Chapter Seven.
Found!
Meanwhile, what had become of the grey kitten? To learn this we must go back to the time when it began its life in the tinsmith’s house at Upwell under the care of old Sally’s Eliza. It was kept in the kitchen at first, but by degrees, as it got used to the place, it was allowed to run about where it liked, and its favourite room was the little back parlour opening into the shop. Now the shop was forbidden ground, and it was always chased back if it tried to enter: so perhaps it was for this very reason that it seemed to have fixed its mind on doing it, and one afternoon the chance came. Its mistress was busy behind the counter serving some customers: the parlour door was open; no one noticed the grey kitten, and it marched boldly in.
Pleased to find itself in the midst of so many new and shining things, it played about happily for some time, trying to catch the merry shadowy figures which danced on all the bright surfaces around. It was great fun at first, to make springs and dashes at them with its soft little paws, but finding they were never to be caught, it got tired, and looked about for fresh amusement. Unluckily its eye fell on the open door leading into the busy street, and without a thought of fear it trotted out, and cantered, tail on high, gaily down the pavement.
Too young to understand that it was in the midst of dangers, it saw nothing to alarm, and much that was amusing in all it passed. Now and then it stopped on its way to play with a straw, or chase a fly, and by degrees got a long distance from the tinsmith’s shop. It was now late in the afternoon, a drizzling rain had begun to fall, and it was so dull and cold that it was almost like winter. The kitten began to feel wet and miserable. It looked round for shelter and warmth, shook one little damp paw, and gave a tiny mew.
“Hulloa!” cried a rough loud voice, “what’s this?” A rough hand grasped it, and held it up high above the ground.
A troop of boys was pouring out from a school-house near, shouting, whistling, calling out to each other, and making the place echo with their noise. The one who had seized the kitten was a big stout fellow of about fourteen, with red hair and small greenish eyes.
“Who wants a cat to make into pies?” he bawled at the top of his voice, holding his prize above the crowd of boys who gathered round him. The kitten, its little weak body dangling helplessly, turned its terrified eyes downwards on all the eager faces.
“Who’ll buy?” cried the boy again.
“Mi-auw,” said the kitten piteously.
“Give yer five marbles for it, Bill!”
“Give yer tuppence.”
“Give yer a lump of hardbake.”
One after another the shrill voices sounded above the general noise and clatter, but Bill shook his head.
“Not near enough,” he said; “and come to think of it, I shall keep it myself, and have some sport with it. We’ll have a cat-chase, sure’s my name’s Bill.”
As he spoke, another boy joined the group. He was much smaller than Bill, slight and thin, with a brown face and very twinkling dark eyes. His clothes were poor, and there was more than one hole in the ragged jacket buttoned tightly round him.
“I’ll give yer my knife for’t, Bill,” he said quickly.
This was a good offer. Bill hesitated; but casting a glance at the boy’s dark eager face, he exclaimed:
“Ah, it’s you, is it, Dan Tuvvy; then don’t you wish you may get it? I’ll just keep it myself.”
“’Tain’t yourn,” said Dan shrilly.
“’Tain’t yourn, anyhow,” said Bill, with a glare in his green eyes.
The small boy’s features worked with excitement. “I’ll fight yer for it, then,” he said, doubling his fists, and at this there was a loud laugh from the others, for he was about half Bill’s size.
“Go it, Tuvvy,” cried one, patting him on the back; “go in and win.”
“I ain’t a-goin’ to fight a little chap like you,” said Bill, moving off sullenly with the kitten under his arm. “So don’t you think it.”
“You give me the cat, then,” said Dan, following him. “’Ere’s my knife, with three blades, and on’y one broke.”
“Git out with yer,” said Bill contemptuously. “I tell yer I’m a-goin’ to have a cat-chase with this ’ere kitten. So no more bother about it.”
“You’re afraid,” snarled Dan, running along by his side. “I wouldn’t be a big chap like you, and be afraid—that I wouldn’t.”
“Take that, then,” said Bill, turning suddenly, “if you will have it;” and he gave the small boy a blow which struck him to the ground.
In a moment he was up again, quite undaunted.
“Come on, then,” he cried, doubling his fists and dancing round his enemy, “if you aren’t afraid.”
“A fight! a fight!” sounded from all sides; and there seemed no doubt of it, for Bill’s temper was roused.
“Ketch ’old for a minnit,” he said, holding out the kitten, for which a dozen grimy hands were outstretched; “’twon’t take long—”
So all the boys thought. It would be short but exciting, for the two were old enemies, and likely to fight with spirit. They placed themselves in a ring, with hoarse shouts of encouragement and approval, and the fight began; the kitten adding its plaintive mew from time to time to the general noise.
At first it seemed that one blow from Bill’s heavy hand would be enough to finish the affair; but it was soon evident that Dan’s lean figure and nimble movements were greatly to his advantage. He sprang about in such a swift and agile manner, that he seemed everywhere at once; and while Bill was turning to deal a blow, or to catch hold of him, he had ducked his small black head and escaped. Buttoned tightly in his narrow jacket, which he had not taken off, his straight thin figure offered nothing for the hand to grasp, so that it was like trying to lay hold of a wriggling, slippery eel. It was certainly a much better fight than could have been expected from the unequal size of the rivals, and Bill’s face grew a deep red, as much with rage as with his vain efforts to close with Dan, who skipped round him breathless but full of spirit. Suddenly, however, while the excitement was at its height, there came a cry of alarm from the onlookers, “The bobby! the bobby!”
A blue uniform turned the corner. The crowd split up, and vanished like magic as the policeman came towards them. Bill turned away sulkily, and Dan seizing the kitten, which had been dropped on the ground, ran off at the top of his speed.
Without turning his head, to see if his enemy was in pursuit, he sped down the street past the school-house, clasping the kitten to his breast. Soon he had left the shops and busy part of the town behind him, and reached the outskirts, where the houses were poor and mean, and there were ragged people standing about on the door-steps. He gave a quick glance over his shoulder now, and seeing no sign of Bill or the policeman, slackened his pace, loosened the tight pressure of his hand on the kitten, and stroked it gently.
“Poor little kit,” he said, “nice little kit. How pleased Becky’ll be with it.”
It was hard to say whether Dan or the kitten was most exhausted by all they had been through. His fight, his rapid run, and the excitement of the whole affair had made him so breathless, that he was glad to lean against a lamp-post and pant. As for the grey kitten, it lay almost lifeless on his breast, its eyes closed, its little body quite limp, and its heart beating so faintly that it could hardly be felt. The boy looked down at it with pity.
“Looks pretty bad,” he murmured; “they’ve mauled it about so. P’r’aps a drop of milk would set it up.”
Urged by this thought, he made an effort to go on again at a slower pace, still panting a good deal, and presently reached a row of small cottages, one of which he entered. A child’s voice from a dark corner of the poorly-furnished kitchen cried, as he opened the door, “Mother, it ain’t father; it’s Dan;” and a woman, who was bending over a pot on the fire, turned towards him.
“Well,” she said fretfully, “what makes you so late? It’s bad enough to have your father coming in at all hours and wanting his supper.”
Dan made no answer, but hurried up to the corner from which the child’s voice had sounded. “See here, Becky,” he said softly; “see what I’ve brought you!”
The child, a girl of about eight years old, raised herself eagerly on the hard couch on which she was lying. She was very like Dan, with the same brown skin and dark eyes, but the eyes had no merry twinkle in them. Her face was thin and drawn, and had the appealing look which comes of suffering borne with patience.
“Is it a rabbit, Dan?” she asked, peering at the soft furry thing in her brother’s arms.
“It’s a little cat,” said Dan, putting the kitten gently down by her side, “as Bill was going to ill-treat.”
Becky touched the kitten with her thin fingers. “Its eyes is shut,” she said. “Oh Dan, I’m feared it’s dead.”
The woman had now drawn near to look at the kitten too. She had a fair skin and very pale blue eyes, which were always wide open, as though she were surprised at something; when this expression changed, it became a fretful one, which had also got into the tone of her voice.
“Give us a drop o’ milk, mother,” said Dan; “that’ll do it good.”
“Milk indeed!” said Mrs Tuvvy; “and what next? Where’s the money to come from to buy milk for cats, when goodness knows if we shall soon have bit or drop to put into our own mouths?”
Neither of the children took any notice of their mother’s remarks, or answered the questions which she continued to put.
“How do you suppose we’re going to live, now yer father’s got turned off? Who’s a-goin’ to pay the doctor’s bill, I should like to know?”
Dan rose and fetched from the table a small basin covered with a saucer.
“That’s yer supper,” said Mrs Tuvvy mournfully. “You ain’t never goin’ to give it to the cat! Well, you won’t get no more.”
Dan knelt by the couch, and tried to put a little warm milk into the kitten’s mouth with the spoon, but its teeth were firmly shut.
“You open its mouth, Dan, and I’ll feed it,” said Becky eagerly. “There, it swallowed that—now some more. See; it’s better already.”
For the kitten had opened its eyes, and given itself a little stretch. Soon it was able to lap some milk out of the saucer, and to eat some crumbled bread.
“Ain’t it a little dear?” said Becky, her thin face lighted up with pleasure. “Oh Dan, it’s purring! It must be quite well, mustn’t it?”
“I expect it’ll want a good long sleep first,” said Dan, looking gravely at the kitten, which had curled itself up by Becky’s side, and begun a faint little song of thankfulness; “it’s been through a deal.”
He took his neglected supper, and sat down to eat it at the foot of Becky’s couch, while Mrs Tuvvy returned to her cooking at the fire, still grumbling half aloud. There was not much bread and milk, and Dan, who always had a good appetite, was unusually hungry after his exertions that afternoon. He had been through a deal, as well as the kitten. But by dint of talking to his sister between each spoonful, he managed to eke out the meal, and make it seem much more. Becky listened with the most eager interest, meanwhile, to all the details of the fight, the policeman, and the escape of Dan with the kitten. When there was no more to tell, and very little more to eat, she leaned back on her couch and sighed.
“He’s a reg’lar bad un, that Bill!” she said presently. “Will he want to fight again?”
Dan shook his head. “I shan’t come across him no more,” he said; “not now I’m going to a place.”
“I forgot,” said Becky wearily. “Oh Dan, how long the days’ll be when you don’t come home to dinner. Whatever shall I do?”
“Why,” said Dan soothingly, “you won’t be alone now. You’ll have the kit.”
Becky gave a faint little smile.
“I mean to get you a good long bit of string,” went on Dan, “and tie a cork to the end, and then, you see, you’ll bounce it about for the kit to play with, and carry on fine, without moving.”
“I suppose it’ll get to know me after a bit, won’t it?” said Becky, evidently pleased with Dan’s idea.
“Just about,” answered her brother decidedly. Becky looked down fondly at the small grey form on her arm.
“Dr Price’s dogs came in with him to-day,” she said, “but they mustn’t come in no more now. They’d worry it to death. Mother told him to-day,” she added in a lower tone, “as how she couldn’t pay his bill, because of father.”
“What did he say?” asked Dan.
“He said, ‘That’s a bad job, Mrs Tuvvy, but it can’t be helped.’”
“Did he say you were getting better?” asked Dan again, scraping his basin carefully round with his spoon.
“He said I wanted plenty of rest, and plenty of nourishing food,” said Becky. “What’s nourishing food, Dan?”
“Nice things,” said Dan, balancing his spoon on the edge of his basin, and smacking his hungry lips; “chickens, and jellies, and pies, and such like.”
“Oh,” said Becky, with a patient sigh. “Well, we shan’t have no money at all now, so we can’t get any of ’em.”
“I shall get six shillings a week when I begin work,” said Dan; “and there’s what mother gets charing. But then there’s the rent, you see, and father getting nothing—”
He broke off, for the door opened, and Tuvvy himself appeared with his basket of tools on his shoulder. The children looked at him silently as he flung himself into a chair, but his wife began immediately in a tone of mild reproachfulness.
“Yer supper’s been waiting this ever so long, and it wasn’t much to boast of to begin with, but there—I s’pose we may be thankful to get a bit of dry bread now.”
She poured the contents of the saucepan into a dish, sighing and lamenting over it as she did so.
“’Tain’t what I’ve been used to, as was always brought up respectable, and have done my duty to the children. And there’s the doctor’s bill—I s’pose he won’t come to see Becky no more till that’s paid—and there she is on her back a cripple, as you may call it, for life p’r’aps. And what is it you mean to turn to, now you’ve lost a good place?”
As long as there was a mouthful of his supper left, Tuvvy preserved a strict silence; but when his plate was empty, he pushed it away, and said grimly, “Gaffer’s goin’ to let me stop on.”
“Stop on!” repeated Mrs Tuvvy. She stopped short in her progress across the kitchen, and let the empty plate she was carrying fall helplessly at her side. “Stop on!” she repeated.
“Ain’t I said so?” answered Tuvvy, pressing down the tobacco in his pipe with his thumb.
Mrs Tuvvy seemed incapable of further speech, and stood gazing at her husband with her mouth partly open. It was Becky who exclaimed, with a faint colour of excitement in her cheek, “Oh father, what made him?”
“Do tell us, father,” added Dan, touching him gently on the arm.
Tuvvy looked round at the boy’s earnest face, and then down at the table, and began to draw figures on it with the stem of his pipe. Mrs Tuvvy hovered a little nearer, and Becky sat upright on her couch, with eagerness in her eyes as her father began to speak.
“It was along of a little gentleman, Dennis Chester his name is, who used to come and see me work. He asked the gaffer, and gaffer said ‘No.’ So then he says, ‘Will you let him stop,’ says he, ‘if the others are agreeable?’ and to that the gaffer says neither yes nor no. But this morning he sends for me, and ‘Tuvvy,’ he says, ‘I’ve had a Round Robin about you.’ ‘And what sort of a bird is that, master?’ says I. ‘’Tain’t a bird at all,’ he says, ‘it’s this,’ and then he showed it me.”
“What ever was it?” asked Dan, as his father paused.
Tuvvy made a large circle in the air with the stem of his pipe.
“’Twas a round drawed like that on a bit of card, and inside of it was wrote as follers: ‘We which have signed our names, ask Mr Solace to keep Mr Tuvvy in his service.’ All the men’s names was round the outside, and the little gentleman’s name as well.”
“What did Mr Solace say?” asked Dan.
“He said, ‘You ain’t deserved it, Tuvvy.’”
“No more yer ’ave,” said Mrs Tuvvy, regaining her speech.
“But,” continued her husband, “the gaffer went on to say that, along of Master Chester, who’d taken such a lot of trouble, he’d give me another chance. So that’s all about it.”
“And in all my born days,” broke out Mrs Tuvvy, “I never heard of anything so singuller. Whatever made Master Chester take such a fancy to you, I wonder?”
“So I’m to stop on,” continued Tuvvy, putting his pipe in his mouth, and turning his back on his wife.
“And I hope,” said poor Mrs Tuvvy, beginning to cry a little from the relief of the good news, “I do hope, Benjamin, as it’ll be a lesson as you’ll take to ’art, and keep away from the drink; and if ever a man had reason to keep steady, you ’ave, with Dan growin’ up, and Becky’s doctor’s bill to pay, and—” Mrs Tuvvy did not speak angrily, or raise her voice above a soft complaining drawl; but it seemed to have a disturbing effect upon her husband, who, when she reached this point, sprang up and flung himself towards the door.
“Look, father,” said Becky’s childish voice from her corner. “See here what Dan’s brought me!”
“Filling the house with cats and dogs and rubbish,” mourned Mrs Tuvvy, joining the remark to her interrupted sentence.
“We ain’t got no dogs, anyhow, mother,” said Dan, as his father turned from the door and went up to Becky’s side; “a morsel of a kitten won’t eat much. She’ll have a bit of my supper till she’s older, and then she’ll catch mice and get her own living.”