beg your pardon, ma'am, " he said, "but the little one and I havemet before:--I live in the house, having the honour to be the youngestof your father's clerks. If you will allow me, I will carry thechild. She looks tired!"

Miss Shotover was glad enough to be relieved of her clog, and gavesmiling consent. 

"If you would be so kind as to carry her home, " she said, "I should beable to do a little shopping!"

"You will not mind my taking her a little farther first, ma'am? I amon a message for Mr. Woolrige. I will carry her all the way, and bevery careful of her. "

Miss Shotover was not one to cherish anxiety. She already knew Clareboth by report and by sight, and willingly yielded. Saying, with oneof her pleasant smiles, that she would hold him accountable for her, she sailed away, like a sloop that had been dragging her anchor, buthad now cut her cable. Clare thought what a sweet-looking girl shewas--and in truth she was sweet-_looking_. Then, all his heart turnedto the little one in his arms. 

What a walk was that for both of them! Little Ann seemed never to havelived before: she was actually happy! She had been long waiting forClare, and he was come--and such as she had expected him! It was blissto glide thus along the busy street without the least exertion, looking down on the heads of the people, safe above danger and fearamid swift-moving things and the crowding confusions of life! To be inClare's arms was better than being in the little house on theelephant's back in her best picture-book! True, little one! To be inthe arms of love, be they ever so weak, is better than to ride thegrandest horse in all the stables of God--and God would have you knowit! Never mind your pale little face and your puny nose! While yourheart is ready to die for love-sake, you are blessed among women!Only remember that to die of disappointment is not to die either of orfor love!

And to Clare, after all those days upon days during which only a dogwould come to his arms, what a glory of life it was to have a humanchild in them, the little heart of the pale face beating against hisside! He was not going to forget Abdiel. Abdiel was not a fact to beforgotten. Abdiel was not a doll, Abdiel was not a thing that wouldnot come alive. Abdiel was a true heart, a live soul, and Clare wouldlove him for ever!--not an atom the less that now he had one out uponwhom a larger love was able to flow! All true love makes abler tolove. It is only false love, the love of those who take their ownmeanest selfishness, their own pleasure in being loved, for love, thatshrinks and narrows the soul. 

To the pale-faced, listening child, Clare talked much about thewonderful Abdiel, and about the kind good Miss Tempest who was keepinghim to live again at length with his old master; and Ann loved the dogshe had never seen, because the dog loved the Clare who was come atlast. 

When they returned, Clare rang the house-bell, and gave up his chargeto the man who opened the door. Without word or tone, gesture or lookof objection, or even of disinclination, the child submitted to betaken from Clare's loving embrace, and carried to a nurse who wasneither glad nor sorry to see her. 

He had been so long gone that Mr. Woolrige found fault with him forit. Clare told him he had met Miss Shotover with her sister, and thechild seemed so tired he had asked leave to carry her with him, Mr. Woolrige was not pleased, but he said nothing; on the spot theclerks nicknamed him _Nursie_; and Clare did his best to justify theappellation-he never lost a chance of acting up to it, and alwaysanswered when they summoned him by it. 

Before the week was ended, he sought an interview with Miss Shotover, and asked her whether he might not take little Ann out for a walkwhenever the evening was fine. For at five o'clock the doors of thebank were shut, and in half an hour after he was free. Miss Shotoversaid she saw no objection, and would tell the nurse to have her readyas often as the weather was fit; whereupon Clare left her with agratitude far beyond any degree of that emotion by her conceivable. The nurse, on her part, was willing to gratify Clare, and not sorry tobe rid of the child, who was not one, indeed, to interest any ordinarywoman. 

The summer came and was peculiarly fine, and almost every eveningClare might be seen taking his pleasure--neither like bank-clerk norlike nurse-maid, for always he had little Ann in his arms, or wasleading her along with care and entire attention: he never let herwalk except on entreaty, and not always then. To his fellow clerksthis proof of an utter lack of dignity seemed consistent with hisorigin--of which they knew nothing; they knew only his lateposition. To themselves they were fine gentlemen with cigars in theirmouths, and he was a lackey to the bone! To himself Clare was thelover of a child; and about them he did not think. Theirs was the lifeof a town; Clare's was a life of the universe. 

The pair came speedily to understand and communicate like twin brotherand sister. Clare, as he carried her, always knew when Ann wanted achange of position; Ann always knew when Clare began to growweary--knew before Clare himself--and would insist on walking. Neither could remember how it came, but it grew a custom that, whenthey walked hand in hand, Clare told her stories of his life andadventures; when he carried her, he told her fairy-tales, which hecould spin like a spider: she preferred the former. 

So neither bank nor nursery was any longer dreary. 

At length came the gray, brooding winter, causing red fingers andaches and chilblains. But it was not unfriendly to little Ann. True, she was not permitted to go out in the evening any more, but Clare, with the help of the cook, devoted to her his dinner-hour instead. Itwas no hardship to eat from a basket in place of a table, to one whonever troubled himself as to the kind, quality, or quantity of hisfood itself. He had learned, like a good soldier, to endurehardness. I have heard him say that never did he enjoy a dinner morethan when, in those homeless days of his boyhood, he tore the flakesoff a loaf fresh from the baker's oven, and ate them as he walkedalong the street. The old highlanders of Scotland were trained tothink it the part of a gentleman not to mind what he ate--sign ofscant civilization, no doubt, in the eyes of some who now occupy butdo not fill their place--as time will show, when the call is for mento fight, not to eat. 

Chapter LX. 

The shoe-black. 

The head-clerk, while he had not a word against him, as he confessedto Mr. Shotover, yet thought Clare would never make a man ofbusiness. When pressed to say on what he grounded the opinion, hecould only answer that the lad did not seem to have his heart in it. But if, to be a man of business, it is not enough to do one's dutyscrupulously, but the very heart must be in it, then is theresomething wrong with business. The heart fares as its treasure: whowould be content his heart should fare as not a few sorts of treasuremust? Mr. Woolrige passed no such judgment, however, upon certainolder young men in the bank, whose hearts certainly were not in thebusiness, but even worse posited. 

One cold, miserable day, at once damp and frosty, on which it wasquite unfit to take Ann out, Clare, having eaten a hasty dinner, andfollowed it with a walk, was returning through the town in good timefor the recommencement of business, when he came upon a little boy, atthe corner of a street, blowing his fingers, and stumping up and downthe pavement to keep his blood moving while he waited for a job: hisbrushes lay on the top of his blacking-box on the curbstone. Clare sawthat he was both hungry and cold--states of sensation with which hewas far too familiar to look on the signs of them with indifference. To give him something to do, and so something to eat, he went to hisblock and put his foot on it. The boy bustled up, snatched at hisbrushes, and began operations. But, whether from the coldness orincapacity of his hands, Clare soon saw that his boots would not bepolished that afternoon. 

"You don't seem quite up to your business, my boy!" he said. "What'sthe matter?"

The boy made no answer, but went on with his vain attempt. A momentmore, and Clare saw a tear fall on the boot he was at work upon. 

"This won't do!" said Clare. "Let me look at _your_ boots. "

The boy stood up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 

"Ah!" said Clare, "I don't wonder you can't polish my boots, when youdon't care to polish your own!"

"Please, sir, " answered the boy, "it's Jim as does it! He's down wi'the measles, an' I ain't up to it. "

"Look here, then! I'll give you a lesson, " said Clare. "Many's theboot I've blacked. Up with your foot! I'll soon show you how thething's done!"

"Please, sir, " objected the boy, "there ain't enough boot left to takea polish!"

"We'll see about that!" returned Clare. "Put it up. I've worn worse inmy time. "

The boy obeyed. The boot was very bad, but there was enough leather tocarry some blacking, and the skin took the rest. 

Clare was working away, growing pleasantly hot with the quick, sharpmotion, while two of his fellow clerks were strolling up on the otherside of the corner, who had been having more with their lunch than wasgood for them. Swinging round, they came upon a well dressed youthbrushing a ragged boy's boots. It was an odd sight, and one of them, whose name was Marway, thought to get some fun out of the phenomenon. 

"Here!" he cried, "I want my boots brushed. "

Clare rose to his feet, saying, "Brush the gentleman's boots. I will finish yours after, and then youshall finish mine. "

"Hullo, Nursie! it's you turned boot-black, is it?--Nice thing for theoffice, Jack!" remarked Marway, who was the finest gentleman, and thelowest blackguard among the clerks. 

He put his foot on the block. The boy began his task, but did nobetter with his boots than he had done with Clare's. 

"Soul of an ass!" cried Marway, "are you going to keep my foot theretill it freezes to the block? Why don't you do as Nursie tells you?_He_ knows how to brush a boot! _You_ ain't worth your salt! You ain'tfit to black a donkey's hoofs!"

"Give me the brushes, my boy, " said Clare. 

The boy rose abashed, and obeyed. After a few of Clare's light rapidstrokes, the boots looked very different. 

"Bravo, Nursie!" cried Marway. "There ain't a flunkey of you all coulddo it better!"

Clare said nothing, finished the job, and stood up. Marway, turning onthe other heel as he set his foot down, said, "Thank you, Nursie!"and was walking off. 

"Please, Mr. Marway, give the boy his penny, " said Clare. 

But Marway wanted to _take a rise out of_ Clare. 

"The fool did nothing for me!" he answered. "He made my boot worsethan it was. "

"It was I did nothing for you, Mr. Marway, " rejoined Clare. "What Idid, I did for the boy. "

"Then let the boy pay you!" said Marway. 

The shoe-black went into a sudden rage, caught up one of his brushes, and flung it at Marway as he turned. It struck him on the side of thehead. Marway swore, stalked up to Clare and knocked him down, thenstrode away with a grin. 

The shoe-black sent his second brush whizzing past his ear, but hetook no notice. Clare got up, little the worse, only bruised. 

"See what comes of doing things in a passion!" he said, as the boycame back with the brushes he had hastened to secure. "Here's yourpenny! Put up your foot. "

The boy did as he was told, but kept foaming out rage at the blokethat had refused him his penny, and knocked down his friend. It didnot occur to him that he was himself the cause of the outrage, andthat his friend had suffered for him. Clare's head ached a good deal, but he polished the boy's boots. Then he made him try again on hisboots, when, warmed by his rage, he did a little better. Clare gavehim another penny, and went to the bank. 

Marway was not there, nor did he show himself for a day or two. Claresaid nothing about what had taken place, neither did the others. 

Chapter LXI. 

A walk with consequences. 

Clare had been in the bank more than a year, and not yet hadMr. Shotover discovered why he did not quite trust him. Had Clareknown he did not, he would have wondered that he trusted him with sucha precious thing as his little Ann. But was his child very precious toMr. Shotover? When a man's heart is in his business, that is, when heis set on making money, some precious things are not so precious tohim as they might be--among the rest, the living God and the man's ownlife. He would pass Clare and the child without even a nod to indicateapproval, or a smile for the small woman. He had, I presume, sufficient regard for the inoffensive little thing to be content sheshould be happy, therefore did not interfere with what his clerkscounted so little to the honour of the bank. But although, as I havesaid, he still doubted Clare, true eyes in whatever head must haveperceived that the child was in charge of an angel. The countenance ofClare with Ann in his arms, was so peaceful, so radiant of simplesatisfaction, that surely there were some in that large town who, seeing them, thought of the angels that do alway behold the face ofthe Father in heaven. 

One evening in the early summer, when they had resumed their walksafter five o'clock, they saw, in a waste place, where houses had beengoing to be built for the last two years, a number of caravans drawnup in order. 

A rush of hope filled the heart of Clare: what if it should be themenagerie he knew so well! And, sure enough, there was Mr. Halliwellsuperintending operations! But if Glum Gunn were about, he might findit awkward with the child in his arms! Gunn might not respect evenher! Besides he ought to ask leave to take her! He would carry herhome first, and come again to see his third mother and all his oldfriends, with Pummy and the lion and the rest of the creatures. 

Little Ann was eager to know what those curious houses on wheelswere. Clare told her they were like her Noah's ark, full of beasts, only real, live beasts, not beasts made of bits of stick. She becameat once eager to see them--the more eager that her contempt of thingslike life that wouldn't come alive had been growing stronger eversince she threw her doll out of the window. Clare told her he couldnot take her without first asking leave. This puzzled her: Clare washer highest authority. 

"But if _you_ take me?" she said. 

"Your papa and mamma might not like me to take you. "

"But I'm yours!"

"Yes, you're mine--but not so much, " he added with a sigh, "astheirs!"

"Ain't I?" she rejoined, in a tone of protesting astonishment mingledwith grief, and began to wriggle, wanting to get down. 

Clare set her down, and would have held her, as usual, by the hand, but she would not let him. She stood with her eyes on the ground, andher little gray face looking like stone. It frightened Clare, and heremained a moment silent, reviewing the situation. 

"You see, little one, " he said at length, "you were theirs before Icame! You were sent to them. You are their own little girl, and wemust mind what they would like!"

"It was only till you came!" she argued. "They don't care _very_ muchfor me. Ask them, please, to sell me to you. I don't think they wouldwant much money for me! How many shillings do you think I am worth, Clare? Not many, I hope!--Six?"

"You are worth more than all the money in your papa's bank, " answeredClare, looking down at her lovingly. 

The child's face fell. 

"Am I?" she said. "I'm so sorry! I didn't know I was worth somuch!--and not yours!" she added, with a sigh that seemed to come fromthe very heart of her being. "Then you're not able to buy me?"

"No, indeed, little one!" answered Clare. "Besides, papas don't selltheir little girls!"

"Oh, yes, they do! Gus said so to Trudie!" Clare knew that _Trudie_meant her sister Gertrude. 

"Who is Gus?" he asked. 

"Trudie calls him Gus. I don't know more name to him. Perhaps theycall him something else in the bank. "

"Oh! he's in the bank, is he?" returned Clare. "Then I think I knowhim. "

"He said it to her one night in my nursery. Jane went down; I was inmy crib. They talked such a long time! I tried to go to sleep, but Icouldn't. I heard all what he said to her. It wasn't half so nice aswhat you talk to me!"

This was not pleasant news to Clare. Augustus Marway was, if half thetales of him were true, no fit person for his master's daughter to beintimate with! He had once heard Mr. Shotover speak about gambling insuch terms of disapprobation as he had never heard him use aboutanything else; and it was well known in the bank that Marway was inthe company of gamblers almost every night. He was so troubled, thatat first he wished the child had not told him. For what was he to do?Could it be right to let the thing go on? Clare felt sure Mr. Shotovereither did not know that Marway gambled, or did not know that hetalked in the nursery with his daughter. But, alas, he could donothing without telling, and they all said none but the lowest of cadswould carry tales! For the young men thought it the part of gentlemen_to stick by each other_, and hide from Mr. Shotover some things hehad a right to know. But Clare saw that, whatever they might think, hemust act in the matter. Little Ann wondered that he scarcely spoke toher all the way home. But she did not say anything, for she too wastroubled: she did not belong to Clare so much as she had thought shedid!

Clare reflected also as he went, how much he owed Ann's sister forletting him have the little one. She had always spoken to him kindlytoo, and never seemed, like the clerks, to look down upon him becausehe had been a page-boy--though, he thought, if they were to be asoften hungry as he had been, they would be glad to be page-boysthemselves! For himself, he liked to be a page-boy! He would doanything for Miss Tempest! And he must do what he could for MissShotover! It would be wicked to let her marry a man that was wicked!He had himself seen him drunk! Would it be fair, knowing she did notknow, not to tell? Would it not be helping to hurt her? Was he to be acoward and fear being called bad names? Was he, for the sake of thegood opinion of rascals, to take care of the rascal, and let the ladytake care of herself? There was this difficulty, however, that hecould assert nothing beyond having seen him drunk!

He carried Ann to the nursery, and set out for the menagerie. When heknocked at the door of the house-caravan, Mrs. Halliwell opened it, stared hardly an instant, threw her arms round his neck, and kissedhim. 

"Come in, come in, my boy!" she said. "It makes me a happy woman tosee you again. I've been just miserable over what might have befallenyou, and me with all that money of yours! I've got it by me safe, ready for you! I lie awake nights and fancy Gunn has got hold of you, and made away with you; then fall asleep and am sure of it. He's beengone several times, a looking for you, I know! I think he's afraid ofyou; I know he hates you. Mind you keep out of his sight; he'll do youa mischief if he has the chance. He's the same as ever, a man to makelife miserable. "

"I've never done him wrong, " said Clare, "and I'm not going to keepout of his way as if I were afraid of him! I mean to come and see theanimals to-morrow. "

A great deal more passed between them. They had their teatogether. Mr. Halliwell, who did not care for tea, came and wentseveral times, and now the night was dark. Then they spoke again ofGunn. 

"Well, I don't think he'll venture to interfere with you, " saidMrs. Halliwell, "except he happens to be drunk. --But what's thattalking? _We_'re all quiet for the night. Listen. "

For some time Clare had been conscious of the whispered sounds of adialogue somewhere near, but had paid no attention. The voices werenow plainer than at first When his mother told him to listen, he did, and thought he had heard one of them before. It was peculiar--that ofan old Jew whom he had seen several times at the bank. As the talkingwent on, he began to think he knew the other voice also. It was thatof Augustus Marway. The two fancied themselves against a caravan fullof wild beasts. 

Marway was the son of the port-admiral, who, late in life, married asilly woman. She died young, but not before she had ruined her son, whose choice company was the least respectable of the officers whocame ashore from the king's ships. 

He had of late been playing deeper and having worse luck; and hadborrowed until no one would lend him a single sovereign more. Hisfather knew, in a vague way, how he was going on, and had nearly losthope of his reformation. Having yet large remains of a fine physicalconstitution, he seldom failed to appear at the bank in themorning--if not quite in time, yet within the margin of lateness thatescaped rebuke. Mr. Shotover was a connection by marriage, which gaveMarway the privilege of being regarded by Miss Shotover as a cousin--aprivilege with desirable possibilities contingent, making him anxiousto retain the good opinion of his employer. 

Clare heard but a portion here and there of the conversation going onoutside the wooden wall; but it was plain nevertheless that Marway waspressing a creditor to leave him alone until he was married, when hewould pay every shilling he owed him. 

The young fellow had a persuasive tongue, and boasted he could get thebetter of even a Jew. Clare heard the money-lender grant him a renewalfor three months, when, if Marway did not pay, or were not theaccepted suitor of the lady whose fortune was to redeem him, hiscreditor would take his course. 

The moment he perceived they were about to part, Clare hastened fromthe caravan, and went along the edge of the waste ground, so as tomeet Marway on his road back to the town: at the corner of it theycame jump together. Marway started when Clare addressed him. Seeing, then, who claimed his attention, he drew himself up. 

"Well?" he said. 

"Mr. Marway, " began Clare, "I heard a great deal of what passedbetween you and old Lewin. "

Marway used worse than vulgar language at times, and he did so now, ending with the words, "A spy! a sneaking spy! Would you like to lick my boot? By Jove, youshall know the taste of it!"

"Nobody minds being overheard who hasn't something to conceal! If Ihad low secrets I would not stand up against the side of a caravanwhen I wanted to talk about them. I was inside. Not to hear you Ishould have had to stop my ears. "

"Why didn't you, then, you low-bred flunkey?"

"Because I had heard of you what made it my duty to listen. "

Marway cursed his insolence, and asked what he was doing in such aplace. He would report him, he said. 

"What I was doing is my business, " answered Clare. "Had I known youfor an honest man I would not have listened to yours. I should havehad no right. "

"You tell me to my face I'm a swindler!" said Marway between histeeth, letting out a blow at Clare, which he cleverly dodged. 

"I do!"

"I don't know what you mean, but bitterly shall you repent yourinsolence, you prying rascal! This is your sweet revenge for a blowyou had not the courage to return!--to dog me and get hold of myaffairs! You cur! You're going to turn informer next, of course, andbear false witness against your neighbour! You shall repent it, Iswear!"

"Will it be bearing false witness to say that Miss Shotover does notknow the sort of man who wants to marry her? Does she know why hewants to marry her? Does her father know that you are in the clutchesof a money-lender?"

Marway caught hold of Clare and threatened to kill him. Clare did notflinch, and he calmed down a little. 

"What do you want to square it?" he growled. 

"I don't understand you, " returned Clare. 

"What's the size of your tongue-plaster?"

"I don't know much slang. "

"What bribe will silence you then? I hope that is plain enough--evenfor _your_ comprehension!"

"If I had meant to hold my tongue, I should have held it. "

"What do you want, then?"

"To keep you from marrying Miss Shotover. "

"By Jove! And suppose I kick you into the gutter, and tell you to mindyour own business--what then?"

"I will tell either your father or Mr. Shotover all about it. "

"Even you can't be such a fool! What good would it do you? You're notafter her yourself, are you?--Ha! ha!--that's it! I didn't nosethat!--But come, hang it! where's the _use_?--I'll give you fourflimsies--there! Twenty pounds, you idiot! There!"

"Mr. Marway, nothing will make me hold my tongue--not even yourpromise to drop the thing. "

"Then what made you come and cheek me? Impudence?"

"Not at all! I should have been glad enough not to have to do it! Icame to you for my own sake. "

"That of course!"

"I came because I would do nothing underhand!"

"What are you going to do next, then?"

"I am going to tell Mr. Shotover, or Admiral Marway--I haven't yetmade up my mind which. "

"What are you going to tell them?"

"That old Lewin has given you three months to get engaged to MissShotover, or take the consequences of not being able to pay what youowe him. "

"And you don't count it underhand to carry such a tale?"

"I do not. It would have been if I hadn't told you first. I would tellMiss Shotover, only, if she be anything of a girl, she wouldn'tbelieve me. "

"I should think not! Come, come, be reasonable! I always thought you agood sort of fellow, though I _was_ rough on you, I confess. There!take the money, and leave me my chance. "

"No. I will save the lady if I can. She shall at least know the sortof man you are. "

"Then it's war to the knife, is it?"

"I mean to tell the truth about you. "

"Then do your worst. You shall black my boots again. "

"If I do, I shall have the penny first. "

"You cringing flunkey!"

"I haven't cringed to you, Mr. Marway!"

Marway tried to kick him, failed, and strode into the dark between himand the lamps of the town. 

Chapter LXII. 

The cage of the puma. 

Marway was a fine, handsome fellow, whose manners, where he sawreason, soon won him favour, and two of the young men in the officewere his ready slaves. Every moment of the next day Clare waswatched. Marway had laid his plans, and would forestallfrustration. Clare could hardly do anything before the dinner-hour, but Marway would make assurance double sure. 

At anchor in the roads lay a certain frigate, whose duty it was tosail round the islands, like a duck about her floating brood. Amongthe young officers on board were two with whom Marway was intimate. Hehad met them the night before, and they had together laid a plot fornullifying Clare's interference with Marway's scheme--which hisfriends also had reason to wish successful, for Marway owed them bothmoney. Clare had come in the way of all three. 

Now little Ann was a guardian cherub to the object of their enmity, and he and she must first of all be separated. Clare had asked leaveof Miss Shotover to take the child to Noah's ark, as she called it, that evening, and Marway had learned it from her: Clare's going wouldfavour their plan, but the child's presence would render itimpracticable. 

One thing in their favour was, that Mr. Shotover was from home. IfClare had resolved on telling him rather than the admiral, he couldnot until the next evening, and that would give them abundant time. Onthe other hand, having him watched, they could easily prevent him fromfinding the admiral. But Clare had indeed come to the just conclusionthat his master had the first right to know what he had to tell. Hisobject was not the exposure of Marway, but the protection of hismaster's daughter: he would, therefore, wait Mr. Shotover's return. He said to himself also, that Marway would thereby have a chance tobethink himself, and, like Hamlet's uncle, "try what repentance can. "

As soon as he had put the bank in order for the night, he went to findhis little companion, and take her to Noah's ark. The child had beensitting all the morning and afternoon in a profound stillness ofexpectation; but the hour came and passed, and Clare did not appear. 

"You never, never, never came, " she said to him afterward. "I had togo to bed, and the beasts went away. "

It was many long weeks before she told him this, or her solemn littlevisage smiled again. 

He went to the little room off the hall, where he almost always foundher waiting for him, dressed to go. She was not there. Nobody came. Hegrew impatient, and ran in his eagerness up the front stair. At thetop he met the butler coming from the drawing-room--a respectable oldman, who had been in the family as long as his master. 

"Pardon me, Mr. Porson, " said the butler, who was especially polite toClare, recognizing in him the ennoblement of his own order, "but it isagainst the rules for any of the gentlemen below to come up thisstaircase. "

"I know I'm in the wrong, " answered Clare; "but I was in such a hurryI ventured this once. I've been waiting for Miss Ann twenty minutes. "

"If you will go down, I will make inquiry, and let you know directly, "replied the butler. 

Clare went down, and had not waited more than another minute when thebutler brought the message that the child was not to go out. In vainClare sought an explanation; the old man knew nothing of the matter, but confessed that Miss Shotover seemed a little put out. 

Then Clare saw that his desire to do justice had thwarted hisendeavour: Marway had seen Miss Shotover, he concluded, and had sothoroughly prejudiced her against anything he might say, that she hadalready taken the child from him! He repented that he had told him hispurpose before he was ready to follow it up with immediateaction. Distressed at the thought of little Ann's disappointment, heset out for the show, glad in the midst of his grief, that he wasgoing to see Pummy once more. 

The weather had been a little cloudy all day, but as he left thecloser part of the town, the vaporous vault gave way, and the westrevealed a glorious sunset. Troubled for the trouble of little Ann, Clare seemed drawn into the sunset. The splendour said to him: "Go on;sorrow is but a cloud. Do the work given you to do, and the cloudswill keep moving; stop your work and the clouds will settle downhard. "

"When I was on the tramp, " thought Clare, "I always went on, andthat's how I came here. If I hadn't gone on, I should never have foundthe darling!"

As little as during any day's tramp did he know how his reflection wasgoing to be justified. 

He wandered on, and the minutes passed slowly: it was wandering nowwith no child in his arms! He was in no haste to go to the menagerie;he would be in good time for the beasts; and the later he was, thesooner he would see his mother alone and have a talk with her!

At last, it being now quite dark, he turned, and made for thecaravans. 

A crowd was going up the steps, passing Mrs. Halliwell slowly, anddescending into the area surrounded by the beasts. Clare went up, andlaid his money on the little white table. The good woman took it witha smile, threw it in her wooden bowl, and handed him, as if it hadbeen his change, three bright sovereigns. Clare turned his faceaway. He could not take them. He felt as if it would break one bondbetween them. 

"The money's your own!" she said, in a low voice. 

"By and by, mother!" he answered. 

"No, no, take it now, " she insisted, in an almost angry whisper; butthe same moment threw the sovereigns among the silver, and somecoppers that lay on the table over them. 

Judging by her look that he had better say nothing, he turned and wentdown the steps. Before he reached the bottom of them, Glum Gunnelbowed his way past him, throwing a scowl on him from his ugly eyesat the range of a few inches. 

The place was fuller than it had been all the evening, and with arougher sort of company. The show would close in about an hour. Itseemed to Clare not so well lighted as usual. Perhaps that was why hedid not observe that he was watched and followed by Marway, with twoothers, and one burly, middle-aged, sailor-looking fellow. But I doubtwhether he would have seen them in any light, for he had nosuspicions, and was not ready to analyze a crowd and distinguishindividuals. 

He avoided making straight for Pummy, contenting himself for themoment with an occasional glimpse of him between the moving heads, nowopening a vista, now closing it again, for he hoped to get graduallynearer unseen, so as to be close to the animal when first he shoulddescry him, for he dreaded attracting attention by becoming, while yetat a distance, the object of an uproarious outbreak of affection onthe part of the puma. 

But while he was yet a good way from him, a most ferocious yell sprangfull grown into the air, which the very fibres of his body knew as oneof the cries of the puma when most enraged. There he was on his hindlegs, ramping against the front of the cage, every hair on himbristling, his tail lashing his flanks. The same instant arose acommotion in the crowd behind Clare, a pushing and stooping andswaying to and fro, with shouts of, "Here he is! here he is!"

Filled with a foreboding that was almost a prescience, he fell toforcing his way without ceremony, and had got a little nearer to thepuma, when, elbowing roughly through the spectators, with red, evilface, in drink but not drunk, Glum Gunn appeared, almost between himand the cage--once more, to the horror of Clare, holding by the neckhis poor little Abdiel, curled up into the shape of a flea. The brutewas making his way with him to the cage of the puma, whose wrath, grown to an indescribable frenzy, now blazed point-blank at the dog. 

I think some waft of the wild odour of the menagerie must have reachedthe nostrils of the loving creature, brought back old times and hismaster, and waked the hope of finding him. That he had but justarrived was plain, for he had not had time to get to his master. 

Clare was almost at the edge of the close-packed, staring crowd, absorbed in the sight of the huge raving cat. Breaking through itsoutermost ring in the strength of sudden terror, he darted to the cageto reach it before Glum Gunn. A man crossed and hustled him. Gunnopened the door of the cage, and flung Abdiel to the puma. Ere hecould close it, Clare struck him once more a stout left-hander on theside of his head. Gunn staggered back. Clare sprang into thecage--just as Pummy spying him uttered a jubilant roar ofrecognition. His jumping into the cage just prevented the puma fromgetting out, and the crowd from trampling each other to death toescape The Christians' Friend; but now that Clare was in, thecage-door might have swung all night open unheeded--so long, that is, as no dog appeared. 

As for Abdiel the puma had forgotten him: the dog was out of his sightfor the moment, though only behind him, while his friend and he wererubbing recognizant noses. Abdiel showed his wisdom by keeping in thebackground. The moment he was flung into the cage, he had got into acorner of it, and stood up on his hind legs. 

His master believed that, knowing how the puma loved the human formdivine, he thought to prejudice him in his favour by showing how nearhe could come to it. There he yet stood, his head sunk on his chest, watching out of his eyes for the terrible moment when his enemy shouldagain catch sight of him. 

The moment came. The puma's delight had broken out in wildestmotion. He sprang to the roof of his cage, and grappling there, lookeddown with retorted neck, and saw the dog. Poor Abdiel immediatelyraised his head, and in hope of propitiation all but forlorn, began alittle dance his master had taught him. 

What Pummy would have done with him, I fear, but I cannot tell. Claresprang to the rescue, and the weight of the puma's bulk descended, noton Abdiel, but on the shoulders of Clare who had the dog in hisbosom. In a moment more it was evidenced that a common love, howeveroften the cause of jealousy, is the most powerful mediator between thegenerous. The puma forgot his hate, the dog forgot his fear, andpresently, to the admiration of the crowd, Clare and Pummy and Abbywere rolling over and over each other on the floor of the cage. 

Pummy had the best of the rough game. One moment he would be a bend ina seemingly unloosable knot of confused animality, the next he wouldbe clinging to the top of his cage, where the others could not followhim. Perhaps to have a human to play with, was even better than dreamsof loveliest frolics with brothers and sisters, and a mother as madlymerry as they, in still, moonlit nights among the rocks, where neithersound nor scent of horse woke the devil in any of their bosoms!

Glum Gunn, too angry to speak, stood watching with a scowl fit forLucifer when he rose from his first fall from heaven. He could donothing! If he touched one, all three would be upon him! Experiencehad taught him what the puma would do in defence of Clare! He mustbide his time!--But he must keep hold of his chance! He drew from hispocket his master-key, and at a moment when Clare was under the othertwo, slid it into the key-hole, and locked the door of the cage. Hehad him now--and his beast of a dog too! If he could have turned thepuma mad, and made him tear them both to shreds, he would not havedelayed an instant. But he must think! He must say, like Hamlet, "About, my brains!"

The man, however, who wishes to do evil, will find as ready helpers ashe who wishes to do well: in the place were those who wanted Gunn'said, and would give him theirs. 

He felt a touch on his arm, glanced sullenly round, and saw a faceunder whose beauty lay the devil. Marway, with eye and thumb, requested him to withdraw for a moment, and he did not hesitate. As hewent he chuckled to himself at the thought of Clare when he found thedoor locked. 

Marway's three accomplices had drifted off one by one to wait himoutside: he rejoined them with Gunn; and, retiring a little way fromthe caravans, the five held a council, the results of which make animportant part of Clare's history. 

Clare seemed absorbed in his game with his four-footed, one-tailedfriends, but he was wide awake: he had Abdiel to deliver, and kept, therefore, all the time, at least half an eye on Glum Gunn. He sawMarway come up to him, and saw them retire together: it was the verymoment to leave the cage with Abdiel! He rose, not without difficulty, because of the jumping of his playmates upon him and over him, andwent to the door. 

The moment he did so, the crowd was greatly amused to see the pumaturn upon the dog with a snarl, and the dog, at the fearful sound ofaltered mood, immediately put on the man, rise to one pair of feet, and begin to dance. The puma turned from him, went to the heel of hischosen master, and there stood. 

In vain Clare endeavoured to open the gate. He had never known itlocked, and could not think when it had been done. At length, amid thelaughter of the spectators, he desisted, and the three resumed theirfrolics. 

At this the admiration of the visitors broke out. They had seen thedoor made fast, and had kept pretty quiet, waiting what would come:they had thus earned their amusement when he sought in vain to openit. When his withdrawal confessed him foiled, the merrier began tomock and the ruder to jeer. But when they saw him laugh, and all threereturn to their gambols, they applauded heartily. 

Just before this last portion of the entertainment, Mr. Halliwell, whohad been looking on for a while, retired, not knowing the cage-doorwas locked. He went to his wife and said, that, if they had but theboy and his dog again, and were but free of that brother of his, themenagerie would be a wild-beast paradise. He would have had her go andsee the pranks in the puma's cage, but she was too tired, she said; sohe strolled out with his pipe, and left his men to close theexhibition. Mrs. Halliwell fastened her door and went to bed, a littlehurt that Clare did not come to her. 

Gradually the folk thinned away; and at last only a few who had got inat half-price remained. To them the attendants hinted that they weregoing to shut shop, and one by one they shuffled out, the readier thatClare was now so tired that Pummy could not get up the merest tail ofa lark more. He was quite fresh himself, and had he been out in thewoods, would certainly not have gone home till morning. But he wassuch a human creature that he would not insist when he saw Clare wasweary; and that he had no inclination to play with Abdiel when hismaster was out of the game, was quite as well for Abdiel, for Pummymight have forgot himself. When Abby, not free from fear, as knowingwell he was not free from danger, crept to his master's bosom, Pummygave a low growl, and shoving his nose under the long body of the dog, with one jerk threw him a yard off upon the floor, whence Abdielreturned to content himself with his master's feet, abandoning theplace of honour to one who knew himself stronger, and probably countedhimself better. So they all fell asleep in peace. For although Clareknew himself and Abdiel Gunn's prisoners, he feared no surprise withtwo such rousable companions. 

Chapter LXIII. 

The dome of the angels. 

When Clare awoke, he knew he had been asleep a long time. It was, notwithstanding, quite dark, and there was something wrong withhim. His head ached: it had never ached before. He put out his hands:Pummy's hairy body was nowhere near. He called Abdiel: no whimperanswered; no cold nose was thrust into his hand. He had gone to sleep, surely between his two friends! Could he have only dreamed it?

Why was the darkness so thick? There must surely be light in theclouds by this time! He felt half awake and half dreaming. 

What was the curious motion he grew aware of? Was something trying tokeep him asleep, or was something trying to wake him? Had they put himin a big cradle? Were they heaving him about to rouse him? Or could itbe a gentle earthquake that was rocking him to and fro? Would it wakeup in earnest presently, and pull and push, and shake and rattle, until the dome of the angels came shivering down upon him?

Where was he? Not on the hard floor of Pummy's cage, but on somethingmuch harder--like iron. Was he in the wagon in which they carried thethings for setting up the show? Something had happened to him, and hismother was taking him with her! But in that case he would be lyingsofter! _She_ would not have given him a bed so full of aches!

What would they think at the bank? What would little Ann think if hecame to her no more?

He could not be in a caravan; the motion was much too smooth andpleasant for that!

He put his hand to his face: what was it wet on his cheek? It did notfeel nice; it felt like blood! Had he had a blow on the head? Was thatwhat gave him this headache? He felt his head all over, but could findno hurt. 

Why was he lying like a log, wondering and wondering, instead ofgetting up and seeing what it all meant? It must be the darkness andthe headache that kept him down! The place was very close! He_must_ get out of it!

He tried to get on his feet, but as he rose, his head strucksomething, and he dropped back. He got again on his knees and gropedabout. On all sides he was closed in. But he was not shut in a dungeonof stone. He seemed to be in a great wooden box--small enough to be abox, much too large for a coffin. Could it be one of the oubliettes inthe roof of the doge's palace at Venice? He laughed at the idea, forthe motion continued, the gentle earthquake that seemed trying to rockhim to sleep: the doge's palace could hardly be afloat on the grandcanal!

What could it all mean? What would little Ann do without him? Shewould not cry: she never cried--at least, he had never seen her cry!but that would not make it easier for her!

What had become of Abdiel? Had Glum Gunn got him? Then the wet on hisface was Abdiel's blood--shed in his defence, perhaps, when hisenemies were taking him away!

Fears and anxieties, such as he had never known before, began to crowdupon him--not for himself; he was not made to think of himself, eitherfirst or second. Something dreadful might be going on that he couldnot prevent! He had never been so miserable. It was high time to dosomething--to ask the great one somewhere, he did not know where, whocould somehow, he did not know how, hear the thoughts that were notwords, to do what ought to be done for little Ann, and Abdiel, andPummy! He prayed in his heart, lay still, and fell fast asleep. 

He came to himself again, in the act of drawing a deep breath of cool, delicious air. He was no longer shut in the dark, stifling box. He wascoming alive! A comforting wind blew all about him. It was like a livething putting its own life into him. But his eyelids were heavy; hewas unable to open them. 

All at once they opened of themselves. 

The dome of the angels had come down and closed in round him, butbringing room for him, taking none away. It was blue, and filled withthe loveliest white clouds, possessed by a blowing wind that never wasable to blow them away. They were of strangely regular shapes; not theless were they alive--piled one above the other, up and up--up ever sohigh! They all kept their places, and some had the loveliest blueshadows upon them, which glided about a little. But the dome of theangels rose high, and ever higher still, above them. The dome of theangels was at home, and the clouds were at home in it. He gazedentranced at the sight. Then came a sudden strong heave and roll ofthe earthquake, and a light shone in his eyes that blinded him. 

It was but the strong friendly sun. When Clare opened his eyes again, he knew that he was lying on the deck of one of the great ships he hadso frequently looked at from the shore. Oh, how often had he notlonged after this one and that one of them, as if in some onesomewhere, perhaps in that one, lay something he could not do without, which yet he could never set his eyes, not to say his hands upon. Hehad his heart's desire, and what was to come of it? He lay on theship, and the ship lay on the sea, a little world afloat on the water, moving as a planet moves through the heavens, but carrying her ownheaven with her, attended by her own clouds, bearing her whither shewould. Up into those clouds he lay gazing, up into the dome of theangels, drawing deeper and deeper breaths of gladness, too happy tothink--when a foot came with a kick in the ribs, and a voice orderedhim to get up: was he going to lie there till the frigate was paidoff?

Chapter LXIV. 

The panther. 

Clare scrambled to his feet, and surveyed the man who had thus rousedhim. He had a vague sense of having seen him before, but could notremember where. Feeling faint, and finding himself beside a gun, heleaned upon it. 

The sailor regarded him with an insolent look. 

"Wake up, " he said, "an' come along to the cap'n. What's the service acomin' to, I should like to know, when a beggarly shaver like you hasthe cheek to stow hisself away on board one o' his majesty's frigates!Wouldn' nothin' less suit your highness than a berth on the Panther?"

"Is that the name of the ship?" asked Clare. 

"Yes, that's the name of the ship!" returned the man, mimickinghim. "You'll have the Panther, his mark, on the back o' _you_presently! Come along, I say, to the cap'n! We ha' got to ask _him_, what's to be done wi' rascals as rob their masters, an' then stowtheirselves away on board his majesty's ships!"

"Take me to the captain, " said Clare. 

The man seemed for a moment to doubt whether there might not be somemistake: he had expected to see him cringe. But he took him by thecollar behind, and pushed him along to the quarter-deck, where anelderly officer was pacing up and down alone. 

"Well, Tom, " said the captain, stopping in his walk, "what's thematter? Who's that you've got?"

"Please yer honour, " answered the boatswain, giving Clare a shove, "this here's a stowaway in his majesty's ship, Panther. I found himsnug in the cable-tier. --Salute the captain, you beggar!"

Clare had no cap to lift, but he bowed like the gentleman he was. Thecaptain stood looking at him. Clare returned his gaze, and smiled. Asort of tremble, much like that in the level air on a hot summer day, went over the captain's face, and he looked harder at Clare. 

A sound arose like the purring of an enormous cat, and, sure enough, it was nothing else: chained to the foot of the forward binnacle stooda panther, a dark yellow creature with black spots, bigger than Pummy, swinging his tail. Clare turned at the noise he made. The panther madea bound and a leap to the height and length of his chain, and uttereda cry like a musical yawn. Clare stretched out his arms, and staggeredtoward him. The next moment the animal had him. The captain darted tothe rescue. But the beast was only licking him wherever there was abare spot to lick; and Clare wondered to find how many such spotsthere were: he was in rags! The panther kept tossing him over and overas if he were a baby, licking as he tossed, and in his vibrating bodyand his whole behaviour manifested an exceeding joy. The captain stoodstaring "like one that hath been stunned. "

The boatswain was not astonished: he had seen Clare at home among wildanimals, and thought the panther was taken with the wild-beast smellabout him. 

"I beg your pardon, sir, " said Clare, rolling himself out of thepanther's reach, and rising to his feet, "but wild things like me, somehow! I slept with a puma last night. He and this panther, sir, would have a terrible fight if they met!"

The captain threw a look of disappointment at the panther. 

"Go forward, Tom, " he said. 

The man did not like the turn things had taken, and as he went woresomething of the look of one doomed to make the acquaintance ofanother kind of cat. 

"What made you come on board this ship, my lad?" asked the captain, ina voice so quiet that it sounded almost kind. 

"I did not come on board, sir. "

"Don't trifle with _me_, " returned the captain sternly. 

Clare looked straight at him, and said--

"I have done nothing wrong, sir. I know you will help me. I fellasleep last night, as I told you, sir, in the cage of a puma. I knewhim, of course! How I came awake on board your ship, I know no morethan you do, sir. "

The smile of Clare's childhood had scarcely altered, and it now shonefull on the captain. He turned away, and made a tack or two on thequarter-deck. He was a tall, thin man, with a graceful carriage, and alittle stoop in the shoulders. He had a handsome, sad face, growingold. His hair was more than half way to gray, and he seemed somewhereabout fifty. He had the sternness of a man used to command, but underthe sternness Clare saw the sadness. 

The attention of the boy was now somewhat divided between the captainand his panther, which seemed possessed with a fierce desire to get athim, though plainly with no inimical intent. The attention of thecaptain seemed divided between the boy and the panther; his eyes nowrested for a moment on the animal, now turned again to the boy. Twoofficers on the port side of the quarter-deck stole glances at thestrange group--the stately, solemn, still man; the ragged creaturebefore him, who looked in his face without fear or anxiety, and withjust as little presumption; and the wildly excited panther, whosefierce bounding alternated with cringing abasement of his beautifulperson, accompanied by loving sweeps of his most expressive tail. 

The captain made a tack or two more on the quarter-deck, then turnedsharp on the boy. 

"What is your name?" he asked. 

"I don't quite know, sir, " answered Clare. 

"Come with me, " said the captain. 

To the surprise of the officers, he led the way to his state-room, andthe boy followed. The panther gave a howl as Clare disappeared. Theofficers remarked that the captain looked strange. His lips werecompressed as if with vengeance, but the muscles of his face weretwitching. 

Chapter LXV. 

At home. 

Clare followed, wondering, but nowise anxious. He saw nothing to makehim anxious. The captain looked a good man, and a good man was afriend to Clare! But when he entered the state-room, and saw himselffrom head to foot in a mirror let into a bulkhead, he was bothstartled and ashamed: how could the captain take such a scarecrow intohis room! he thought. He did not reflect that it was just the sort ofthing he did himself. He had indeed felt dirty and disreputable, andbeen aware of the dry, rasping tongue of the panther on many patchesof bare skin, but he had had no idea what a wretched creature helooked. Not one of the garments he saw in the mirror was his own, andthey were disgracefully torn. His hair was sticking out every way, andhis face smeared with blood. His feet were bare, and one trouser-legrent to the knee. His enemies had done their best to ensure prejudice, and frustrate belief. They did not see in his look what no honest mancould misread. Innocent as he knew himself, he could not help feelingfor a moment disconcerted. But his faithfulness threw him on the mercyof the man before him. 

The captain turned and sat down. The boy stood in the doorway, staringat his reflex self in the mirror. The captain understood hisconsternation. 

"Come along, my poor boy, " he said. "How did you get into this mess?"

"I think I know, " answered Clare, "but I'm not sure. "

"You must have been drunk, " sighed the captain. 

"Oh, no, sir!" returned Clare, with one of his radiant smiles. "I'vehad but one glass of beer in my life, and I didn't like it. "

The captain smiled too, and gazed at him for several moments withoutspeaking. 

"It seems to me, " he said at last, but as if he were thinking ofsomething quite different, "you must be in want of food. "

"Oh, no, sir!" answered Clare again, "I'm used to going without. "

Like a child the sport of an evil fairy, he was again the boy of theold wanderings, in the old, hungry times. But did he ever look so lostas in the mirror before him? he wondered. 

"You haven't told me----" said the captain, and stopped short, as ifhe dreaded going further. 

"I will tell you anything you want to know, sir. Please ask me. "

"You say you did not come on board the frigate: what am I tounderstand by that?"

"That I was brought, sir, in my sleep. It wouldn't be fair, would it, sir, to mention names, when I don't know for certain who they werethat brought me? I never knew anything till I opened my eyes, andthought I was in----"

He paused. 

"_Where_ did you think you were?" asked the captain eagerly. 

"In the dome of the angels, sir, " answered Clare. 

The captain's face fell. He thought him an innocent, on whom rascalshad been playing a practical joke. But that made no difference! If hewere a simpleton, he might none the less be----! Was _her_ boy leftto----?

He shuddered visibly, and again was silent. 

"Tell me, " he said at length, "what you remember. "

He meant--of the circumstances that immediately preceded his coming tohimself on board the Panther; but Clare began with the first thing hismemory presented him with. Perhaps he was yet a little dazed. He hadnot got through a single sentence, when he saw that something earlierwanted telling first; and the same thing happening again and againwithin the first five minutes of his narration, sir Harry saw he hadbefore him a boy either of fertile imagination, or of "strange, eventful history. " But either supposition had its difficulty. If, onthe one hand, he had had the tenth part of the experiences hinted at;if, for one thing, he had been but a single month on the tramp, howhad he kept such an innocent face, such an angelic smile? If, on theother hand, he was making up these tales, why did he not look sharper?and whence the angelic smile? Did the seeming innocence indicate onlysuch a lack of intellect as occasionally accompanies a remarkableindividual gift? He must make him begin at the beginning, and telleverything he knew, or might pretend to know about himself!

"Stop, " he said. "You told me you did not quite know your name: whatdid they call you as far back as you can remember?"

"Clare Porson, " answered the boy. 

At the first word the captain gave a little cry, but repressed hisemotion, and went on. His face was very white, and his breath came andwent quickly. 

"Why did you say you did not _quite_ know your name?"

"My father and mother called me by their name because there was nobodyto tell them what my real name was. "

"Then they weren't your own father and mother that gave you the name?"

"No, sir. I'm but using theirs till I get my own. I shall one day. "

"Why do you think so?"

"Don't _you_ think, sir, that everything will come right one day?"

"God grant it!" responded the captain with a groan, self-reproachedfor the little faith beside the strong desire. 

"Do you think it wrong, sir, to use a name that is not quite my own?"said Clare. "People sometimes seem to think so. "

"Not at all, my boy! You must have a name. You did not steal it. Theygave it you. "

The look of the boy when he thus answered him, completely restored sirHarry's confidence in his mental soundness, while both the mode andthe nature of his answer to every question he put to him, bore thestrongest impress of truth. 

"If the boy be a liar, " he said to himself, "I will never more trustmy kind. I will turn to the wild-beasts, and believe in panthers andhyenas!"

"They did, sir, " answered Clare. "Mr. Porson gave me his own name, andhe was a clergyman. So I thought afterwards, when I had to think aboutit, that it couldn't be wrong to use it. "

But how could sir Harry palter so with himself? He might have got atthe necessary facts so much quicker!

Sir Harry shrank from seeing his suddenly wakened hope, dead for manya year, crumble before his eyes. He dared not yet drive questionclose. 

"Did Mr. Porson give you both your names?" he asked. 

"No, sir. My mother said I brought the first with me. She said I toldthem--I don't remember myself--that my name was Clare. "

The captain drove back the words that threatened to break from hislips in spite of him. His boy's name was Clarence, but his mother, whose dearest friend was a _Clara_, called her child always _Clare_!

"I mean my second mother, sir, " explained Clare; "my own mother is inthe dome of the angels. "

A flash lightened from the captain's eyes, but he seemed to himself tohave gone blind. Clare saw the flash, and wondered. 

Again _the dome of the angels_! The words burst into meaning. Out ofthe depths of the world of life rose to his mind's eye the terriblething that had made him a lonely man. Again he stood with his headthrown back, looking up at the Assumption of the Virgin painted inthat awful dome; again the earthquake seized the church, and shook thepainted heaven down upon them. He knew no more. His little boy hadbeen standing near him, holding his mother's hand, but staring up likehis father!

He had to force the next words from his throat. 

"Where did the good people who gave you their name find you?"

"Sitting on my mother--my own mother. The angels fell down on her, andwhen they went up again, she had got mixed with them, and went uptoo. "

Some people thought my friend Skymer "a little queer, you know!" Ileave my reader to his own thought: he will judge after hiskind. Clare's father no longer doubted his perfect faculty. 

All through Clare's life, as often as the old, vague, but ever readyvision brought back its old feelings, with them came the old thoughts, the old forms of them, and the old words their attendant shadows; andthen Clare talked like a child. 

The stern, sorrowful man hid his face In his hands. 

"Grace, " he murmured--and Clare knew somehow that he spoke to hiswife, "we have him again! We will never distrust him more!"

His frame heaved with the choking of his sobs. 

Then Clare understood that the grand man was his father. The awe of aperfect gladness fell upon him. He knelt before him, and laid hishands together as in prayer. 

"Why did you distrust me, father?" said the half-naked outcast. 

"It was not my child, it was my father I distrusted. I am ashamed, "said sir Harry, and clasped him in his arms. 

The boy laid his blood-stained face against his father's bosom, andhis soul was in a better home than a sky full of angels, a home betterthan the dome itself of all the angels, for his home was his father'sheart. 

How long they remained thus I cannot tell. It seemed to both as if soit had been from eternity, and so to eternity it would be. When athing is as it should be, then we know it is from eternity toeternity. The true is. 

The father relaxed at length the arms that strained his child to hisheart. Clare looked up with white, luminous face. He gazed at hisfather, cried like little Ann, "You're come!" and slid to his feet. Heclasped and kissed and clung to them--would hardly let them go. 

All this time the officers on the quarter-deck were wondering what thecaptain could have to do with the beggarly stowaway. The panther stoodon his feet, anxiously waiting, his ears starting at every sound. Hewas longing for the boy with whom he had played, panther cub withhuman infant, in the years long gone by. The sweet airs of hischildhood were to the panther plainly recognizable through all theaccretions that disfigured but could not defile him. The two were thesame age. They had rolled on floor and deck together when neithercould hurt--and now neither would. For the animal was perfectlyharmless, and chained only because apt to be unseasonablyfrolicsome. When they let him loose, it was a season of high jinks andrare skylarking. Then the men had to look out! He had twice knocked aman overboard, and had once tumbled overboard himself. But he hadnever killed a creature, was always gentle with children, and might betrusted to look after any infant. 

Sir Harry raised his son, kissed him, set him on his own chair, andretired into an inner cabin. 

A knock came to the door. Clare said, "Come in. " The quartermasterentered. Instead of sir Harry, he saw the miserable stowaway, seatedin the captain's own chair. He swore at him, and ordered him out, prepared to give him a kick as he passed. 

"Out with you!" he cried. "Go for'ard. Tell the bo's'n to look out arope's end. I'll be after you. "

"The captain told me to sit here, " answered Clare, and sat. 

The officer looked closer at him, begged his pardon, saluted, andwithdrew. 

The father heard, and said to himself, "The boy is a gentleman: heknows where to take his orders. "

He called him into the inner cabin, and there washed him from head tofoot, rejoicing to find under his rags a skin as clean as his own. 

"Now what are we to do for clothes, Clare?" said sir Harry. 

"Perhaps somebody would lend me some, " answered Clare. "Mayn't I beyour cabin-boy, father? You will let me be a sailor, won't you, andsail always with you?"

"You shall be a sailor, my boy, " answered sir Harry, "and sail with meas long as God pleases. You know to obey orders!"

"I will obey the cook if you tell me, father. "

"You shall obey nobody but myself, " returned sir Harry; "--and thelord high admiral, " he added, with a glance upward, and a smile likehis son's. 

For that day Clare kept to the captain's state-room; the next, he wenton deck in a midshipman's uniform, which he wore like a gentleman thatcould obey orders. 

Chapter LXVI. 

The end of Clare Skymer's boyhood. 

His father had a hammock slung for him in the state-room; he could notbe parted from him even when they slept. 

One night sir Harry, lying awake, heard a movement in the state-room, and got up. It was a still, star-lit night. The frigate was dreamingaway northward with all sail set. Through the windows shone the levelstars. From a beam above hung a dim lamp. He could see no one. He wentto the hammock. There was no boy in it. Then he spied him, kneelingunder the stern-windows, with his head down. 

"Anything the matter, Clare?" he asked. 

"No, father. "

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to say _Thank you for my father!_"

"Oh, thank him, thank him, my boy!" returned sir Harry. "Thank himwith all your heart. He will give us _her_ some day!"

"Yes, father, he will!" responded Clare. 

His father knelt beside him, but neither said word that the otherheard. 

The next night, Clare was on the quarter-deck with his father, andheard him give certain orders to the officers of the watch. He hadnever heard orders given in such a way: he spoke so quietly, sodirectly, so simply! The night was gusty and dark, threatening foulweather. The captain measured the quarter-deck as when first Clare sawhim, but with a mien how different! He walked as slow and stately asbefore, but with a look almost of triumph in his eyes, glancing oftenat the clouds. The thought of having such a father made Clare tremblewith delight from head to foot. His father was the power of thesea-planet that bore them! Him the great vessel, and all aboard ofher, obeyed! He was the life of her motions, the soul of her! At hispleasure she bowed her obedient head, and swept over the seas! Clare'sheart swelled within him. 

But this father had, the night before, knelt with him in the presenceof one unseen, worshipping and thanking a higher than himself! As thecaptain of the Panther sailed his frigate through the seas, so thegreat father, the father of his father, the father of all fathers, towhom the captain kneeled as a little child, sailed through the heavenof heavens the huge ship of the world, guided fleet upon fleetinnumerable through trackless space! And over an infinitely grandersea than the measureless ocean of worlds, the Father was carryingnavies of human souls, every soul a world whose affairs none but theFather could understand, through many a storm, and waterspout, andbattle with the powers of evil, safe to the haven of the children, theFather's house! And Clare began to understand that so it was. 

One day his father said to him--

"Clare, whatever you forget, whatever you remember, mind this--thatyou and I and your mother are the children of one father, and that wehave all three to be good children to that father. If we do as hetells us, he will bring us all at length to the same port. Our admiralis Jesus Christ. We take our orders from him. But each has to sail hisown ship. "

The boatswain shook in his wide shoes, but Clare never showed him theleast disfavour. He recognized at once the two officers he had seen atthe menagerie, but beyond giving each a look he could hardly mistake, he showed no sign of having any knowledge of them. 

He set himself to be a sailor, and learned fast. I need scarcely sayhe was as precise in obeying any superior officer as the best sailoron board. In a few weeks he felt and looked to the manner born--asindeed he was, for not only his father, but his grandfather, and hisgreat-grandfather, and more yet of his ancestors, --how many I do notknow, were sailors. 

He had had a rough shaking. The earthquake had come and gone, and comeagain and gone a many times. But the shaking earth was his nurse, andshe taught him to dwell in a world that cannot be shaken. 

[Illustration: Clare, Tommy, and the baby in custody. ]

[Illustration: Mrs. Porson finds Clare by the side of his dead mother. ]

[Illustration: Clare is heard talking to Maly. ]

[Illustration: Clare makes friends during Mr. Porson's absence. ]

[Illustration: The blacksmith gives Clare and Tommy a rough greeting. ]

[Illustration: Clare and Abdiel at the locked pump. ]

[Illustration: Clare proceeds to untie the ropes from the ring in thebull's nose. ]

[Illustration: Clare finds the advantage of a powerful friend. ]

[Illustration: The gardener's discomfiture. ]

[Illustration: Clare asks Miss Shotover to let him carry Ann home. ]

[Illustration: Clare is found giving the shoeblack a lesson. ]

[Illustration: Clare asleep in the puma's cage. ]