The boy spoke with the air as though shillings were plentiful enough. But, in truth, he had only two half-crowns of his own in the world; they were the entire amount of his savings, which he had brought on setting forth in life.
The woman with the curl-papers stared hard down at the two young strangers before she answered, not so ill-naturedly—
'Well, I don't much mind, if so be as one of you gits on these yer steps, and has a ride along of us. The t'other can git on to one of the beasteses' vans at the back. 'Twon't break no bones if you do, as I can see.' With a reassuring nod, she then withdrew her curl-papers into the interior of her moving home.
'You'd best go aside her, I suppose, Muster Alick,' whispered Ned. 'I'll hang on to that van yonder;' and he took himself off in the direction to which the woman had seemed to point.
'The missus said as I might have a ride on the back of this van,' said he, meekly enough, to a man in his shirt-sleeves, who was too busy with the bars of the van to look up at the speaker.
'All right! If so be as she says so, it's got to be, I reckon!' he growled; and Ned swung himself up behind, trying hard to make out, as the procession moved off slowly and ponderously at last, what sort of beasts were on the other side of the boards he was leaning against. Suppose they were lions, or suppose the boards got loose? The fisher-lad, whom storm and tempest on the deep could not dismay, felt a bit creepy. Setting his ear close to the wood, he could distinctly hear hideous growls, as if some savage creature, maddened by hunger, were ready to break out and leap upon him. What would granny say if she could dream of his situation? But dashing his hand across his sleepy eyes, Ned hastily told himself there must be no harking back, no thinking of what granny or anybody else at Northbourne would say or do. It must be good-bye, for ever, to the old life. The motion of the van, the rest after the long tramp, alike caused the country-bred boy to nod sleepily as he clung to his perch.
Presently, he was back again in Northbourne. It was Sunday afternoon, and, dressed in his best, the fisher-boy stood up straight in class to repeat his hymn to his earnest-eyed, sweet-faced teacher, 'Miss Theedory.' And the words he fought sleepily to remember must have been born of his nearness to the growling monsters within the caravan—
'Christian, dost thou see them
On the holy ground,
How the troops of Midian
Prowl and prowl around?'