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Brownsmith's Boy: A Romance in a Garden, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 31. "What's The Meaning Of All This?" |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. "WHAT'S THE MEANING OF ALL THIS?" I did know the rest; how Shock and I lay for a fortnight at the little country inn carefully tended before we were declared fit to go back home, for the doctor was not long in bringing us back to our senses; and, save that I used to wake with a start out of my sleep in the dark, fancying I was back in the pit, I was not much the worse. Shock was better, for he looked cleaner and fresher, but he objected a great deal to our nurse brushing his hair. I was just back and feeling strong again, when one day Sir Francis came down into the pinery, and stopped and spoke to me. He said he had heard all about my narrow escape, and hoped it would be a warning to me never to trust myself in a sand-pit again. He was very kind after his manner, which was generally as if he thought all the world were soldiers, and I was going up to my dinner soon, after I had stopped for a bit of a cool down in one of the other houses, when, to my great disgust, I saw Courtenay and Philip back, and I felt a kind of foreboding that there would soon be some more troubles to face. I was quite right, for during the rest of their stay at home they seemed to have combined to make my life as wretched as they possibly could. I was often on the point of complaining, but I did not like to do so, for it seemed to be so cowardly, and besides, I argued to myself that I could not expect all sunshine. Old Brownsmith used to have me over to spend Sundays with him, and his brother and Mrs Solomon were very kind. Ike sometimes went so far as to say "Good-morning" and "good-night," and Shock had become so friendly that he would talk, and bring me a good moth or butterfly for my case. I went steadily on collecting, for Mr Solomon said, as long as the work was done well he would rather I did amuse myself in a sensible way. The consequence was that I often used to go down the garden of a night, and my collection of moths was largely increased. I noticed about this time that Sir Francis used to talk a good deal to Shock, and by and by I found from Ike that the boy was going regularly to an evening-school, and altering a great deal for the better. Unfortunately, Ike, with whom he lodged, was not improving, as I had several opportunities of observing, and one day I took him to task about it. "I know the excuse you have, Ike," I said, "that habit you got into when going backwards and forwards to the market; but when you had settled down here in a gentleman's garden, I should have thought that you would have given it up." "Ah, yes," he said, as he drove in his spade. "You're a gent, you see, and I'm only a workman." "I'm going to be a workman too, Ike," I said. "Ay, but not a digger like me. They don't set me to prune, and thin grapes, and mind chyce flowers. I'm not like you." "It does not matter what any one is, Ike," I said. "You ought to turn over a new leaf and keep away from the public-house." "True," he said, smashing a clod; "and I do turn over a noo leaf, but it will turn itself back." "Nonsense!" I said. "You are sharp enough on Shock's failings, and you tell me of mine. Why don't you attend to your own?" "Look here, young gent," he cried sharply, "do you want to quarrel just because I like a drop now and then?" "Quarrel! No, Ike. I tell you because I don't want to see you discharged." "Think they would start me if they knowed, lad?" "I'm sure of it," I said earnestly. "Sir Francis is so particular." "Then," he said, scraping his spade fiercely, "it won't do. I want to stop here. I'll turn over a noo leaf." One day in the next autumn, as I was carefully shutting in a pill-box a moth that I had found, a gentleman who was staying at the house caught sight of me and asked to see it. "Ah, yes!" he said. "Goat-moth, and a nice specimen. Do you sugar?" "Do I sugar, sir?" I said vacantly. "Yes, I like sugar, sir." "Bless the lad!" he said, laughing. "I mean sugar the trees. Smear them with thick sugar and water or treacle, and then go round at night with a lantern; that's the way to catch the best moths." I was delighted with the idea and was not long before I tried it, and as luck would have it, there was an old bull's-eye lantern in the tool-house that Mr Solomon used when he went round to the furnaces of a night. I remember well one evening, just at leaving-off time, taking my bottle of thick syrup and brush from the tool-house shelf, and slipping down the garden and into the pear-plantation where the choice late fruit was waiting and asking daily to be picked. Mr Solomon was very proud of his pears, and certainly some of them grew to a magnificent size. I was noticing how beautiful and tawny and golden some of them were growing to be as I smeared the trunk of one and then of another with my sweet stuff, and as it was a deliciously warm still evening, I was full of expectation of a good take. I had just finished when all at once I heard a curious noise, which made me think of lying in the dark in the sand-cave listening to Shock's hard breathing; and I gave quite a shudder as I looked round, and then turned hot and angry. I knew what the noise was, and had not to look far to find Ike lying under a large tree right away from the path fast asleep, and every now and then uttering a few words and giving a snort. "Ike!" I said, shaking him. "Ike! wake up and go home." But the more I tried the more stupid he seemed to grow, and I stood at last wondering what I had better do, not liking the idea of Mr Solomon hearing, for it was certain to mean a very severe reprimand. It might mean discharge. It seemed such a pity, too, and I could not help thinking that this bad habit of Ike's was the reason why he had lived to fifty and never risen above the position of labourer. I tried again to wake him, but it was of no use, and just then I heard Mr Solomon shout to me that tea was waiting. I ran up the garden quickly for fear Mr Solomon should come down and see Ike, and as I went I made up my mind that I would get the key of the gate into the lane and come down after dark and smuggle him out without anyone knowing. "Well, butterfly boy," said Mrs Solomon, smiling in her half-serious way, "we've been waiting tea these ten minutes." I said I was very sorry, and though I felt a little guilty as I sat down I soon forgot all about Ike in my pleasant meal. Then I felt frightened as I heard some laughing and shouting, and started and listened, for it struck me that Courtenay and Philip might be going down the garden, and if they should see poor Ike in such a state, I knew that they would begin baiting and teasing him, when he would perhaps fly in a passion such as I had seen him in once before, when he abused me, and apologised the next day, saying that it wasn't temper, but beer. The sound died away, and then it seemed to rise again nearer to us. "Ah!" said Mr Solomon, "I'm sorry for those who have boys." "No, you are not, Solomon," said his wife, cutting the bread and butter. "Well, such boys as them." "Ah!" said Mrs Solomon. "That's better." That seemed a long tea-time, and it appeared to be longer still before I could get away, for Mr Solomon had a lot of things to ask me about the grape-house and pit. I kept glancing at the wall where the key hung on a nail, and though another time I might easily have taken it, on this particular occasion it seemed as if I could not get near the place unobserved. At last my time came; Mrs Solomon had gone into the back kitchen, and Mr Solomon to his desk in the parlour. I did not lose a moment, but, snatching the key from the nail, I slipped it in my pocket, caught my cap from the peg, and slipped out. I was not going to do any wicked act, but somehow I felt as if all this was very wrong, and I found myself running along the grass borders, leaping over the gravel paths, so that my footsteps should not be heard, and in this way I reached the tool-house, where, quite at home in the darkness, and making no more noise than jingling a hanging spade against the bricks, I reached up on to the corner shelf and found my lantern and matches. There was the little lamp inside already trimmed, and I soon had it alight and darkened by the shade, slipped it in my pocket, and then started down the long green walk by the big wall where the espaliers were trained, and the wall was covered with big pear-trees. "I feel just like a robber," I said to myself as I stole along to find Ike and turn him out. Then I stopped short, for there was a scrambling noise on one side. "He is awake and trying to get over the wall," I said to myself, and setting down my lantern by one of the big trees, I went forward towards the great pear-tree, whose branches would make a ladder right to the top. It was very dark, and the great wall made it seem blacker as I stole on over the soft green path meaning to make sure that Ike had gone over quite safely, and then go to my moth-hunting. "It's as well not to speak to him," I thought. Then I stopped again, for if it was Ike he was either talking to himself or had some one whispering to him. "It can't be Ike," I thought, for after the whispering some one jumped down on the soft bed, and then some one else followed--_crash_. There was a scuffle here, and some one uttered an ejaculation of pain as if he had hurt himself in jumping, while the other laughed, and then they whispered together. It was not Ike going away then, but two people come over the wall to get at the great choice pears that were growing on my left. "What a shame," I thought; and as I recalled a similar occurrence at Old Brownsmith's I wished that Shock were with me to help protect Sir Francis' choice fruit. I ought to have slipped off back and told Mr Solomon, who would have made the gardener come from the lower cottage; but I did not think of that; I only listened and heard one of the thieves whisper to the other: "Get up; you aren't hurt. Come along." Then there was a rustling as they forced their way among the bushes, and went bang up against an espalier. This they skirted, coming close to me as I stood in the shadow of a pear-tree. "Come along quick!" I heard; and then the two figures went on rustling and crashing among the black-currant bushes, so that I could smell the peculiar herbaceous medicine-scent they gave out. I knew as well as if I had been told where they were going, and that was to a double row of beautiful great pears that were just ready to pick, and which I had noticed that morning, and again when I was sugaring the trees close by. At first I had taken them for men, but by degrees, by the tone of their whispers and the faint sight I got of them now and then as they passed an open place, I knew that they were boys. A few minutes before I had felt excited and nervous; then I felt less alarm. My first idea was to frighten them by shouting for the different men about the place; but as soon as I was sure that they were boys, a curiously pugnacious sensation came over me, and I determined to see if I couldn't catch one of them and drag him up to Mr Solomon, for I felt sure that I should only have one to fight with, the other would be sure to run as hard as he could go. I stopped short again with an unpleasant thought in my mind. Surely this could not be Shock with some companion. No, it could not be he, I felt sure, and I was rather ashamed of having thought it as I crept on after the two thieves, so that I was quite near them when, as I expected they would, they stopped by the little thick heavily-laden trees. "Look out! hold the bag and be quick," was whispered; and then there was snapping of twigs, the rustling of leaves, and a couple of dull thuds as two pears fell. "Never mind them," was whispered in the same tone. "There's no end of 'em about." I crept nearer with my teeth grinding together, for it seemed to be such a shameful thing to clear those pears from the tree in that way, and then I grew furious, for one whispered something to the other, and the tree being stripped was shaken, and then _thump, thump, thump_, one after another the beautiful fruit fell. They scuffled about, and I was so close now that I could hear the pears banged and bruised one upon another as they were thrown into a bag. Then I felt as if I could bear it no longer. The pears were as if they were my own, and making a dash at the faintly seen figure with the bag I struck him a blow with all my might, and that, the surprise, and the weight of my body combined were sufficient to send him over amongst the black currants, while I went at the other, and in a blind fury began laying on to him with my fists as hard as I could. He tried to get away, but I held on to him, and this drove him to fight desperately, and for some minutes we were up and down, fighting, wrestling, and hanging on to each other with all the fury of bitter enemies. I was beaten down to my knees twice over. I struggled up again though, and held on with the stubbornness of a bull-dog. Then being stronger than I he swung me round, so that I was crushed up against the trunk of one of the trees, but the more he hurt me the more angry I grew, and held on, striking at him whenever I could get an arm free. I could hear him grinding his teeth as he struggled with me, and at last I caught my feet in a currant bush, for even then I could tell it by the smell, and down I went. But not alone. I held on to him, and dragged him atop of me. "Let go!" he cried hoarsely, as he struck me savagely in the face; and when the pain only made me hang on all the more tightly he called out to his companion, who had taken no farther part in the fray: "Here, Phil, Phil. Come on, you sneak." I felt as if I had been stunned. Not by his blow, but by his words, as for the first time I realised with whom I had been engaged. A rustling noise on my left warned me that some one else was coming; but I let my hands fall to my side, for I had made a grievous mistake, and must strike no more. In place now of my hanging on to Courtenay, he was holding me, and drawing in his breath he raised himself a little, raised one hand and was about to strike me, but before he could, Philip seemed to seize me by the collar, and his brother too, but in an instant I felt that it was a stronger grip, and a hoarse gruff voice that I knew well enough was that of Sir Francis shouted out, "Caught you, have I, you young scoundrels." As he spoke he made us rise, and forced us before him--neither of us speaking--through the bushes and on to the path, a little point of light appearing above me, and puffs of pungent smoke from a cigar striking my face. "I've got t'other one," said a rough voice that I also recognised, and I cried out involuntarily: "Ike--Ike!" "That's me, lad. I've got him fast." "You let me go. You hurt me," cried Philip out of the darkness. "Hurt yer? I should think I do hurt you. Traps always does hurt, my fine fellow. Who are you? What's your name?" "Bring him here," cried Sir Francis; and as Ike half carried, half dragged Philip out from among the trees on to the broad green walk, Sir Francis cried fiercely: "Now, then! What's the meaning of all this!" I heard Philip give a gasp as I opened my lips to speak, but before I could say a word Courtenay cried out quickly: "Phil and I heard them stealing the pears, and we came down to stop them--didn't we, Phil?" "Yes: they pounced upon us in the dark." "I am knocked about," cried Courtenay. "What a wicked lie!" I exclaimed, as soon as I could get my breath. "Lie, sir, lie!" cried Sir Francis fiercely, as he tightened his grasp upon my collar. "Why, I saw you come creeping along with that dark lantern, and watched you. You had no business down here, and yet I find you along with this fellow, who has no right to be in the garden now, assaulting my sons." _ |
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