A Rough Shaking, George MacDonald [highly illogical behavior txt] 📗

him.

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

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

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

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

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

"That's how we know it's not nice!" answered Clare. "If they set it a going, 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 a hundred times she'd pull my legs when I was hanged; but she won't be at the hanging!"

"Why shouldn't you run for it first?" said Clare. "Then they wouldn't want 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 into tears.

"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 chance of growing. If ever creature had less than that, he was not human. I do 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 affection took the shape of deeds far more than of words. Never were judges of their neighbours more mistaken. The chief difference between Clare's history and that of most others was, that his began at the unusual end. Clare began with loving everybody; and most people take a long time to grow to that. Hence, those whom, from being brought nearest to them, he loved specially, he loved without that outbreak of show which is often found in persons who love but a few, and whose love is defiled with partisanship. He loved quietly and constantly, in a fashion as active as undemonstrative. He was always glad to be near those he specially loved; beyond that, the signs of his love were practical-it came out in ministration, in doing things for them. There are those who, without loving, desire to be loved, because they love themselves; for those that are worth least are most precious to themselves. But Clare never thought of the love of others to him-from no heartlessness, but that he did not think about himself-had never done so, at least, until the moment when he fled from 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 not think of himself before the hour when he becomes conscious of the bliss of being loved. For it must be and ought to be a happy moment when one learns that another human creature loves him; and not to be grateful for love is to be deeply selfish. Clare had always loved, but had not thought of any one as loving him, or of himself as being loved by any one.

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

"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 Farmer Goodenough look blue!"

"He'll think himself well rid of me," returned Clare with a sigh. "But there'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 hand to 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 the only road to eating, things would go badly with him ! But he thought he knew a thing or two, and would take his chance! There were degrees of hunger that were not so bad as the thrashings he got, for in his granny's hands the rope might fall where it would; while all cripple Simpson cared for was to make him squeal satisfactorily. But work was worse than all! He would go with Clare, but not to work! Not he!

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


Chapter XIV.

Their first helper


It was a lovely spring morning. The sun was about thirty degrees above the horizon, shining with a liquid radiance, as if he had already drawn up and was shining through the dew of the morning, though it lay yet on all the grasses by the roadside, turning them into gem-plants. Every sort of gem sparkled on their feathery or beady tops, and their long slender blades. At the first cottages they passed, the women were beginning their day's work, sweeping clean their floors and door-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 to himself. "Where the flowers see dirt, they turn away, and won't come out."

From childhood he had had the notion that the flowers crept up inside the stalks until they found a window to look out at. Where the prospect was not to their mind they crept down, and away by some door in 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 with pity how wretched Tommy's clothes were; but when he looked into the pond he saw that his own shabbiness was worse than Tommy's downright miserableness. Nobody would leave either of them within reach of anything worth stealing! What he wore had been his Sunday suit, and it was not even worth brushing!

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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 darted after his property, pounced upon it, and restored it lovingly to his pocket.

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

"Don't, Tommy," cried Clare.

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

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 be mine-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 a turnip. I believe it's worth two turnips."

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

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

"Ain't you the master, sir?"

"No, I ain't."

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

"You're a deal too impudent to be hungry!" said the man, making a blow at him with his open hand, which Clare dodged. "Be off with you, or I'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 for them! Nothing but trudge, trudge till they dropped!

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

By and by a working-man came along the road. Clare hesitated, but Tommy's crying urged him. He rose and stood ready to accost him. As soon as he came up, however, the man stopped of himself. He questioned Clare 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