“Wait a minute, Ruddle,” said the younger man, whose back was towards us; and I saw that he was leaning over Miss Carr and holding her hand. “If you wish it,” he whispered softly, “it shall be done.”
“I do wish it,” she said with an earnest look in her large eyes as she gazed kindly at me; and the young man turned round, flushed and excited.
I was shrinking away towards the door, pained and troubled, for I felt that I had no business there, when Mr Lister motioned me to stop, and said something to the elder gentleman.
He in turn screwed up his face, and gave the younger a comical look.
“Your father would not have done so, John Lister,” he said. “What am I to say, Miss Carr?”
For answer the young lady rose and went and laid her hands in one of his.
“If you please, Mr Ruddle,” she said in a low musical voice, “it will be a kindly act.”
“God bless you, my dear,” he said tenderly. “I believe if I were with you long you’d make me as much your slave as you have John Lister.”
“Then you will?”
“Yes, my dear, yes, if it is really as he says.”
She darted an intelligent look at me, and then hastily pulled down her crape veil as Mr Lister followed her to her chair.
“Come here, my lad,” said Mr Ruddle, in quiet business-like tones. “We want boys here, but boys used to the printing trade, for it does not answer our purpose to teach them; we have no time. But as you seem a sharp, respectable boy, and pretty well educated, you might, perhaps, be willing to try.”
“Oh, if you’ll try me, I’ll strive so hard to learn, sir!” I cried excitedly.
“I hope you will, my boy,” he said drily, “but don’t profess too much; and mind this, you are not coming here as a young gentleman, but as a reading-boy – to work.”
“Yes, sir. I want to work,” I said earnestly.
“That’s well. Now, look here. I want to know a little more about you. If, as you say, you came from near Rowford, you can tell me the names of some of the principal people there?”
“Yes, sir; there’s Doctor Heston, and the Reverend James Wyatt, and Mr Elton.”
“Exactly,” he said gruffly; and he opened a large book and turned over a number of pages. “Humph! here it is,” he said to himself, and he seemed to check off the names. “Now, look here, my man. What is the name of the principal solicitor at Rowford?”
“Mr Blakeford, sir,” I said with a shiver, lest he should want to write to him about me.
“Oh, you know him?” he said sharply.
“Yes, sir. He managed papa’s – my father’s – affairs,” I said, correcting myself.
“Then I’m sorry for your poor father’s affairs,” he said, tightening his lips. “That will do, my lad. You can come to work here. Be honest and industrious, and you’ll get on. Never mind about having been a gentleman, but learn to be a true man. Go and wait outside.”
I tried to speak. I wanted to catch his hands in mine. I wanted to fling my arms round Miss Carr, and kiss and bless her for her goodness. I was so weak and sentimental a boy then. But I had to fight it all down, and satisfy myself by casting a grateful glance at her as I went out to wait.
I was no listener, but I heard every word that passed as the ladies rose to go.
“Are you satisfied, my dear?” said Mr Ruddle.
“God bless you?” she said; and I saw her raise her veil and kiss him.
“God bless you, my dear!” he said softly. “So this little affair has regularly settled it all, eh? And you are to be John’s wife. Well, well, well, my dear, I’m glad of it, very glad of it. John, my boy, I would my old partner were alive to see your choice; and as for you, my child, you’ve won a good man, and I hope your sister will be as fortunate.”
“I hope I shall, Mr Ruddle,” said the other lady softly.
“If I were not sixty, and you nineteen, my dear, I’d propose for you myself,” he went on laughingly. “But come, come, I can’t have you giddy girls coming to our works to settle your affairs. There, be off with you, and you dine with us on Tuesday next. The old lady says you are to come early. I’m afraid John Lister here won’t be able to leave the office till twelve o’clock; but we can do without him, eh?”
“Don’t you mind what he says, Miriam,” said Mr Lister. “But stop, here’s the parcel. I’ll send it on.”
“No, no. Please let that youth carry it for us,” said Miss Carr.
“Anything you wish,” he whispered earnestly; and the next moment he was at the door.
“You’ll carry this parcel for these ladies,” he said; “and to-morrow morning be here at ten o’clock, and we’ll find you something to do.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” I said eagerly; and taking the parcel, I followed the ladies into Holborn, and then along Oxford Street to a substantial row of houses near Cavendish Square, where the one I looked upon as my friend paused at a large door and held out her hand to me.
“I shall hope to hear from Mr Lister that you have got on well at the office,” she said in her sweet musical voice. “Recollect that you are my protégé, and I hope you will do me credit. I shall not forget to ask about you. You will try, will you not?”
“Oh yes,” I said hoarsely, “so hard – so very hard!”
“I believe you will,” she said, taking the parcel from my hand; “and now good-bye.”
The next moment I was standing alone upon the pavement, feeling as if a cloudiness had come over the day, while, as I looked down into my hand, it was to see there a bright new sovereign.
Chapter Sixteen.
Plans for the Future
I went straight back to Mr Revitts, and only when nearly there did I remember that I had not thought to ask about Mr Rowle. But I felt it did not matter now, for I had obtained a situation, and he could not be annoyed to find that I was coming to the same establishment.
Mr Revitts was enjoying himself when I reached his room; that is to say, he was sitting in his dingy old red-flannel shirt and his blue uniform trousers, with his sleeves rolled well up above the elbow, reading the police news in a daily paper and smoking a short black pipe, with the wreaths of smoke floating out of the open window.
“Here you are then, my lad,” he said, “just in time. You and I will go out and have a bit o’ something at the cookshop. Did you find your friend?”
“No, sir – no Mr Revitts,” I said, correcting myself, “I forgot to ask for him.”
He let his paper fall in his lap and stared hard at me.
“Now, look here, my lad,” he said, expelling a large cloud of smoke, “I don’t want you to commit yourself, and it’s my dooty to tell you that whatever you say will be – No, no, nonsense. Come, speak out. What are you laughing at? What have you been doing?”
Hereupon I told him my adventure, my eyes sparkling with delight.
“And a whole sovereign into the bargain!” he cried as I finished. “Let’s look at it.”
I handed him the bright new golden coin, and he span it up in the air, caught it dexterously, and bit it. Then he tried it three or four times on the table, as a shopman would a piece of money on a counter, and ended by making believe to thrust it into his pocket.
“It’s a good one,” he said, “and I think I shall stick to it for your board and lodging last night and this morning. What do you say?”
“I think you ought to be paid, sir,” I said eagerly, “for you were very good to me.”
He stared hard at me for a few moments, and then thrust the sovereign back in my hand.
“I’ve seen a good many boys in my time,” he said, “but I’m blessed if ever I run again one like you. Why, you’ve got plenty of pluck, or else you wouldn’t have run away; but of all the simple – well, I won’t say simple, but green – of the green chaps I ever did come across you are about the greenest.”
I flushed up far from that tint at his words, for there was the old complaint again about my greenness.
“Please, Mr Revitts, I’m very sorry I’m so green,” I said, looking at him wistfully; “perhaps it’s because I’ve always lived in the country.”
He stared harder at me.
“Come here,” he said sharply, and going to the window, he placed me between his knees, laid a great hand upon each of my shoulders grasping them firmly, and gazed straight into my eyes. “Look here, youngster,” he said angrily, “is it R or F? Are you trying to humbug me? Because, if so, it won’t do: I’m too old.”
“Humbug you, sir?” I said wonderingly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“That you don’t,” he said, dropping his fierce way and sinking back smiling. “’Struth, what a boy you are!”
I gazed at him in a troubled way, for I felt hurt.
“I’m very sorry, Mr Revitts,” I said, “and I hope you don’t think I would do anything to deceive you,” for that “R or F” puzzled me.
“Deceive me? Not you, my boy. Why, you couldn’t deceive a sparrer or a hoyster. Why, you’re as transparent as a pane of glass. I can see right through you and out on the other side.”
“I’m afraid I am very stupid, sir,” I said sadly. “I’ll try to learn to be more clever. I don’t know much, only about books, and natural history, and botany, but I’ll try very hard not – not to be so – so – green.”
“Why, bless your young heart, where have you been all your life? You’re either as cunning as – No, you ain’t, you really are as innocent as a lamb.”
“I’ve always been at home with papa and mamma, sir.”
“Sir, be hanged! My name’s William Revitts; and if you and me’s going to be good friends, my boy, you’ll drop that sir-ing and mistering, and call me plain Bill.”
“Should you like it, sir, if I did?” I asked anxiously.
“No, sir, I shouldn’t. Yes, I should. Now then, is it to be friends or enemies?”
“Oh, friends, please,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Then there’s mine, young Antony,” he cried seizing it in his great, fingers. “And mind, I’m Bill, or old Bill, whichever you like.”
“I’m sure – Bill, I should be glad to be the best of friends,” I said, “for I have none.”
“Oh, come now, you said that Polly was very good to you.”
“What, Mary? Oh yes!”
“Well, then, that’s one. But, I say, you know you mustn’t be so precious innocent.”
“Mustn’t I, sir?”
“What!” he cried, bringing his hand down crash on the table.
“Mustn’t I, Bill?”
“That’s better. No: that you mustn’t. I seem to look upon you as quite an old friend since you lived so long with my Polly. But, I say, your education has been horribly neglected. You’re quite a baby to the boys up here at your age.”
“But papa was so anxious that I should learn everything,” I said, as I thought of Mr Ruddle’s words, “and we had lessons every day.”
“Hah! Yes; but you can’t learn everything out o’ books,” he continued, looking at me curiously. “You never went away to school, then?”
“No. I was going in a month or two.”
“Hah! and it was put off. Well, we can’t help it now, only you mustn’t be so jolly easy-going. Everybody here will glory in taking you in.”
“Do you mean cheating me?”
“That’s just what I do mean. Why, some chaps would have nailed that sov like a shot, and you’d never have seen it again. You see, I’m in the police, and we couldn’t stoop to such a thing, but I know lots o’ men as would say as a sov was no use to a boy like you, and think as they ought to take care of it for you.”
“Well, wouldn’t that be right, Mr Revitts?” I said.
“No, it wouldn’t, young greenhorn,” he cried sharply, “because they’d take care of it their way.”
“Greenhorn?” I said eagerly. “Oh, that’s what you mean by my being green! You mean ignorant and unripe in the world’s ways.”
“That’s just what I do mean,” he cried, slapping me on the shoulder. “Brayvo! that’s the result of my first lesson,” he continued admiringly. “Why, I’m blessed if I don’t think that if I had you here six months, and took pains, I could make a man of you.”
“Oh, I wish you would,” I cried excitedly. “I do so want to be a true, good man – one such as papa used to speak of – one who could carve his way to a noble and honourable career, and grow to be loved and venerated and held in high esteem by the world at large. Oh, I would try so hard – I’d work night and day, and feel at last, that I had not tried in vain.”
“He-ar! he-ar! Brayvo, brayvo, youngster! Well done our side! That’s your style!” he cried, clapping his hands and stamping his feet as I stopped short, flushed and excited with the ideas that had come thronging to my brain, and then gazed at him in a shamefaced and bashful manner. “That’s your sort, my boy, I like that. I say, did your father teach you that sorter thing.”
“Yes. Mr Rev. – Yes, Bill.”
“I say, your par, as you called him, wasn’t a fool.”
“My papa,” I said proudly, “I mean my dear father, was the best and kindest of men.”
“That I’ll lay sixpence he was. Why, I was feeling quite out of heart about you, and thinking you such a hinnocent young goose that I shouldn’t know how to help you. Why, lookye here, I’ve been kicking about in the world ever since I was ten, and been in the police six years, and I couldn’t make a speech like that.”
“Couldn’t you, sir – Mr – I mean Bill?”
“No, that I couldn’t. Why, I tell you what. You and I’ll stick together and I don’t know what we mightn’t make of you at last – p’r’aps Lord Mayor o’ London. Or, look here, after a few years we might get you in the police.”
“In the police?” I faltered.
“To be sure, and you being such a scholard and writing such a hand – I know it, you know. Lookye here,” he continued, pulling out a pocket-book, from one of the wallets in which he drew a note I had written for Mary, “I say, you writing such a hand, and being well up in your spelling, you’d rise like a air balloon, and get to be sergeant, and inspector, and perhaps superintendent, and wear a sword! You mark my words, youngster; you’ve got a future before you.”
“Do you think so?”
“I just do. I like you, young Antony, hang me if I don’t; and if you stick to me I’ll teach you all I know.”
“Will you?” I said eagerly.
“Well, all I can. Just hand me that paper o’ tobacco. Thankye. I’ll have just one more pipe, and then we’ll go to dinner.”
He filled and lit his pipe, and went on talking.
“First and foremost, don’t you get trying to smoke.”
“No, I will not,” I said.
“That’s right. It’s all very well for men, a little of it; but I don’t like to see boys at it, as too many tries just now. I often sees ’em on my beat, and I never feel so jolly happy as when I come across one looking white after it about the gills, and so sick he can’t hold his head straight up. But, as I was a-saying, you stick to me and I’ll teach you all I can, and I know two or three things,” he continued, closing one eye and opening it again.
“You must, sir.”
“Yes; there’s some clever chaps I have to deal with sometimes – roughs and thieves and the like; but they have to get up very early in the morning to take me in.”
“Do they, sir – Bill?” I said wonderingly.
“There, now you’re getting innocent again,” he said sharply. “You don’t mean to tell me as you don’t understand that?”
“Oh yes, I do: you mean that they would have to get up very early to master you – say at daybreak.”
“What a young innocent you are,” he cried, laughing; and then seeing my pained look, he slapped me on the shoulder again. “It’s all right, my boy. You can’t help it; and you’ll soon learn all these things. I know a lot, but so do you – a sight o’ things I don’t. Why, I’ll be bound to say you could write a long letter without making a single mistake in the spelling.”
“Yes, I think I could,” I said innocently. “Both papa and mamma took great pains with me over that.”
“Look at that, now!” he said. “Why, I couldn’t write two lines in my pocket-book without putting down something as the sergeant would chaff.”
“Chaff?” I said, “cut-up stuff for horses?”
“Yes: that’s it,” he said, grinning. “Stuff as they cut up. There, you’ll soon know what chaff is, my lad. But, you know, all the same, and speaking quite fair, I do maintain as spelling ain’t square.”
“Not square?”
“I mean fair and square and above-board. Them as invented spelling couldn’t have been very clever, or they’d have made everything spelt as it sounded. Why, it only seems natural to spell doctor’s stuff f-i-z-z-i-k, and here you have to stick in p’s, and h’s, and y’s, and s’s, and c’s, as ain’t wanted at all.”
“It is puzzling, certainly,” I said.
“Puzzling? Puzzling ain’t nothing to it. I can write a fair round hand, and spell fast enough my way. Our sergeant says there isn’t a man on our station as can write such a nice looking report; but when it comes to the spelling – there, I won’t tell you what he said about that!”
“But you could soon improve your spelling.”
“Think so?” he said eagerly. “Oh no, I don’t fancy we could.”
“I am sure you could,” I said. “The best way is to do dictation.”
“Dictation? What, ordering about?”
“Oh no; not that sort of dictation. I mean for me to read to you from a book and you write it down, and then I mark all the misspelt words, and you write them down and learn them.”
“Look at that now!” he exclaimed. “To be sure, that’s the way. Now, you know, I bought a spelling-book, that didn’t seem to do no good; so I bought a pocket dictionary, and that was such a job to go through, so full of breakneck words as no one never heard of before, that I give that up. Why, you ain’t innocent after all. Would you mind trying me?”
“Mind! no,” I cried; “we could use either a slate or paper.”
“So we could, and do it with either a pencil or a pen. I say, come: fair and square, I’ll teach you all I know if you’ll teach me all you know.”
“That’s agreed,” I said.
“Done for you,” he cried, shaking hands. “And now my pipe’s out, and we’ll go and have dinner. Wait till I roll down my sleeves and get on my stock. Why, you and I will be as jolly as can be here. It’s rather a long way to go to your work, but you must get up a bit earlier. Two miles night and morning won’t kill you; and I’ve been thinking what we’ll do. You’ve got your sovereign. We’ll go to a place I know, and buy one o’ them little iron fold-up bedsteads and a mattress and pillow and blanket, and stand it there. It’s breaking into your sov, but then you’ll have the bit o’ furniture, which will be your property, so the money won’t be wasted. What do you say?”
I was delighted, and said so.
“Well, then, lookye here,” he continued, as he took great pains with his hair and whiskers before the glass, and then put on and buttoned up his uniform coat, to stand before me a frank, manly fellow of about thirty, “you’re my company this week, and after that you shall put so much of your salary into the stock to pay for living, and we shall both be free and independent, and what’s left you can shove in the bank.”
“In the bank?”
“Yes, savings-bank. I don’t mind telling you as an old friend I’ve got forty-four pun ten there.”
“Mary has thirty-seven pounds in a savings-bank,” I said.
“Now there’s for you!” he said.
“Yes, she told me so; but perhaps I oughtn’t to have told you.”
“Well,” he said seriously, “I s’pose you oughtn’t, because it was told you in confidence, but I’m glad you did. She never told me.”
“Did you ever tell her how much you had saved?”
“No, that I didn’t, only as I was saving, so it’s all fair. Look here, youngster – I mean Antony,” he said, after standing staring in the glass for a few minutes, “I tell you what it is, you coming up has about brought matters to a head.”
“Has it, Bill?”
“Yes, it hayve, my boy. Do you know, I don’t for the life of me know why we two have been waiting; do you?”
“No,” I said shaking my head.
“No, nor more don’t Mary, I’ll bet a sixpence. We got engaged to one another, and then we said as it wouldn’t be sensible, to get married at once, as we might both see some one we liked better, don’t you see?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling puzzled all the same, “it was very prudent.”
“I could have got married lots o’ times since, but I’ve never seen a girl as I liked so well, and I s’pose Mary hasn’t seen a chap, for she keeps on writing.”
“Oh yes; and she thinks a deal of you. She’s very proud of you.”
“Is she, though?” he said, with a satisfied smile, and giving his head a shake in his stock. “Well, then, I tell you what: I’ll write and ask Mary to say the day, and then meet her at the station. We’ll take a little bigger place, and she’ll come up and make us both comfortable. What do you say to that?”
I clapped my hands, and he stood smiling in an exceedingly simple way, and looking like a very big overgrown boy, for a few moments, before turning himself round to me.
“See that,” he said, in a quiet business-like way. “I was laughing at you for being soft and green just now, and I’m blessed if I don’t feel as if I was ten times worse. Come along, company, it’s ever so late, and my report says hot mutton chop, a cup of tea, and some bread and butter.”
That evening, after a hearty meal, for which Revitts insisted upon paying, there was just time to make the purchases he proposed, which almost melted the whole of my sovereign, and then it was time for him to go on duty.
“They’ve cost a deal,” he said thoughtfully, “but then you’ve still got the money, only in another shape. Now, you get back home and take in the things when they come, and then sit and read a bit, and afterwards go to bed. I wouldn’t go out, if I was you.”
We parted, and I followed out his directions, being shrewd enough to see that he thought me hardly fit to be trusted alone.
The next morning I woke to find it was half-past six, and that Revitts had come home and was preparing for bed. He looked tired out, and was very black and dirty, having been, he said, at a fire; but he was not too much fatigued to give me a friendly bit or two of advice as to getting my breakfast and going down to the office.
“Have a good breakfast before you start, my boy, and get some bread and cheese for your lunch – that’s twopence. When you come back you’ll find the tea-things out, and you can make dinner and tea too.”
In good time I started, leaving Revitts sleeping off his night’s fatigue, and about ten minutes to ten I was at the door of the great printing-office, flushed with exercise and dread, but eager all the same to make a beginning.
I hesitated as to whether I should go in at once or wait till it struck ten, but I thought that perhaps I might be some time before I saw Mr Ruddle, so I walked straight in, and the man reading the paper in his gloss case looked up at me in a very ill-used way as I stopped at his window.
“You again?” he said gruffly. “Well, what is it?”
“If you please, I’ve come to work,” I said.
“Work? Why, it’s ten o’clock. Why weren’t you here at eight?”
“Mr Ruddle said ten o’clock, sir, and I want to see him.”
“Oh!” he said gruffly, as if he were the gatekeeper of an earthly paradise. “Well, I s’pose you must pass in. Go on.”
I went on into the passage, feeling as if the doorkeeper was the most important personage there, and as if the proprietors must make a practice of asking permission to go into their own place.
I went, then, nervously down the passage till I came to the door of the room where I had seen Messrs Ruddle and Lister. It was ajar, and there were loud voices talking, and though I knocked they went on.
“Stern firmness is one thing, Grimstone,” I heard Mr Ruddle saying, “and bullying another.”
“But you don’t consider, sir, that I bully the men, do you?” said another voice which was quite familiar to me.
“You may call it what you like, Grimstone. There, I’m busy now.”
There was a sharp step, and the door was flung wide open and closed, when my friend the overseer, who had been so rough to me on the previous day, came out and pretty nearly knocked me down.
Chapter Seventeen.
My First Literary Efforts. I Make Another Friend
The overseer and I stood in the dim light gazing at one another for a few moments, during which I seemed to read in his sharp, harsh face an air of resentment at my presence.
“Hallo!” he said, in an angry voice, and evidently rejoicing at having encountered some one upon whom he could vent a little of the anger seething within him. “What, are you here again, you young vagabond? Didn’t I tell you yesterday to go about your business? Be off with you, or I’ll send for a policeman. How dare you! What do you mean?”
“But please, sir,” I remonstrated.
