“Hurt me? Chaps like them hurt Me!!” Tickled by the extravagance of the idea which Zack’s question suggested to him, Mat shook his sturdy shoulders, and indulged himself in a gruff chuckle, which seemed to claim some sort of barbarous relationship with a laugh.
“Ah! of course they haven’t hurt you;—I didn’t think they had,” said Zack, whose pugilistic sympathies were deeply touched by the contempt with which his new friend treated the bumps and bruises received in the fight. “Go on, Mat, I like adventures of your sort. What did you do after your head healed up?”
“Well, I got tired of dodging about the Amazon, and went south, and learnt to throw a lasso, and took a turn at the wild horses. Galloping did my head good.”
“It’s just what would do my head good too. Yours is the sort of life, Mat, for me! How did you first come to lead it? Did you run away from home?”
“No. I served aboard ship, where I was put out, being too idle a vagabond to be kep’ at home. I always wanted to run wild somewheres for a change; but I didn’t really go to do it, till I picked up a letter which was waiting for me in port, at the Brazils. There was news in that letter which sickened me of going home again; so I deserted, and went off on the tramp. And I’ve been mostly on the tramp ever since, till I got here last Sunday.”
“What! have you only been in England since Sunday?”
“That’s all. I made a good time of it in California, where I’ve been last, digging gold. My mate, as was with me, got a talking about the old country, and wrought on me so that I went back with him to see it again. So, instead of gambling away all my money over there” (Mat carelessly jerked his hand in a westerly direction), “I’ve come to spend it over here; and I’m going down into the country to-morrow, to see if anybody lives to own me at the old place.”
“And suppose nobody does? What then?”
“Then I shall go back again. After twenty years among the savages, or little better, I’m not fit for the sort of thing as goes on among you here. I can’t sleep in a bed; I can’t stop in a room; I can’t be comfortable in decent clothes; I can’t stray into a singing-shop, as I did to-night, without a dust being kicked up all round me, because I haven’t got a proper head of hair like everybody else. I can’t shake up along with the rest of you, nohow; I’m used to hard lines and a wild country; and I shall go back and die over there among the lonesome places where there’s plenty of room for me.” And again Mat jerked his hand carelessly in the direction of the American continent.
“Oh, don’t talk about going back!” cried Zack; “you’re sure to find somebody left at home—don’t you think so yourself, old fellow?”