He seated himself at Frank’s side as he spoke, and poked at the fire with a long pointed stick.
“How do they get ’em down to Wickham?” asked Frank, bent on getting as much information as possible.
The boy pointed to a broad cart-track, which descended abruptly from one side of the clearing.
“They fetch a cart up yonder, and take ’em down into the high-road.”
“And how fur is it?”
“A matter of two miles, and then three miles further to the factory, and there they make ’em up into cheers, and then they send ’em up to Lunnon Town by the rail.”
Frank remembered the great cart-loads of chairs that he had seen passing through Danecross, but what chiefly struck him in his companion’s answer were the two words “Lunnon Town.” They fell on his ear with a new meaning. He had read of Lunnon Town, and heard schoolmaster talk of it, but had never imagined it as a place he could see, any more than America. Now, suddenly, an idea of such vast enterprise seized on his mind, that it stunned him into silence. He would go to Lunnon Town! Everyone became rich there. He would become rich too; then he would go back to Green Highlands, and give all his money to mother; there would be no need for any more field-work, and they would all be happy. At the thought of mother his eyes filled with tears, for he knew how unhappy she would be when he did not come back, and how she would stand at the door and look out for him. He longed to set about making this great fortune at once, it seemed a waste of time to sit idle; but he knew he must rest that night, for his legs felt stiff and aching; besides he had to work out his meal.
In half an hour the deaf man’s lathe was hard at work again, and the two boys busily employed near. Frank’s new friend showed him how to arrange the pieces of wood neatly in piles when they were turned and smoothed. He hummed a tune in the intervals of conversation and presently asked:
“Can yer sing?”
Frank could sing—very well. He was one of the best singers in Danecross choir, and Mrs Darvell held her head very high when she heard her boy’s voice in church; so he answered with a certain pride: