Our Frank, Amy Walton [best ereader for epub .txt] 📗

STORY ONE, CHAPTER 1.

OUR FRANK--A BUCKINGHAMSHIRE STORY.

"_From east to west,
At home is best_."
_German proverb_.

It was a mild spring evening, and Mrs Frank Darvell was toiling slowly up Whiteleaf Hill on her way back from market. She had walked every step of the way there to sell her ducklings, and now the basket on her arm was heavy with the weight of various small grocery packets. Up till now she had not felt so tired, partly because she had been walking along the level high-road, and partly because the way had been beguiled by the chat of a friend; but after she had said good-night to her crony at the beginning of the village, and turned up the steep chalky road which led to the hills, her fatigue increased with every step, and the basket seemed heavier than ever. It was a very lonely mile she had to go before reaching home; up and up wound the rough white road, and then gave a sudden turn and ran along level a little while with dark woods on either side. Then up again, steeper than ever, till you reached the top of the hill, and on one side saw the plain beneath, dotted over with villages and church spires, and on the other hand wide sloping beech woods, which were just now delicately green with their young spring leaves.

Mrs Darvell set her basket down on the ground when she reached this point, and drew a long breath; the worst of the walk was over now, and she thought with relief how good it would be to pull off her boots, and hoped that Frank had not forgotten to have the kettle on for tea. She presently trudged on again with renewed spirits, and in ten minutes more the faint blue smoke from a chimney caught her eye; that was neighbour Gunn's cottage, and their own was close by. "And right thankful I be," said Mrs Darvell to herself as she unlatched the little garden gate.

The cottage was one of a small lonely cluster standing on the edge of an enormous beech wood. Not so very long ago the wood had covered the whole place; but gradually a clearing had been made, the ground cultivated, and a little settlement had sprung up, which was known as "Green Highlands." It belonged to the parish of Danecross, a village in the plain below, three good miles away; so that for church, school, and public-house the people had to descend the long hill up which Mrs Darvell had just struggled. Shops there were none, even in Danecross, and for these they had to go a mile further, to the market-town of Daylesbury. But all this was not such a hardship to the people of Green Highlands as might be supposed, and many of them would not have changed their cottage on the hill for one in the village on the plain; for the air of Green Highlands was good, the children "fierce," which in those parts means healthy and strong, and everyone possessed a piece of garden big enough to grow vegetables and accommodate a family pig.

So the people, though poor, were contented, and had a more prosperous well-to-do air than some of the Danecross folk, who received higher wages and lived in the valley.

The room Mrs Frank Darvell entered with a heavy, tired tread was a good-sized kitchen, one end of which was entirely occupied by a huge open fireplace without any grate; on the hearth burned and crackled a bright little wood-fire, the flames of which played merrily round a big black kettle hung on a chain. A little checked curtain hung from the mantel-shelf to keep away the draught which rushed down the wide open chimney, on each side of which was a straight-backed wooden settle. The dark smoke-dried rafters were evidently used as larder and storehouse, for all manner of things hung from them, such as a side of bacon, tallow dips, and a pair of clogs. Two or three pieces of oak furniture, brought to a high state of polish by Mrs Darvell's industrious hands, gave an air of comfort to the room, though the floor was red-brick and bare of carpet; a tall brazen-faced clock ticked deliberately behind the door. On one of the settles in the chimney-corner sat Mrs Darvell's "man," as she called her husband, smoking a short pipe, with his feet stretched out on the hearth; his great boots, caked with mud, stood beside him. He was a big broad-shouldered fellow, about forty, with a fair smooth face, which generally looked good-tempered enough, and somewhat foolish, but which just now had a sullen expression on it, which Mrs Darvell's quick eye noted immediately. He looked up and nodded when his wife came in, without taking the pipe out of his mouth.

"Well, I'm proper tired," she said, bumping her basket down with a sigh of relief. "That Whiteleaf Hill do spend one so after a day's marketing." Then glancing at the muddy boots on the hearth: "Bin ploughin'?"

Mr Darvell nodded again, and looked inquiringly at his wife's basket. Answering this silent question she said:

"I sold 'em fairly well. Mrs Reuben got more; but hers was fatter."

Mr Darvell smoked on in silence, and his wife busied herself in preparing supper, consisting of cold bacon, bread, and tea without milk; it was not until they had both been seated at the meal for a little while that she set down her cup suddenly and exclaimed:

"Why, whatever's got our Frank? Isn't he home yet?"

Mr Darvell's mouth was still occupied, not with his pipe, but with a thick hunk of bread, on which was laid an almost equally thick piece of fat bacon. Gazing at his wife across this barrier he nodded again, and presently murmured somewhat indistinctly:

"Ah, he came home with me."

"Then," repeated Mrs Darvell, fixing her eyes sharply on him, "where _is_ the lad?"

Mr Darvell avoided his wife's gaze.

"How should I know where he is?" he answered sullenly. "I haven't seen him, not for these two hours. He's foolin' round somewheres with the other lads."

"That's not like our Frank," said Mrs Darvell, giving an anxious look round at the tall clock. "Why, it's gone eight," she went on. "What _can_ have got him?"

Her eyes rested suspiciously on her husband, who shifted about uneasily.

"Can't you let the lad bide?" he said; "ye'll not rest till ye make him a greater ninny nor he is by natur. He might as well ha' bin a gell, an better, for all the good he'll ever be."

"How did he tackle the ploughin'?" asked Mrs Darvell, pausing in the act of setting aside Frank's supper on the dresser.

"Worser nor ever," replied her husband contemptuously. "He'll never be good for nowt, but to bide at home an' keep's hands clean. Why, look at Eli Redrup, not older nor our Frank, an' can do a man's work already."

"Eli Redrup!" exclaimed Mrs Darvell in a shrill tone of disgust; "you'd never even our lad to a great fullish lout like Eli Redrup, with a head like a turmut! If Frank isn't just so fierce as some lads of his age, he's got more sense than most."

"I tell 'ee, he'll never be good for nowt," replied her husband doggedly, as he resumed his seat in the chimney-corner and lighted his pipe.

"Onless," he added after a moment's pause, "he comes to be a schoolmaster; and it haggles me to think that a boy of mine should take up a line like that."

Mrs Darvell made no answer; but as she washed up the cups and plates she cast a curious glance every now and then at her husband's silent figure, for she had a strong feeling that he knew more than he chose to tell about "our" Frank's absence.

"Our Frank" had more than once been the innocent cause of a serious difference of opinion between Mr and Mrs Darvell. He was their only child, and had inherited his father's fair skin and blue eyes, and his mother's quickness of apprehension; but here the likeness to his parents ended, for he had a sensitive nature and a delicate frame--things hitherto unknown in Green Highlands. This did not matter so much during his childhood, when he earned golden opinions from rector and schoolmaster in Danecross, as a fine scholar, and one of the best boys in the choir; but the time came when Frank was thirteen, when he had gone through all the "Standards," when he must leave school, and begin to work for his living. It was a hard apprenticeship, for something quite different from brain-work was needed now, and the boy struggled vainly against his physical weakness. It was a state of things so entirely incomprehensible to Mr Darvell, that, as he expressed it, "it fairly haggled him." Weakness and delicacy were conditions entirely unknown to him and all his other relations, and might, he thought, be avoided by everyone except very old people and women; so Frank must be hardened, and taught not to shirk his work.

The hardening process went on for some time, but not with a very satisfactory result, for added to his weakness the boy now showed an increasing terror of his father. He shrank from the hard words or the uplifted hand with an evident fear, which only strengthened Mr Darvell's anger, for it mortified him still more to find his lad a coward as well as a bungler over his work.

Frank, on his side, found his life almost intolerable just now, and all his trembling efforts "to work like a man" seemed utterly useless, for he was crippled by fear as well as weakness. He could not take things like the other Green Highland lads of his age, who were tough of nerve and sinew, and thought nothing of cuffs on the head and abuse. It was all dreadful to him, and he suffered as much in apprehension as in the actual punishment when it came. Mingled with it all was a hot sense of injustice, for he tried to do his best, and yet was always in disgrace and despair. Where was the use of having been such a good "scholard?" That seemed wasted now, for Frank's poor little brain felt so muddled after a day's field-work, and he was altogether so spent with utter weariness, that the only thing to do was to tumble into bed, and books were out of the question. He was being "hardened," as his father called it, but not in a desirable way; for while his body remained slender and weak as ever, his mind became daily more stupid and unintelligent.

Frank's only refuge in these hard times was his mother's love. That never failed him, for the very incapacity that so excited the wrath of his father only drew him more closely to Mrs Darvell, and made her watchful to shield him, if possible, from harsh treatment. She was always ready to do battle for him, and her strong big husband quailed before the small determined mother when she had her boy's cause in hand. For Mrs Darvell was gifted with a range of expression