“You have, you were saying, you have friends at Liverpool?” he said.
Arthur began to feel irritated at his pertinacity; he had not had much experience of the curiosity of many whose quiet uneventful lives force them into gossip as their only attainable excitement; but, looking up at the good-humoured face beside him, his annoyance disappeared, and in its place came a sudden impulse of confidence.
“No,” he said bluntly; “I have no friends there, nor indeed anywhere, whom I can ask for help. I have neither father nor mother. I want to earn my living, and in time, if I can, to do more than that. And I’m not proud. I’d do anything, and I’d be more grateful than I can say to any one who’d put me in the way of something.”
The farmer sat silent. He puffed away at his pipe, and between the puffs he took a good look now and again at his companion. The rather thin young face was flushed now; the beautiful brown eyes sparkled with excitement. It was a very attractive face.
“Very genteel-looking; no doubt of that. And James and Eliza think a deal o’ that,” he murmured to himself.
But Arthur did not catch the words. He sat without speaking. He had no idea of help coming from his present companion; he had no notion of what was passing in his mind. His thoughts were wandering far away, and he started when the farmer, with a preliminary cough to attract his attention, again spoke to him.
“You’re set on Liverpool, I’m thinking?” he began.
Arthur did not at once understand his meaning.
“I’m going to Liverpool. I intend to go there,” he said.
“And you’re set on it?” the farmer repeated. “No other place’d be to your fancy, I suppose?”