“I can’t do without wictuals!” whimpered Tommy. “I didn’t come wi’ you a purpose to be starved to death!”
“I dare say you didn’t; but when I starve, you must starve too; and when I eat, you shall have the first mouthful. What did you come with me for?”
“’Acos you was the strongest,” answered Tommy, “an’ I reckoned you would get things from coves we met!”
“Well, I’m not going to get things from coves we meet, except they give them to me. But have patience, Tommy, and I’ll get you all you can eat. You must give me time, you know! I ain’t got work yet!—Come here. Lie down close to me, and we’ll go to sleep.”
The urchin obeyed, pillowed his head on Clare’s chest, and went fast asleep.
Clare slept too after a while, but the necessities of his relation to Tommy were fast making a man of him.
Chapter XXII.
The Smith in a Rage.
They had not slept long, when they were roused by a hideous clamour and rattling at the door, and thunderous blows on the wooden sides of the shed. Clare woke first, and rubbed his eyelids, whose hinges were rusted with sleep. He was utterly perplexed with the uproar and romage. The cabin seemed enveloped in a hurricane of kicks, and the air was in a tumult of howling and brawling, of threats and curses, whose inarticulateness made them sound bestial. There never came pause long enough for Clare to answer that they were locked in, and that the smith must have the key in his pocket. But when Tommy came to himself, which he generally did the instant he woke, but not so quickly this time because of his fall, he understood at once.
“It’s the blacksmith! He’s roaring drunk!” he said. “Let’s be off, Clare! The devil ’ill be to pay when he gets in! He’ll murder us in our beds!”
“We ought to let him into his own house if we can,” replied Clare, rising and going to the door. It was well for him that he found no way of opening it, for every instant there came a kick against it that threatened to throw it from lock and hinges at once. He protested his inability, but the madman thought he was refusing to admit him, and went into a tenfold fury, calling the boys hideous names, and swearing he would set the shed on fire if they did not open at once. The boys shouted, but the man had no sense to listen with, and began such a furious battery on the door, with his whole person for a ram, that Tommy made for the rear, and Clare followed—prudent enough, however, in all his haste, to close the back-door behind them.