AN ACQUAINTANCE BY THE WAY.
Meg decided that time for luncheon had come. The shadows lay long beside the trees and marked afternoon. She felt so rested as she blithely ate the piece of plum-cake saved from last night's supper that it seemed to her that she could walk all the way. It was a generous slice, and she threw crumbs for the birds, which flew down from the surrounding wood and became her guests.
Meg would have gladly dallied awhile, but time was pressing. She must get to London to-night. Taking off her shoes and stockings once more she crossed the stream, pausing a moment to enjoy the sense of the running water against her bare ankles. Then she determinedly resumed shoes and stockings, and after bathing her hands and face she turned to go on her way.
The road lay through hedges full of sweet-smelling eglantine and wild rose which stirred with every gust. As Meg trudged along she looked at the marks in the sand left by the feet which had come and gone across it that day. They made a confused pattern, through which here and there a footprint came out distinctly. There was one of a big nailed shoe that recurred with a sort of plodding regularity, and there was another of a dainty high-heeled boot that seemed to speed gayly along. There was a clumsy sprawling mark of a woman's foot that suggested slatternly shodding, and by its side that of a child's naked foot. Meg wondered if these were a mother and child, beggars going up to London. Presently another footmark attracted her attention. It was that of a single nailed boot, attended by what looked like the mark of one toe resting on the ground, surmounted by another mark. Together these two prints seemed to make a sign of admiration in the sand. Meg puzzled over this strange footmark till she forgot all the others. It fascinated her; preceding her like a cheery mystery. After a while the trace vanished. Meg watched for it; but it had gone, and with it the road seemed to her to have lost some of its interest. Presently she was startled by a "thump, thump" behind her. She felt a little startled, and she turned round to see who was coming. It was a lad swinging himself actively along on a high crutch. He soon overtook Meg, and as he passed he gave her a sidelong glance and touched his hat. He had a pleasant plain face, and bright brown eyes. She noticed that as he went along he left on the road that double mark that had such a quaint resemblance to a point of admiration.
Meg had returned his salute with a nod, which was not wanting in cordiality although it was somewhat stiff. This cripple seemed to her an acquaintance.
"Nice day, miss!" said the boy.
Meg nodded again.
"Going this way, miss?" continued the cripple.
"Yes," Meg replied, in a tone of embarrassed coolness, which was not, however, discouraging to conversation.
"Going far, miss?"
"Going to London," said Meg.
The cripple looked at her with evident admiration.
"Are you going to London?" asked Meg.
"No," replied the lad, "I'm going part of the way."
Meg did not like to press the question further, and the resources of conversation seemed exhausted.
"You see," said the boy after a pause, "I'm going to earn my livin' and the livin' of my mither and the little chap."
Meg looked at her companion with some surprise.
"I'm agoing to where I can earn thirteen pence a day; there's where I'm going. What I want is, they may want for nothink off there," and the boy, with a jerk of his chin, indicated a backward direction.
Meg felt curious to know how this crippled boy earned a living, but she did not like to inquire. So she said, with vague encouragement to further confidence, "You love them very much?"
"I love 'em," assented the cripple in a guarded tone. After a pause he continued, with more frankness, "I'm uncommon fond of the little chap. Mither can't earn enough, so he depends upon me, like. Now, how old do you think I am?" He straightened himself for her inspection, and leaned upon his crutch with the air of a soldier on parade.
Meg hesitated. The boy had a quaint, plucky face, childlike in line, and yet old by its expression of sagacity and caution. His arms and hands were well developed; one shriveled leg hung helpless at some distance from the ground. He seemed of no age and no distinct size.
"I cannot guess," said Meg. "I am eleven and a half," she added, with a generosity of confidence that invited a magnanimous return.
"I am fourteen come next March," said the boy. "Now you think I can't do nothink because of that ere leg." He glanced with some contempt down the maimed limb. "You thinks because I can't put my foot on the ground I can't do nothink. I can do everythink." The cripple turned with a swagger, and the children resumed their walk.
"I once punched a lad—he was older than me—who was worriting the little chap."
"You did?" said Meg admiringly.
"I did. He was striking the little chap in the face; and I comes upon him, and with my fist I gives him a blow, and before he can look up I hits him another, and when he knocks my crutch down I fastens upon him—I drags him down, that's what I does."
"You did right!" cried Meg.
"And I just gives it to him till he lies quiet as a lamb. And says I to him, 'If ye do it again I'll serves ye the likes again,' that what I says," concluded the cripple, marching along with a triumphant "thump, thump," of his crutch.
"I am glad you did it," said Meg, with a flush on her cheek and approval in her eye.
"That's what I does," repeated the cripple, with another swagger of his pendant body.
Meg began to feel a great respect for this cripple, who seemed to her to have the spirit of a lion.
"How are you going to earn money?" she asked, feeling an admiring friendship now justified the question.
The cripple, after a cautious moment, replied:
"Blacking boots."
"Oh!" said Meg, a little disconcerted.
"Faither was a dustman. I'd raither be a dustman than anythink. Ye've a cart, and there ye sits, and ye comes down only to clean away the rubbish; and sometimes ye find an elegant teaspoon, and ye may find a ring. Faither once found a gold ring with three red stones in it that shine. There's nothink like being a dustman," said the boy, with an air of one taking a survey of all the learned professions. "I'd be a dustman, but because of that ere leg. To be a dustman you must be hale in all yer limbs, ye must; so a lady comes round and says I'm to be a bootblack. She gives me brushes and a board and a pot of blacking, and I sets to; and I can make boots shine as will make your eyes blink. Now your boots," with a downward glance at Meg's feet, "are uncommon dusty—I'll black 'em for you."
Meg hesitated; but the cripple had already unstrapped the parcel swung on his back, taken from it a brush, a pot of blacking, and a board, and was down on one knee before her.
Meg could not refuse. She placed first one foot then the other on the board, and brush, brush went the active hands.
Meanwhile a big struggle was going on within Meg. She had no money but that threepenny-piece. Ought she to give it to the lad for blacking her boots? She put her hand into her pocket and turned the small silver piece about.
It was all that stood between her and penury. Still she could not accept a service without paying for it from this cripple, who was earning money for the "little chap."
"There!" said the boy rising, putting up his traps with an air of fine indifference to the effect produced by his action upon Meg's boots.
"I am very much obliged," said Meg hesitatingly; "and here is threepence."
"I don't want yer money," replied the boy with an emphatic jerk of his head. "Keep it; ye'll want it yerself."
Meg's admiration for her companion increased. She gazed down on her boots. "They're splendid," she said fervently; "I never thought boots could shine like that!"
"Well, I thinks as no one can beat me at blacking," said the cripple, accepting the compliment. "It's my notions as when the sloppy weather comes I'll make two shillings a day. But it's not a bootblack I'll remain."
"What will you become?" asked Meg.
"I do not mind telling you," replied the cripple with cautious slowness. "I'm going to be a joiner. Ye thinks as I can't. Ye thinks there's too much agin me. Why, everythink was agin me earning money. First that school-board, that was agin me. It wanted to set me all astray, spending time learning figures and spellin'; but I conquered the school-board. I gets too old for that after a bit. Then when I'm told by the lady of this situation in Weybridge to black boots every morning, there's fifty miles for me to get over; and here's the cripple boy agin, two miles from Weybridge!"
The lad gave a chuckle, a jerk of his head, and a thump of his crutch.
"You've walked fifty miles!" said Meg, with the homage of round-eyed surprise.
"Fifty miles," repeated the boy. "Then a friend o' mine is a carpenter. He would not trust me with a tool two years agone; and now I can plane and drive nails with the best of them. I had no money to buy a box of tools. I'm going to work for it with the boots. All I wants is the sloppy weather, and a spell of it, and that's enough for me."
Meg's admiration overflowed her pent-up heart, and moved her to confide in this cripple and ask his advice. She had not spoken to him of her schoolfellows, or of the object that had impelled her flight.
"Suppose," she began, "some one had been very kind to you, very good, would you not run away from people who were unkind to you, and laughed at you, and despised you?"
"No, I would stay to conquer them," said the cripple, stamping his crutch.
"How would you conquer them?" said Meg.
"I'd wear 'em out," said the lad. "Spite can't stand pluck; that's what I've found out. I'd give 'em a laugh, and if they pushed me hard I'd give 'em a slip of my crutch."
Meg was silent awhile with appreciation of such courage. Then she said:
"But suppose you felt sure there was a letter waiting for you, would you not go to get it?"
"Depends upon that ere letter," replied the cripple with circumspection. "If it was to tell me what to do to better myself I'd go and fetch it were it at the other end of the country."
"But," said Meg, with a quivering voice, letting out the secret fear at her heart, "suppose there was no letter waiting for you when you got to the place?"
"I'd go and look for the one as should ha' written it everywhere. I'd not give over till I found him," said the cripple.
"You would!" said Meg.
"I would!" repeated the boy.
"I wish you were going all the way to London," said Meg.
"To take care of you?" asked the lad. "Wish I could, but I can't, miss. I have the kid and the mistress to think of. It's not so far; to-morrow you'll get there."
"To-morrow!" repeated Meg, aghast.
"It's getting late," said the boy, "ye can't walk in the night. Now, what I say is, if ye find a barn, creep in there and lie in the straw; but if ye can get a hayrick and cover yerself all up to yer head, that's fit for a king—better than a bed. I've slept in 'em, so I ought to know."
Meg could not speak from consternation; the prospect for a moment overwhelmed her.
"Perhaps ye'll meet a cart, and the driver will give ye a lift. My faither once gave a lift in his cart to a little girl going toward London," the cripple suggested.
"I wish I could meet some one who would drive me," said Meg in faltering accents.
"If ye're frightened ye'll never find the person as was good to you," the lad replied rousingly.
"You were not frightened at night, all alone?" asked Meg.
"I'm frightened of nothink," said the lad; "but ye're a little lady, so that makes a difference."
Meg asked herself if her companion's shriveled leg did not make up for the disadvantages of sex, and she trudged along, resolved not to give in, but she wished she did not begin to feel so hungry again.
Presently they came to a fingerpost.
"What's written up there?" said the cripple.
"Can't you see?" asked Meg, astonished.
"I can't read," said the boy.
"Oh!" exclaimed Meg, whose admiration received a great shock.
"I'm ignorant," replied the boy, no whit disconcerted. "I'll conquer that, too. I conquered that school-board because I wanted to earn. I'll conquer ignorance; it's as bad as the school-board."
Meg's admiration revived.
"Weybridge is written on that side," she said.
"That's my way, then," said the cripple. "Good-by to ye, miss. I hope ye'll get all right. Don't forget the barn, or the hayrick if ye can get one."
"Good-by," said Meg, wishing to shake hands, yet hesitating.
The boy touched his hat and set off on his way.