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

and a freedom of speech which had been denied to her "man," and he had learned to dread the times when the missus was put out, as occasions when he stood defenceless before that deadly weapon--the tongue. He was dreading it now, although he sat so quietly smoking in the chimney-corner. The air had that vaguely uneasy feeling in it that precedes a storm. Presently there would be the first clap of thunder. The clock struck nine. No Frank. An unheard-of hour for any of the Green Highland folk to be out of their beds and awake. Mr Darvell rose, stretched himself, glanced nervously at his wife, and suggested humbly:

"Shall us go to bed?"

"_You_ may," she replied, "but I don't stir till I see the lad. If so be," she added, "you _can_ go to sleep with an easy mind while the lad's still out, you'd better do it."

Her husband scratched his head thoughtfully, but made no answer; then Mrs Darvell rose and stood in front of him, shaking a menacing finger.

"Frank Darvell," she said slowly and solemnly, "you've bin leatherin' that lad. Don't deny it, for I know it."

Mr Darvell did not attempt to deny it. He only shuffled his feet a little.

"An now," continued his wife with increasing vehemence, "you've druv him at last to run away; don't deny it."

"He ain't run away," muttered Mr Darvell. "He ain't got pluck enough to do that. He's a coward, that's what he is."

"Coward!" cried his wife, now fairly roused, and standing in an aggressive attitude. "It's you that are the coward, you great, hulking, stupid lout, to strike a weak boy half yer size. An' to talk of goin' to bed, an' him wandering out there in the woods. My poor little gentle lad!"

She sank down on the settle and wrung her hands helplessly, but started up again the next minute with a sudden energy which seemed to petrify her husband.

"Put on your boots," she said, pointing to them; and as Mr Darvell meekly obeyed she went on speaking quietly and rapidly. "Wake up Jack Gunn and send him down to Danecross. Tell him to ask at the rectory and at schoolmaster's if they've seen the lad. Take your lantern and go into the woods. There's gypsies camping out Hampden way; go there, and tell 'em to look out for him. Don't you dare to come back without the lad. I'll stop here, and burn a light and keep his supper ready. Poor little lad, he'll be starved with hunger!"

But the night waned, and no tidings came of Frank. Jack Gunn came back from Danecross having learned nothing, and the poor mother's fears increased. The boy must be wandering in those weary woods, afraid to come home--or perhaps lost. Such a thing had been known before now; and as the first streaks of light appeared in the sky, and she saw the dim figure of her husband returning alone, Mrs Darvell's courage quite forsook her.

"I shall never see him no more," she said to herself, and cried bitterly.

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And where was "our Frank" meanwhile?

At the moment when Mrs Darvell began to climb Whiteleaf Hill with her heavy basket, Frank was lying at the foot of a big beech-tree in the wood near his home; his face was buried in his hands, and every now and then sobs shook his little thin frame. For it had been a most unfortunate day for him; everything had gone wrong, and by the time the evening came and work was over his father's wrath was high. Frank knew what to expect, and he also remembered that there would be no mother at home to shield him from punishment, so waiting a favourable moment he slipped off into the wood before he was missed. Then he flung himself on the ground and cried, because he felt so tired, and weak, and hopeless; and as he thought of his father's angry face and heavy uplifted hand he shivered with terror. How he longed for someone to comfort and speak kindly to him. Soon, he knew, his mother would be in from market; there would be a blazing fire at home, and supper, and a warm corner. Should he venture back? But then, morning would come again, and the hard work, and he would have to stumble along the sticky furrows all day, and there would be blows and threatenings to end with. No, he could not go back; it would be better even, he said to himself, to beg for his bread like the tramps he had seen sometimes in Danecross.

As he came to this conclusion he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked round him. It was about six o'clock, and already very dusk in the wood, though the little dancing leaves of the Leeches could not make much shadow yet, for it was only April; all round the boy rose the grey straight stems of the trees, and tufts of primroses shone out whitely here and there on the ground. It was perfectly still and silent, except that a cold little wind rustled the branches, and the birds were making a few last twittering notes before they went to sleep--"a harmony," as the country folks called it. Frank got up and hurried on, for he knew that directly mother returned search would be made for him. He must get a long way on before that, and hide somewhere for the night. That side of the wood near Green Highlands was quite familiar to him, and though there were no paths, and it all looked very much alike, he knew what direction to take for the hiding-place he had in view. A town boy would soon have become confused, and perhaps have ended in finding himself at Green Highlands again, but Frank knew better than that, and he stumbled steadily along in his heavy boots, getting gradually and surely further away from home and deeper in the wood.

How quiet it was, and how fast the darkness seemed to close round him! All the birds were silent soon, except that a jay sometimes startled him with its harsh sudden cry; once a rabbit rushed so quickly across his path that he almost fell on it. On and on he went at a steady jog-trot pace, looking neither to right nor left. Now, if you have ever been in a beech wood, you must remember that winter and summer the ground is covered with the old dead brown leaves that have fallen from the trees. So thick they lie, that in some places you can stand knee-deep in them, especially if there are any hollows into which they have been drifted by the wind; this particular wood was full of such hollows, some of them wide and long enough for a tall man to lie down in, and Frank knew exactly where to find them. Turning aside, therefore, at a certain clump of bushes there was the very thing he wanted--bed and hiding-place at once. It was a broad shallow pit or hollow filled quite up to the top with the red-brown beech leaves. He scooped out a place just large enough for himself, lay down in it, and carefully replaced the leaves up to his very chin. He even put a few lightly over his face, and when that was done no one would have imagined that a boy or any other living thing was hidden there.

Then the solemn hours of darkness came silently on; all the creatures in the great wood slept, and even Frank in his strange leafy bed slept also, worn out with weariness.

About the middle of the night the breeze freshened a little, and the dry leaves stirred and rustled. The sounds mingled with the boy's dreams, and he thought he was lying in his attic at home, and that a mouse was running over his face; he felt its little tickling feet and its long tail quite plainly, and put up his hand to brush it away. Then he woke with a start. The chill wind blew in his face and sighed among the trees, and instead of the low attic beams there were waving branches over his head. He was not at home, but alone, quite alone in Whiteleaf Wood, with thick darkness all round him. Frank was frightened without knowing why; it was all so "unked," as he would have expressed it, and as he stared about with terrified eyes he seemed to see mysterious forms moving near. Then he looked up towards the sky; and there, through a space between the tops of the trees, was one solitary beautiful star shining down upon him like a kind bright eye. It was a comfort to see it there, and by degrees, as he lay with his eyes fixed upon it, he forgot his fears a little, and began to think of other things. First there came into his head one line of a hymn which he had often sung in the choir at Danecross church:

"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning," it began. From that he went on to consider what a long time it was since he had said his prayers, because he was always so sleepy and tired at night, and he thought he would say them now. But before he had finished them he fell into a quiet slumber, which lasted till morning, when the sun, peering through the trees, pointed suddenly down at his face with a fiery finger and woke him up.


CHAPTER TWO.

The first thought that came into Frank's head was that he should not have to go to plough that day. The second was, that it was breakfast-time, that he was very hungry, and that he had nothing to eat. This was not so pleasant; but proceeding to "farm" his pockets, which in Buckinghamshire dialect means to rummage, he discovered a small piece of very hard bread. With this scanty meal he was obliged to be satisfied, and presently continued his journey in a tolerably cheerful frame of mind. Where he was going and how he was to earn his living he did not know; but on one subject he was quite resolved, he would not go back till he was too big and strong for father to "whop" him. It was hard to leave mother, and she would be sorry; but he thought he would manage somehow to write her a letter, and put a stamp upon it with the first penny he earned.

So reflecting, and varying the gravity of such thoughts by chasing the squirrels and the grey rabbits that scudded across his path, he journeyed on, and by degrees reached a part of the wood quite unknown to him. He began to wonder now what he should do if he did not soon come to a cottage or some place where he could ask for food, for it was many hours since he had eaten, and he was faint with exhaustion. Never in his life had he felt so dreadfully hungry, and there were not even berries for him to eat at this time of the year. At last the craving became so hard to bear, and his head was so queer and giddy that he thought he must rest a little while. As far as he could judge by