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 littlecountry inn carefully tended before we were declared fit to go backhome, 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 wasbetter, for he looked cleaner and fresher, but he objected a great dealto our nurse brushing his hair.
I was just back and feeling strong again, when one day Sir Francis camedown into the pinery, and stopped and spoke to me. He said he had heardall about my narrow escape, and hoped it would be a warning to me neverto trust myself in a sand-pit again.
He was very kind after his manner, which was generally as if he thoughtall the world were soldiers, and I was going up to my dinner soon, afterI 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 kindof 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 seemedto 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 Icould not expect all sunshine. Old Brownsmith used to have me over tospend 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 goodmoth or butterfly for my case.
I went steadily on collecting, for Mr Solomon said, as long as the workwas 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 toShock, and by and by I found from Ike that the boy was going regularlyto an evening-school, and altering a great deal for the better.Unfortunately, Ike, with whom he lodged, was not improving, as I hadseveral opportunities of observing, and one day I took him to task aboutit.
"I know the excuse you have, Ike," I said, "that habit you got into whengoing backwards and forwards to the market; but when you had settleddown here in a gentleman's garden, I should have thought that you wouldhave 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 thingrapes, and mind chyce flowers. I'm not like you."
"It does not matter what any one is, Ike," I said. "You ought to turnover 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 itwill turn itself back."
"Nonsense!" I said. "You are sharp enough on Shock's failings, and youtell me of mine. Why don't you attend to your own?"
"Look here, young gent," he cried sharply, "do you want to quarrel justbecause I like a drop now and then?"
"Quarrel! No, Ike. I tell you because I don't want to see youdischarged."
"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 tostop here. I'll turn over a noo leaf."
One day in the next autumn, as I was carefully shutting in a pill-box amoth that I had found, a gentleman who was staying at the house caughtsight 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. Smearthem with thick sugar and water or treacle, and then go round at nightwith 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 asluck would have it, there was an old bull's-eye lantern in thetool-house that Mr Solomon used when he went round to the furnaces of anight.
I remember well one evening, just at leaving-off time, taking my bottleof thick syrup and brush from the tool-house shelf, and slipping downthe garden and into the pear-plantation where the choice late fruit waswaiting and asking daily to be picked.
Mr Solomon was very proud of his pears, and certainly some of them grewto a magnificent size.
I was noticing how beautiful and tawny and golden some of them weregrowing to be as I smeared the trunk of one and then of another with mysweet stuff, and as it was a deliciously warm still evening, I was fullof expectation of a good take.
I had just finished when all at once I heard a curious noise, which mademe think of lying in the dark in the sand-cave listening to Shock's hardbreathing; and I gave quite a shudder as I looked round, and then turnedhot and angry.
I knew what the noise was, and had not to look far to find Ike lyingunder a large tree right away from the path fast asleep, and every nowand 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 atlast wondering what I had better do, not liking the idea of Mr Solomonhearing, for it was certain to mean a very severe reprimand. It mightmean discharge.
It seemed such a pity, too, and I could not help thinking that this badhabit of Ike's was the reason why he had lived to fifty and never risenabove the position of labourer.
I tried again to wake him, but it was of no use, and just then I heardMr Solomon shout to me that tea was waiting.
I ran up the garden quickly for fear Mr Solomon should come down andsee Ike, and as I went I made up my mind that I would get the key of thegate into the lane and come down after dark and smuggle him out withoutanyone knowing.
"Well, butterfly boy," said Mrs Solomon, smiling in her half-seriousway, "we've been waiting tea these ten minutes."
I said I was very sorry, and though I felt a little guilty as I sat downI soon forgot all about Ike in my pleasant meal.
Then I felt frightened as I heard some laughing and shouting, andstarted and listened, for it struck me that Courtenay and Philip mightbe going down the garden, and if they should see poor Ike in such astate, I knew that they would begin baiting and teasing him, when hewould 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'ttemper, 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 Icould get away, for Mr Solomon had a lot of things to ask me about thegrape-house and pit. I kept glancing at the wall where the key hung ona nail, and though another time I might easily have taken it, on thisparticular occasion it seemed as if I could not get near the placeunobserved.
At last my time came; Mrs Solomon had gone into the back kitchen, andMr 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 mycap from the peg, and slipped out.
I was not going to do any wicked act, but somehow I felt as if all thiswas 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 thedarkness, and making no more noise than jingling a hanging spade againstthe bricks, I reached up on to the corner shelf and found my lantern andmatches.
There was the little lamp in
side already trimmed, and I soon had italight and darkened by the shade, slipped it in my pocket, and thenstarted down the long green walk by the big wall where the espalierswere 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 findIke 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, andsetting down my lantern by one of the big trees, I went forward towardsthe great pear-tree, whose branches would make a ladder right to thetop.
It was very dark, and the great wall made it seem blacker as I stole onover the soft green path meaning to make sure that Ike had gone overquite 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 himselfor had some one whispering to him.
"It can't be Ike," I thought, for after the whispering some one jumpeddown on the soft bed, and then some one else followed--_crash_.
There was a scuffle here, and some one uttered an ejaculation of pain asif he had hurt himself in jumping, while the other laughed, and thenthey whispered together.
It was not Ike going away then, but two people come over the wall to getat the great choice pears that were growing on my left.
"What a shame," I thought; and as I recalled a similar occurrence at OldBrownsmith's I wished that Shock were with me to help protect SirFrancis' choice fruit.
I ought to have slipped off back and told Mr Solomon, who would havemade the gardener come from the lower cottage; but I did not think ofthat; 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, andwent bang up against an espalier. This they skirted, coming close to meas I stood in the shadow of a pear-tree.
"Come along quick!" I heard; and then the two figures went on rustlingand crashing among the black-currant bushes, so that I could smell thepeculiar herbaceous medicine-scent they gave out.
I knew as well as if I had been told where they were going, and that wasto 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 thetrees close by.
At first I had taken them for men, but by degrees, by the tone of theirwhispers and the faint sight I got of them now and then as they passedan open place, I knew that they were boys.
A few minutes before I had felt excited and nervous; then I felt lessalarm. My first idea was to frighten them by shouting for the differentmen about the place; but as soon as I was sure that they were boys, acuriously pugnacious sensation came over me, and I determined to see ifI couldn't catch one of them and drag him up to Mr Solomon, for I feltsure that I should only have one to fight with, the other would be sureto run as hard as he could go.
I stopped short again with an unpleasant thought in my mind. Surelythis could not be Shock with some companion.
No, it could not be he, I felt sure, and I was rather ashamed of havingthought it as I crept on after the two thieves, so that I was quite nearthem when, as I expected they would, they stopped by the little thickheavily-laden trees.
"Look out! hold the bag and be quick," was whispered; and then there wassnapping of twigs, the rustling of leaves, and a couple of dull thuds astwo 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 sucha shameful thing to clear those pears from the tree in that way, andthen I grew furious, for one whispered something to the other, and thetree being stripped was shaken, and then _thump, thump, thump_, oneafter another the beautiful fruit fell.
They scuffled about, and I was so close now that I could hear the pearsbanged 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 theywere my own, and making a dash at the faintly seen figure with the bag Istruck him a blow with all my might, and that, the surprise, and theweight of my body combined were sufficient to send him over amongst theblack currants, while I went at the other, and in a blind fury beganlaying 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 fightdesperately, and for some minutes we were up and down, fighting,wrestling, and hanging on to each other with all the fury of bitterenemies.
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 upagainst the trunk of one of the trees, but the more he hurt me the moreangry I grew, and held on, striking at him whenever I could get an armfree. I could hear him grinding his teeth as he struggled with me, andat last I caught my feet in a currant bush, for even then I could tellit 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; andwhen the pain only made me hang on all the more tightly he called out tohis 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, asfor 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; butI let my hands fall to my side, for I had made a grievous mistake, andmust strike no more.
In place now of my hanging on to Courtenay, he was holding me, anddrawing in his breath he raised himself a little, raised one hand andwas about to strike me, but before he could, Philip seemed to seize meby the collar, and his brother too, but in an instant I felt that it wasa stronger grip, and a hoarse gruff voice that I knew well enough wasthat of Sir Francis shouted out, "Caught you, have I, you youngscoundrels."
As he spoke he made us rise, and forced us before him--neither of usspeaking--through the bushes and on to the path, a little point of lightappearing above me, and puffs of pungent smoke from a cigar striking myface.
"I've got t'other one," said a rough voice that I also recognised, and Icried 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, myfine fellow. Who are you? What's your name?"
"Bring him here," cried Sir Francis; and as Ike half carried, halfdragged Philip out from among the trees on to the broad green walk, SirFrancis 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 Icould say a word Courtenay cried out quickly:
"Phil and I heard them stealing the pears, and we came down to stopthem--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 graspupon my collar. "Why, I saw you come creeping along with that darklantern, and watched you. You had no business down here, and yet I findyou along with this fellow, who has no right to be in the garden now,assaulting my sons."