Chapter Fourteen.
The King may come in the Cadger’s Way.
Mr Glorie did not put his runaway apprentice in gaol. He simply advertised for another—with a premium.
Poor Archie! His condition in life was certainly not to be envied now. He had but very few pounds between him and actual want.
He was rich in one thing alone—pride. He would sooner starve than write home for a penny. No, he could die in a gutter, but he could not bear to think they should know of it at Burley Old Farm.
Long ago, in the bonnie woods around Burley, he used to wonder to find dead birds in dark crannies of the rocks. He could understand it now. They had crawled into the crannies to die, out of sight and alone.
His club friends tried to rally him. They tried to cheer him up in more ways than one. Be it whispered, they tried to make him seek solace in gambling and in the wine-cup.
I do not think that I have held up my hero as a paragon. On the contrary, I have but represented him as he was—a bold, determined lad, with many and many a fault; but now I am glad to say this one thing in his favour: he was not such a fool as to try to drown his wits in wine, nor to seek to make money questionably by betting and by cards.
After Archie’s letter home, in which he told Elsie that he was “something in soap,” he had written another, and a more cheerful one. It was one which cost him a good deal of trouble to write; for he really could not get over the notion that he was telling white lies when he spoke of “his prospects in life, and his hopes being on the ascendant;” and as he dropped it into the receiver, he felt mean, demoralised; and he came slowly along George Street, trying to make himself believe that any letter was better than no letter, and that he would hardly have been justified in telling the whole truth.
Well, at Burley Old Farm things had rather improved, simply for this reason: Squire Broadbent had gone in heavily for retrenchment.
He had proved the truth of his own statement: “It does not take much in this world to make a man happy.” The Squire was happy when he saw his wife and children happy. The former was always quietly cheerful, and the latter did all they could to keep up each other’s hearts. They spent much of their spare time in the beautiful and romantic tower-room, and in walking about the woods, the grounds, and farm; for Rupert was well now, and was his father’s right hand, not in the rough-and-tumble dashing way that Archie would have been, but in a thoughtful, considering way.
Mr Walton had gone away, but Branson and old Kate were still to the fore. The Squire could not have spared these.
I think that Rupert’s religion was a very pretty thing. He had lost none of his simple faith, his abiding trust in God’s goodness, though he had regained his health. His devotions were quite as sincere, his thankfulness for mercies received greater even than before, and he had the most unbounded faith in the efficacy of prayer.
So his sister and he lived in hope, and the Squire used to build castles in the green parlour of an evening, and of course the absent Archie was one of the kings of these castles.
After a certain number of years of retrenchment, Burley was going to rise from its ashes like the fabled phoenix—machinery and all. The Squire was even yet determined to show these old-fashioned farmer folks of Northumbria “a thing or two.”
That was his ambition; and we must not blame him; for a man without ambition of some kind is a very humble sort of a clod—a clod of very poor clay.
But to return to Sydney.
Archie had received several rough invitations to go and visit Mr Winslow. He had accepted two of these, and, singular to say, Etheldene’s father was absent each time. Now, I refuse to be misunderstood. Archie did not “manage” to call when the ex-miner was out; but Archie was not displeased. He had taken a very great fancy for the child, and did not hesitate to tell her that from the first day he had met her he had loved her like his sister Elsie.
Of course Etheldene wanted to know all about Elsie, and hours were spent in telling her about this one darling sister of his, and about Rupert and all the grand old life at Burley.
“I should laugh,” cried Archie, “if some day when you grew up, you should find yourself in England, and fall in love with Rupert, and marry him.”
The child smiled, but looked wonderfully sad and beautiful the next moment. She had a way like this with her. For if Etheldene had been taken to represent any month of our English year, it would have been April—sunshine, flowers, and showers.
But one evening Archie happened to be later out in the suburbs than he ought to have been. The day had been hot, and the night was delightfully cool and pleasant. He was returning home when a tall, rough-looking, bearded man stopped him, and asked “for a light, old chum.” Archie had a match, which he handed him, and as the light fell on the man’s face, it revealed a very handsome one indeed, and one that somehow seemed not unfamiliar to him.
Archie went on. There was the noise of singing farther down the street, a merry band of youths who had been to a race meeting that clay, and were up to mischief.
The tall man hid under the shadow of a wall.
“They’re larrikins,” he said to himself, and “he’s a greenhorn.” He spat in his fist, and kept his eye on the advancing figures.
Archie met them. They were arm-in-arm, five in all, and instead of making way for him, rushed him, and down he went, his head catching the kerb with frightful force. They at once proceeded to rifle him. But perhaps “larrikins” had never gone to ground so quickly and so unexpectedly before. It was the bearded man who was “having his fling” among them, and he ended by grabbing one in each hand till a policeman came up.
Archie remembered nothing more then.
When he became sensible he was in bed with a bandaged head, and feeling as weak all over as a kitten. Sarah was in the room with the landlady.
“Hush, my dear,” said the latter; “you’ve been very ill for more than a week. You’re not to get up, nor even to speak.”
Archie certainly did not feel inclined to do either. He just closed his eyes and dozed off again, and his soul flew right away back to Burley.
“Oh, yes; he’s out of danger!” It was the doctor’s voice. “He’ll do first-rate with careful nursing.”
“He won’t want for that, sir. Sarah here has been like a little mother to him.”
Archie dozed for days. Only, whenever he was sensible, he could notice that Sarah was far better dressed, and far older-looking and nicer-looking than ever she had been. And now and then the big-bearded man came and sat by his bed, looking sometimes at him, some times at Sarah.
One day Archie was able to sit up; he felt quite well almost, though of course he was not really so.
“I have you to thank for helping me that night,” he said.
“Ay, ay, Master Archie; but don’t you know me?”
“No—no. I don’t think so.”
The big-bearded man took out a little case from his pocket, and pulled therefrom a pair of horn-bound spectacles.
“Why!” cried Archie, “you’re not—”
“I am, really.”
“Oh, Bob Cooper, I’m pleased to see you! Tell me all your story.”
“Not yet, chummie; it is too long, or rather you’re too weak. Why, you’re crying!”
“It’s tears of joy!”
“Well, well; I would join you, lad, but tears ain’t in my line. But somebody else will want to see you to-morrow.”
“Who?”
“Just wait and see.”
Archie did wait. Indeed he had to; for the doctor left express orders that he was not to be disturbed.
The evening sun was streaming over the hills when Sarah entered next day and gave a look towards the bed.
“I’m awake, Sarah.”
“It’s Bob,” said Sarah, “and t’other little gent. They be both a-comin’ upstairs athout their boots.”
Archie was just wondering what right Sarah had to call Bob Cooper by his christian name, when Bob himself came quietly in.
“Ah!” he said, as he approached the bed, “you’re beginning to look your old self already. Now who is this, think you?”
Archie extended a feeble white hand.
“Why, Whitechapel!” he exclaimed joyfully. “Wonders will never cease!”
“Well, Johnnie, and how are ye? I told ye, ye know, that ‘the king, might come in the cadger’s way.’”
“Not much king about me now, Harry; but sit down. Why I’ve come through such a lot since I saw you, that I begin to feel quite aged. Well, it is just like old times seeing you. But you’re not a bit altered. No beard, or moustache, or anything, and just as cheeky-looking as when you gave me that thrashing in the wood at Burley. But you don’t talk so Cockneyfied.”
“No, Johnnie; ye see I’ve roughed it a bit, and learned better English in the bush and scrub. But I say, Johnnie, I wouldn’t mind being back for a day or two at Burley. I think I could ride your buck-jumping ‘Eider Duck’ now. Ah, I won’t forget that first ride, though; I’ve got to rub myself yet whenever I think of it.”
“But how on earth did you get here at all, the pair of you?”
“Well,” said Harry, “that ain’t my story ’alf so much as it is Bob’s. I reckon he better tell it.”
“Oh, but I haven’t the gift of the gab like you, Harry! I’m a slow coach. I am a duffer at a story.”
“Stop telling both,” cried Archie. “I don’t want any story about the matter. Just a little conversational yarn; you can help each other out, and what I don’t understand, why I’ll ask, that’s all.”
“But wait a bit,” he continued. “Touch that bell, Harry. Pull hard; it doesn’t ring else. My diggins are not much account. Here comes Sarah, singing. Bless her old soul! I’d been dead many a day if it hadn’t been for Sarah.”
“Look here, Sarah.”
“I’m looking nowheres else, Mister Broadbent; but mind you this, if there’s too much talking, I’m to show both these gents downstairs. Them’s the doctor’s orders, and they’ve got to be obeyed. Now, what’s your will, sir?”
“Tea, Sarah.”
“That’s right. One or two words at a time and all goes easy. Tea you shall have in the twinkling of a bedpost. Tea and etceteras.”
Sarah was as good as her word. In ten minutes she had laid a little table and spread it with good things; a big teapot, cups and saucers, and a steaming urn.
Then off she went singing again.
Archie wondered what made her so happy, and meant to ask her when his guests were gone.
“Now, young Squire,” said Harry, “I’ll be the lady; and if your tea isn’t to your taste, why just holler.”
“But don’t call me Squire, Harry; I left that title at home. We’re all equal here. No kings and no cadgers.”
“Well, Bob, when last I saw you in old England, there was a sorrowful face above your shoulders, and I’ll never forget the way you turned round and asked me to look after your mother’s cat.”
“Ah, poor mother! I wish I’d been better to her when I had her. However, I reckon we’ll meet some day up-bye yonder.”
“Yes, Bob, and you jumped the fence and disappeared in the wood! Where did you go?”