Chapter VIII: Part 8

And so they talked on. The upshot was, that old Jacobson stood to his word, and declined to make Dick Mitchel a ploughboy yet awhile.

We had tea at four o'clock--at which fashionable people may laugh; considering that it was real tea, not the sham one lately come into custom. Mrs. Todhetley wanted to get home by daylight, and the summer evenings were shortening. Never was brown bread-and-butter so sweet as the Jacobsons': we used to say it every time we went; and the home-baked rusks were better than Shrewsbury cake. They made Mrs. Todhetley put two or three in her bag for Hugh and Lena.

Old Duff went with us across the first field, turning off there to take the short-cut to his home. It was a warm, still, lovely evening, the moon rising. The gleaners were busy in the square paddock: Mrs. Todhetley spoke to some as we passed. At the other end, near the crooked stile, two urchins stood fighting, the bigger one trying to take a small armful of wheat from the other. I went to the rescue, and the marauder made off as fast as his small bare feet would carry him.

"He haven't gleaned, hisself, and wants to take mine," said the little one, casting up his big grey eyes to us appealingly through the tears. He was a delicate-looking pale-faced boy of nine, or so, with light hair.

"Very naughty of him," said Mrs. Todhetley. "What's your name?"

"It's Dick, lady."

"Dick--what?"

"Dick Mitchel."

"Dear me--I thought I had seen the face before," said Mrs. Todhetley to me. "But there are so many boys about here, Johnny; and they all look pretty much alike. How old are you, Dick?"

"I'm over ten," answered Dick, with an emphasis on the over. Children catch up ideas, and no doubt he was as eager as the parents could be to impress on the world his fitness to be a ploughboy.

"How is it that you have been gleaning, Dick?"

"Mother couldn't, 'cause o' the babby. They give me leave to come on since four o'clock: and I've got all this."

Dick looked at the stile and then at his bundle of wheat, so I took it while he got over. As we went on down the lane, Mrs. Todhetley inquired whether he wanted to be a ploughboy. Oh yes! he answered, his face lighting up, as if the situation offered some glorious prospect. It 'ud be two shilling a week; happen more; and mother said as he and Totty and Sam and the t'others 'ud get treacle to their bread on Sundays then. Apparently Mrs. Mitchel knew how to diplomatize.

"I'll give him one of the rusks, I think, Johnny," whispered Mrs. Todhetley.

But while she was taking it from the bag, he ran in with his wheat. She called to him to come back, and gave him one. His mother had taken the wheat from him, and looked out at the door with it in her hands. Seeing her, Mrs. Todhetley went up, and said Mr. Jacobson would not at present do anything. The next minute Mitchel appeared pulling at his straw hair.

"It is hard lines," he said, humbly, "when the lad's of a' age to be earning, and the master can't be got to take him on. And me to ha' worked on the same farm, man and boy; and father afore me."

"Mr. Jacobson thinks the boy would not be strong enough for the work."

"Not strong enough, and him rising eleven!" exclaimed Mitchel, as if the words were some dreadful aspersion on Dick. "How can he be strong if he gets no work to make him strong, ma'am? Strength comes with the working--and nobody don't oughtn't to know that better nor the master. Anyhow, if he _don't_ take him, it'll be cruel hard lines for us."

Dick was outside, dividing the rusk with a small girl and boy, all three seated in the lane, and looking as happy over the rusk as if they had been children in a fairy tale. "It's Totty," said he, pausing in the work of division to speak, "and that 'un's Sam." Mrs. Todhetley could not resist the temptation of finding two more rusks, which made one apiece.

"He is a good-natured little fellow, Johnny," she remarked, as we went along. "Intelligent, too: in that he takes after his mother."

"Would it be wrong to let him go on the farm as ploughboy?"

"Johnny, I don't know. I'd rather not give an opinion," she added, looking right before her into the moon, as if seeking for one there. "Of course he is not old enough or big enough, practically speaking; but on the other hand, where there are so many mouths to feed, it seems hard not to let him earn money if he can earn it. The root of the evil lies in there being so many mouths--as was said at Mr. Jacobson's this afternoon."

* * * * *

It was winter before I heard anything more of the matter. Tod and I got home for Christmas. One day in January, when the skies were lowering, and the air was cold and raw, but not frosty, I was crossing a field on old Jacobson's land then being ploughed. The three brown horses at the work were as fine as you'd wish to see.

"You'll catch it smart on that there skull o' yourn, if ye doan't keep their yeads straight, ye young divil."

The salutation was from the man at the tail of the plough to the boy at the head of the first horse. Looking round, I saw little Mitchel. The horses stopped, and I went up to him. Hall, the ploughman, took the opportunity to beat his arms. I dare say they were cold enough.

"So your ambition is attained, is it, Dick? Are you satisfied?"

Dick seemed not to understand. He was taller, but the face looked pinched, and there was never a smile on it.

"Do you like being a ploughboy?"

"It's hard and cold. Hard always; frightful cold of a morning."

"How's Totty?"

The face lighted up just a little. Totty weren't any better, but she didn't die; Jimmy did. Which was Jimmy?--Oh, Jimmy was after Nanny, next to the babby.

"What did Jimmy die of?"

Whooping cough. They'd all been bad but him--Dick. Mother said he'd had it when he was no older nor the babby.

Whether the whooping-cough had caused an undue absorption of Mitchel's means, certain it was, Dick looked famished. His cheeks were thin, his hands blue.

"Have you been ill, Dick?"

No, he had not been ill. 'Twas Jimmy and the t'others.

"He's the incapablest little villain I ever had put me to do with," struck in the ploughman. "More lazy nor a fattened pig."

"Are you lazy, Dick?"

I think an eager disclaimer was coming out, but the boy remembered in time who was present--his master, the ploughman.

"Not lazy wilful," he said, bursting into tears. "I does my best: mother tells me to."

"Take that, you young sniveller," said Hall, dealing him a good sound slap on the left cheek. "And now go on: ye know ye've got this lot to go through to-day."

He took hold of the plough, and Dick stretched up his poor trembling hands to the first horse to guide him. I am sure the boy _was_ trying to do his best; but he looked weak and famished and ill.

"Why did you strike him, Hall? He did nothing to deserve it."

"He don't deserve nothing else," was Hall's answer. "Let him alone, and the furrows 'ud be as crooked as a dog's leg. You dun' know what these young 'uns be for work, sir.--Keep 'em in the line, you fool!"

Looking back as I went down the field, I watched the plough going slowly up it, Dick seeming to have his hands full with the well-fed horses.

"Yes, I heard the lad was taken on, Johnny," Mrs. Todhetley said when I told her that evening. "Mitchel prevailed with his master at last. Mr. Jacobson is good-hearted, and knew the Mitchels were in sore need of the extra money the boy would earn. Sickness makes a difference to the poor as well as to the rich."

I saw Dick Mitchel three or four times during that January. The Jacobsons had two nephews staying with them from Oxfordshire, and it caused us to go over often. The boy seemed a weak little mite for the place; but of course, having undertaken the work, he had to do it. He was no worse off than others. To be at the farm before six o'clock, he had to leave home at half-past five, taking his breakfast with him, which was chiefly dry bread. As to the boy's work, it varied--as those acquainted with the executive of a busy farm can tell you. Besides the ploughing, he had to pump, and carry water and straw, and help with the horses, and go errands to the blacksmith's and elsewhere, and so on. Carters and ploughmen do not spare their boys; and on a large farm like this they are the immediate rulers, not the master himself. Had Dick been under Mr. Jacobson's personal eye, perhaps it might have been lightened a little, for he was a humane man. There were three things that made it seem particularly hard for Dick Mitchel, and those three were under no one's control; his natural weakliness, his living so far from the farm, and its being winter weather. In summer the work is nothing like as hard for the boys; and it was a great pity that Dick had not first entered on his duties in that season to get inured to them before the winter. Mr. Jacobson gave him the best wages--three shillings a week. Looking at the addition it must have seemed to Mitchel's ten, it was little wonder he had not ceased to petition old Jacobson.

The Jacobsons were kind to the boy--as I can affirm. One cold day when I was over there with the nephews, shooting birds, we went into the best kitchen at twelve o'clock for some pea-soup. They were going to carry the basins into the parlour, but we said we'd rather eat it there by the big blazing fire. Mrs. Jacobson came in. I can see her now, with a soft white woollen kerchief thrown over her shoulders to keep out the cold, and her net cap above her silver curls. We were getting our second basinfuls.

"Do have some, aunt," said Fred. "It's the best you ever tasted."

"No, thank you, Fred. I don't care to spoil my dinner."

"It won't spoil ours."

She laughed a little, and stood looking from the window into the fold-yard, saying presently that she feared the frost was going to set in now in earnest, which would not be pleasant for their journey.--For this was the last day of the nephews' stay, and she was going home with them for a week. There had been no very severe cold all the winter; which was a shame because of the skating; if the ponds had a thin coating of ice on them one day, it would all melt the next.

"Bless me! there's that poor child sitting out in the cold! What is he eating?--his dinner?"

Her words made us look from the window. Dick Mitchel had put himself down by the distant pig-sty, and seemed to be eating something that he held in his hands. He was very white--as might be seen even from where we stood.

"Mary," said she to one of the servants, "go and call that boy in."

Little Mitchel came in; pinched and blue. His clothes were thin, not half warm enough for the weather; an old red woollen comforter was twisted round his neck. He took off his battered drab hat, and put his bread into it.

"Is that your dinner?" asked Mrs. Jacobson.

"Yes'm," said Dick, pulling the forelock of his light hair.

"But why did you not go home to-day?"

"Mother said there was nothing but bread for dinner to-day, and she give it me to bring away with my breakfast."

"Well, why did you sit out in the cold? You might have gone indoors somewhere to eat it."

"I were tired, 'm," was all Dick answered.

To look at him, one would say the "tired" state was chronic. He was shivering slightly with the cold; his teeth chattered. Mrs. Jacobson took his hand, and put him to sit on a low wooden stool close to the fire, and gave him a basin of pea-soup.

"Let him have more if he can eat it," she said to Mary when she went away. So the boy for once was well warmed and fed.

Now, it may be thought that Mrs. Jacobson, being a kind old lady, might have told him to come in for some soup every cold day. And perhaps her will was good to do it. But it would never have answered. There were boys on the farm besides Dick, and no favour could be shown to one more than to another. No, nor to the boys more than to the men. Nor to the men on this farm more than to the men on that. Old Jacobson would have had his brother farmers pulling his ears. Those of you who are acquainted with the subject will know all this.

And there's another thing I had better say. In telling of Dick Mitchel, it will naturally sound like an exceptional or isolated case, because those who read have their attention directed to this one and not to others. But, in actual fact, Dick's was only one of a great many; the Jacobsons had employed ploughboys and other boys always; lots of them; some strong and some weak, just as the boys might happen to be. For a young boy to be out with the plough in the cold winter weather, seems nothing to a farmer and a farmer's men: it lies in the common course of events. He has to get through as he best can; he must work to eat; and as a compensating balance there comes the warmth and the easy work of summer. Dick Mitchel was only one of the race; the carter and ploughman, his masters, had begun life exactly as he had, had gone through the same ordeal, the hardships of a long winter's day and the frost and snow. Dick Mitchel was as capable of his duties as many another had been. Dick's father had been little and weakly in his boyhood, but he got over that and grew as strong as the rest of them. Dick might have got over it, too, but for some extraordinary weather that set in.

Mrs. Jacobson had been in Oxfordshire a week when old Jacobson started to fetch her home, intending to stay there two or three days. The weather since she left had been going on in the same stupid way; a thin coating of snow to be seen one day, the green of the fields the next. But on the morning after old Jacobson started, the frost set in with a vengeance, and we got our skates out. Another day came in, and the Squire declared he had never felt anything to equal the cold. We had not had it as sharp for years: and then, you see, he was too fat to skate. The best skating was on a pond on old Jacobson's land, which they called the lake from its size.

It was on this second day that I came across Dick Mitchel. Hastening home from the lake after dark--for we had skated till we couldn't see and then kept on by moonlight--the skates in my hand and all aglow with heat, who should be sitting by the bank on this side the crooked stile instead of getting over it, but little Mitchel. But for the moon shining right on his face, I might have passed without seeing him.

"You are taking it airily, young Dick. Got the gout?"

Dick just lifted his head and stared a little; but didn't speak.

"Come! Why don't you go home?"

"I'm tired," murmured Dick. "I'm cold."

"Get up. I'll help you over the stile."

He did as he was bid at once. We had got well on down the lane, and I had my hand on his shoulder to steady him, for his legs seemed to slip about like Punch's in the show, when he turned suddenly back again.

"The harness."

"The what?" I said.

Something seemed the matter with the boy: it was just as if he had partly lost the power of speech, or had been struck stupid. I made out at last that he had left some harness on the ground, which he was ordered to take to the blacksmith's.

"I'll get over for it, Dick. You stop where you are."

It was lying where he had been sitting; a short strap with a broken buckle. Dick took it and we went on again.

"Were you asleep, just now, Dick?"

"No, sir. It were the moon."

"What was the moon?"

"I were looking into it. Mother says God's all above there: I thought happen I might see Him."

A long explanation for Dick to-night. The recovery of the strap seemed to have brightened up his intellect.

"You'll never see Him in this world, Dick. He sees you always."

"And that's what mother says. He sees I can't do more nor my arms'll let me. I'd not like Him to think I can."

"All right, Dick. You only do your best always; He won't fail to see it."

I had hardly said the last words when down went Dick without warning, face foremost. Picking him up, I took a look into his eyes by the moonlight.

"What did you do that for, Dick?"

"I don't know."

"Is it your legs?"

"Yes, it's my legs. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it when I fell under the horses to-day, but Hall he beated of me and said I did."

After that I did not loose him; or I'm sure he would have gone down again. Arrived at his cottage, he was for passing it.

"Don't you know your own door, Dick Mitchel?"

"It's the strap," he said. "I ha' got to take it to Cawson's."

"Oh, I'll step round with that. Let's see what there is to do."

He seemed unwilling, saying he must take it back to Hall in the morning. Very well, I said, so he could. We went in at his door; and at first I thought I must have got into a black fog. The room was a narrow, poking place; but I couldn't see across it. Two children were coughing, one choking, one crying. Mrs. Mitchel's face, ornamented with blacks, gradually loomed out to view through the atmosphere.

"It be the chimbley, sir. I hope you'll please to excuse it. It don't smoke as bad as this except when the weather's cold beyond common."

"It's to be hoped it doesn't. I should call it rather miserable if it did."

"Yes, sir. Mitchel, he says he thinks the chimbley must have frozed."

"Look here, Mrs. Mitchel, I've brought Dick home: I found him sitting in the cold on the other side of the stile, and my belief is, he thought he could not get over it. He is about as weak as a young rat."

"It's the frost, sir," she said. "The boys all feel it that has to be out and about. It'll soon be gone, Dick. This here biting cold don't never last long."

Dick was standing against her, bending his face on her old stuff gown. She put her arm about him kindly.

"No, it can't last long, Mrs. Mitchel. Could he not be kept indoors until it gives a bit--let him have a holiday? No? Wouldn't it do?"

She opened her eyes wide at this. Such a thing as keeping a ploughboy at home for a holiday, had never entered her imagination.

"Why, Master Ludlow, sir, he'd lose his place!"

"But, suppose he were ill, and had to stay at home?"

"Then the Lord help us, if it came to that! Please, sir, his wages might be stopped. I've heard of a master paying in illness, though it's not many of 'em as would, but I've never knowed 'em pay for holidays. The biting cold will go soon, Dick," she added, looking at him; "don't be downhearted."

"I should give him a cup of hot tea, Mrs. Mitchel, and let him go to bed. Good night; I'm off."

I should have liked to say beer instead of tea; it would have put a bit of strength into the boy; but I might just as well have suggested wine, for all they had of either. Leaving the strap at the blacksmith's--it was but a minute or two out of my road--I told him to send it up to Mitchel's as soon as it was done.

"I dare say!" was what I got in answer.

"Look here, Cawson: the lad's ill, and his father was not in the way. If you don't choose to let your boy run up with that, or take it yourself, you shall never have another job of work from the Squire if I can prevent it."

"I'll send it, sir," said Cawson, coming to his senses. Not that he had much from us: we chiefly patronized Dovey, down in Piefinch Cut.

Now, all this happened: as Duffham and others could testify if necessary; it is not put in to make up a story. But I never thought worse of Dick than that he was done over for the moment with the cold.

Of all days in remembrance, the next was the worst. The cold was more intense--though that had seemed impossible; and a fierce wind was blowing that cut you in two. It kept us from skating--and that's saying a good deal. We got half-way to the lake, and couldn't stand it, so turned home again. Jacobson's team was out, braving the weather: we saw it at a distance.

"What a fool that waggoner must be to bring out the team to-day!" cried Tod. "He can't do any good on this hard ground. He must be doing it for bravado. It is a sign his master's not at home."

In the afternoon, when a good hot meal had put warmth into us, we thought we'd be off again; and this time gained the pond. The wind was like a knife; I never skated in anything like it before; but we kept on till dusk.

Going homewards, in passing Glebe Cottage, which lay away on the left, we caught sight of three or four people standing before it.

"What's to do there?" asked Tod of a man, expecting to hear that old Mrs. Parry had had a second stroke.

"Sum'at's wrong wi' Jacobson's ploughboy," was the answer. "He has just been took in there."

"Jacobson's ploughboy! Why, Tod, that must be Dick Mitchel."

"And what if it is!" returned Tod, starting off again. "The youngster's half frozen, I dare say. Let us get home. Johnny. What are you stopping for?"

By saying "half frozen" he meant nothing. Not a thought of real ill was in his mind. I went across to the house; and met Hall the ploughman coming out of it.

"Is Dick Mitchel ill, Hall?"

"He ought to be, sir; if he bain't shamming," returned Hall, crustily. "He have fell down five times since noon, and the last time wouldn't get up upon his feet again nohow. Being close a-nigh the old lady's I carried of him in."

Hall went back to the house with me. I don't think he much liked the boy's looks. Dick had been put to lie on the warm brick floor before the kitchen fire, a blanket on his legs, and his head on a cushion. Mrs. Parry was ill in bed upstairs. The servant looked a stupid young country girl, seemingly born without wits.

"Have you given him anything?" I asked her.

"Please, sir, I've put the kettle on to bile."

"Is there any brandy in the house?"

"_Brandy!_" the girl exclaimed with wonder. No. Her missis never took anything stronger nor tea and water gruel.

"Hall," I said, looking at the man, "some one must go for Mr. Duffham. And Dick's mother might as well be told."

Bill Leet, a strapping young fellow standing by, made off at this, saying he'd bring them both. Hall went away to his team, and I stooped over the boy.

"What is the matter, Dick? Tell me how you feel."

Except that Dick smiled a little, he made no answer. His eyes, gazing up into mine, looked dim. The girl had taken away the candle, but the fire was bright. As I took one of his hands to rub it, his fingers clasped themselves round mine. Then he began to say something, with a pause between each word. I had to bend close to catch it.

"He--brought--that--there--strap."

"All right, Dick."

"Thank--ee--sir."

"Are you in any pain, Dick?"

"No."

"Or cold?"

"No."

The girl came back with a candle and some hot milk in a tea-cup. I put a teaspoonful into Dick's mouth. But he could not swallow it. Who should come rushing in then but old Jones the constable, wanting to know what was up.

"Well I never!--why, that's Mitchel's Dick!" cried Jones, peering down in the candle-light. "What's took _him_?"

"Jones, if you and the girl will rub his hands, I'll go and get some brandy. We can't let him lie like this and give him nothing."

Old Jones, liking the word brandy on his own score, knelt down on his fat gouty legs with a groan, and laid hold of one of the hands, the girl taking the other. I went leaping off to Elm Farm.

And went for nothing. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson being out, the cellar was locked up, and no brandy could be got at. The cook gave me a bottle of gooseberry wine; which she said might do as well if hotted up.

Duffham was stooping over the boy when I got back, his face long, and his cane lying on the ironing-board. Bill Leet had met him half-way, so no time was lost. He was putting something into Dick's lips with a teaspoon--perhaps brandy. But it ran the wrong way; out instead of in. Dick never stirred, and his eyes were shut. The doctor got up.

"Too late, Johnny," he whispered.

The words startled me. "Mr. Duffham! No?"

He looked into my eyes, and nodded YES. "The exposure to-day has been too much for him. He is going fast."

And just at that moment Hannah Mitchel came in. I have often thought that the extreme poor, whose lives are but one vast hardship from the cradle to the grave, who have to struggle always, do not feel strong emotion. At any rate, they don't show much. Hannah Mitchel knelt down, and looked quietly at the white, shrunken face.

"Dicky," she said, putting his hair gently back from his brow; which now had a damp moisture on it. "What's amiss, Dicky?"

He opened his eyes at the voice and feebly lifted one hand towards her. Mrs. Mitchel glanced round at the doctor's face; and I think she read the truth there. She gathered his poor head into her arms, and let it rest on her bosom. Her old black shawl was on, her bonnet fell backwards and hung from her neck by the strings.

"Oh, Dicky! Dicky!"

He lay still, looking at her. She gave one sob and choked the rest down.

"Be he dying, sir?--ain't there no hope?" she cried to Mr. Duffham, who was standing in the blaze of the fire. And the doctor just moved his head for answer.

There was a still hush in the kitchen. Her tears began to fall down her cheeks slowly and softly.

"Dicky, wouldn't you like to say 'Our Father'?"

"I--'ve--said--it,--mother."

"You've always been a good boy, Dicky."

Old Jones blew his nose; the stupid girl burst into a sob. Mr. Duffham told them to hush.

Dick's eyes were slowly closing. The breath was very faint now, and came at long intervals. Presently Mr. Duffham took him from his mother, and laid him down flat, without the cushion.

Well, he died. Poor little Dick Mitchel died. And I think, taking the wind and the work into consideration, that he was better off.

Mr. Jacobson got back the next day. He sharply taxed the ploughman with the death, saying he ought to have seen the state the boy was in on that last bitter day, and have sent him home. But Hall declared he never thought anything ailed the boy, except that the cold was cutting him more than ordinary, just as it was cutting everybody else.

The county coroner came over to hold the inquest. The jury, after hearing what Mr. Duffham had to say, brought it in that Richard Mitchel died from exposure to the cold during the recent remarkable severity of the weather, not having sufficient stamina to resist it. Some of the local newspapers took it up, being in want of matter that dreary season. They attacked the farmers; asking the public whether labourers' children were to be held as of no more value than this, in a free and generous country like England, and why they were made to work so young by such hard and wicked task-masters as the master of Elm Farm. That put the master of Elm Farm on his mettle. He retorted by a letter of sharp good sense; finishing it with a demand to know whether the farmers were expected to club together to provide meat and puddings gratis for the flocks of children that labourers chose to gather about them. The Squire read it aloud to every one, as the soundest letter he'd ever seen written.

"I am afraid their view is the right one--that the children are too thick on the ground, poor things," sighed Mrs. Todhetley. "Any way, Johnny, it is very hard on the young ones to have to work as poor little Dick did: late and early, wet or dry: and I am glad for his sake that God has taken him."

X.

A HUNT BY MOONLIGHT.

This is another tale of our school life. It is not much in itself, you may say, but it was to lead to lasting events. Curious enough, it is, to sit down and trace out the beginning of things: when we _can_ trace it; but it is often too remote for us.

Mrs. Frost died, and the summer holidays were prolonged in consequence. September was not far off when we met again, and gigs and carriages went bowling up with us and our boxes.

Sanker was in the large class-room when we got in. He looked up for a minute, and turned his head away. Tod and I went up to him. He did shake hands, and it was as much as you could say. I don't think he was the sort of fellow to bear malice; but it took time to bring him round if once offended.

Sanker had gone home with us to Dyke Manor when the holidays began. He belonged to a family in Wales (very poor they were now), and was a distant cousin of Mrs. Todhetley's. Before he had been with us long, a matter occurred that put him out, and he betook himself away from the Manor there and then. But I do not intend to go into that history now.

Things had been queer at school towards the close of the past term. Petty pilferings took place: articles and money alike disappeared. A thief was amongst us, and no mistake: but we did not know where to look for him. It was to be hoped that the same thing would not occur again.

"My father and Mrs. Todhetley are in the drawing-room," said Tod. "They are asking to see you."

Sanker hesitated; but he went at last. The interview softened things a little, for he was civil to us when he came back again.

"What's that about the plants?" he asked me.

I told him what. They had been destroyed in some unaccountable manner. "Whether it was done intentionally, or whether moving them into the hall and back again did it, is not positively decided; I don't suppose it ever will be. You ought to have come over to that ball, Sanker, after all of us writing to press it."

"Well," he said, coldly. "I don't care for balls. Monk was suspected, was he not?"

"Yes. Some of us suspect him still. He was savage at being accused of--But never mind that"--and I pulled myself up in sudden recollection. "Monk has left, and we have engaged another gardener. Jenkins is not good for much."

"Hallo! What has _he_ come back?"

Ned Sanker was looking towards the door as he spoke. Two of them were coming in, who must have arrived at the same time--Vale and Lacketer. They were new ones, so to say, both having entered only last Easter. Vale was a tall, quiet fellow, with a fair, good-looking face and mild blue eyes; his friends lived at Vale Farm, about two miles off. Lacketer had sleek black hair, and a sharp nose; he had only an aunt, and was from Oxfordshire. I didn't like him. He had a way of cringing to those of us who were born to position in the world; but any poor friendless chap, who had nothing but himself and his work to get on by, he put upon shamefully. As for him, we couldn't find out that he'd ever had any relations at all, except the aunt.

I looked at Sanker, to see which he alluded to; his eyes were fixed on Vale with a stare. Vale had not been going to leave, that the school knew of.

"Why are you surprised that he has come back, Sanker?"

"Because I--didn't suppose he _would_," said Sanker, with a pause where I have put it, and an uncommonly strong emphasis on the "would."

It was just as though he had known something about Vale. Flashing across my memory came the mysterious avowal Sanker had made at our house about the discovery of the thief at school; and I now connected the one with the other. They call me a muff, I know, but I cannot help my thoughts.

"Sanker! was _he_ the thief?"

"Hold your tongue, Ludlow," returned Sanker, in a fright. "I told you I'd give him a chance again, didn't I? But I never thought he would come back to take it."

"I would have believed it of any fellow rather than of Vale."

Sanker turned his face sharp, and looked at me. "Oh, would you?" said he, after a pause. "Well, then, you'd _better_ believe it of any other. Mind you do. It will be safer, Johnny Ludlow."

He walked away into a group of them, as if afraid of my saying more. I turned out at the door leading to the playground, and came upon Tod in the porch.

"What was that you and Sanker were saying about Vale, Johnny?"

I was aware that I ought not to tell him; I knew I ought not: but I _did_. Tod read me always as one reads a book, and I had never attempted to keep from him any earthly thing.

"Sanker says it was Vale. About the things lost last half. He told me, you know, that he had discovered who it was that took them."

"What, he the thief! Vale?"

"Hush, Tod. Give him another chance, as Sanker says."

Tod rushed out of the porch with a bound. He had heard a movement on the other side the trellis-work, but was only in time to catch a glimpse of a tassel disappearing round the corner.

We went in for noise at Worcester House just as much as they do at other schools; but not this afternoon. Mrs. Frost had been a favourite, and Sanker told us about her funeral. Things seemed to wear a mournful look. The servants were in black, the Doctor was in jet black, even to his gaiters. He wore the old style of dress always, knee breeches and buckles: but I have mentioned this before. We used to call him old Frost; this afternoon we said "the Doctor."

"You can't think what it was like while the house was shut up," said Sanker. "Coal-pits are jolly to it. I never saw the Doctor until the funeral. Being the only fellow at school, was, I suppose, the reason they asked me to go to it. He cried ever so much over the grave."

"Fancy old Frost crying!" interrupted Lacketer.

"I cried too," avowed Sanker, in a short sharp tone, as if disapproving of the remark; and it silenced Lacketer. "She had been ailing a long time, as we all knew, but she only grew very ill at the last, she told me."

"When did you see her?"

"Two days before she died. Hall came to me, saying I was to go up. It was on Wednesday at sunset. The hot red sun was shining right into the room, and she sat back from it on the sofa in a white gown. It was very hot these holidays, and she felt at times fit to die of it: she never bore heat well."

To hear Sanker tell this was nearly as good as a play. A solemn play I mean. None of us made the least noise as we stood round him: it seemed as if we could see Mrs. Frost's room, and her nice placid face, drawn back from the rays of the red hot sun.

"She told me to reach a little Bible that was on the drawers, and sit close to her and read a chapter," continued Sanker. "It was the seventh of St. John's Revelation; where that verse is, that says there shall be no more hunger and thirst; neither shall the sun light on them nor any heat. She held my hand while I read it. I had complained of the light for her, saying what a pity it was the room had no shutters. 'You see,' she said, when the chapter was read, 'how soon all discomforts here will pass away. Give my dear love to the boys when they come back,' she went on. 'Tell them I should like to have seen them all and said good-bye. Not good-bye for ever; be sure tell them that, Sanker: I leave them all a charge to come to me _there_ in God's good time. Not one of them must fail.' And now I've told you, and it's off my mind," concluded Sanker, in a different voice.

"Did you see her again?"

"When she was in her coffin. She gave me the Bible."

Sanker took it out of his pocket. His name was written in it, "Edward Brooke Sanker, with Mary Frost's love." She had made him promise to read in it daily, if he began only with one verse. He did not tell us that then.

While we were looking at the writing, Bill Whitney came in. Some of them thought he had left at Midsummer. Lacketer shook hands; he made much of Whitney, after the fashion of his mind and manners. Old Whitney was a baronet, and Bill would be Sir William sometime: for his elder brother, John, whom we had so much liked, was dead. Bill was good-natured, and divided hampers from home liberally.

"_I_ don't know why I am back again," he said, in answer to questions; "you must ask Sir John. I shall be the better for another year or two of it, he says. Who likes grapes?"

He was beginning to undo a basket he had brought with him: it was filled with grapes, peaches, plums, and nectarines. Those of us who had plenty of fruit at home did not care to take much; but the others went in for it eagerly.

"Our peaches are finer than these, Whitney," cried Vale.

Lacketer gave Vale a push. "You big lout, mind your manners!" cried he. "Don't eat the peaches if you don't like 'em."

"So they were," said Vale, who never answered offensively.

"There! that's enough insolence from _you_."

Old Vale was Sir John Whitney's tenant. Of course, according to Lacketer's creed, Vale deserved putting down for only speaking to Whitney.

"He is right," said Whitney, who thought no more of being his father's son than he would of being a shopkeeper's. "Mr. Vale's peaches this year were the finest in the county. He sent my mother some, and she said they ought to have gone up to a London fruit-show."

"I never saw such peaches as Mr. Vale's," put in Sanker, talking at Lacketer, and not kindly. "And the flavour was as good as the look. Mrs. Frost enjoyed those peaches to the last: it was almost the only thing she took."

Vale's face shone. "We shall always be glad at home that they were so good this year, for her sake."

Altogether, Lacketer was shut up. He stood over Whitney, who was undoing a small desk he had brought. Amidst the things, that lay on the ledge inside, was a thin, yellow, old-fashioned-looking coin.

"It's a guinea," said Bill Whitney. "I mean to have a hole bored in it and wear it to my watch-chain."

"I'd lock it up safely until then, Whitney," burst forth Snepp, who came from Alcester. "Or it may go after the things that were lost last half-year."

Turning to glance at Sanker, I found he had left the room. Whitney was balancing the guinea on his finger.

"Fore-warned, fore-armed, Snepp," he said. "Who the thief was, I can't think; but I advise him not to begin his game again."

"Talking of warning, I should like to give one on my own score," said Tod. "By-gones may be by-gones; I don't wish to recur to them; but if I lose anything this half and can find the thief, I'll put him into the river."

"What, to drown him?"

"To duck him. I'll do it as sure as my name's Todhetley."

Vale dropped his handkerchief and stooped to pick it up again. It might have been an accident; and the redness of his face might have come of stooping; but I saw Tod did not think so. Ducking is the favourite punishment in Worcestershire for a public offender, as all the county knows. When a man misbehaves himself on the race-course at Worcester, they duck him in the Severn underneath.

"The guinea would not be of much use to any one," said Lacketer. "You couldn't pass it."

"Oh, couldn't you, though!" answered Whitney. "You'd better try. It's worth twenty-one shillings, and they might give a shilling or two in for the antiquity of the coin."

"Gentlemen."

We turned to see the Doctor, standing there in his deep mourning, with his subdued red face. He came in to introduce a new master.

* * * * *

The time went on. We missed Mrs. Frost; and Hall, the crabbed woman with the cross face, made a mean substitute. She had it all her own way now. The puddings had less jam in them, and the pies hardly any fruit. Little Landon fell ill; and one day, after hours, when some of us went up to see him, we found him crying for Mrs. Frost. He was only seven; the youngest in the school, and made a sort of plaything of; an orphan with no friends to see to him much. Illness had been Mrs. Frost's great point. Any of us who were laid by she'd sit with half the day, reading nice stories, and talking to us of good things, just as our mothers might do. I know mine would if she had lived. However, we managed to get along in spite of Hall, hoping the Doctor would find her out and discharge her.

Matters went on quietly for some weeks. No one lost anything: and we had almost forgotten there had been a doubt that we might lose something, when it occurred. The loss was Tod's--rather curious, at first sight, that it should be, after his threat of what he would do. And Tod, as they all knew, was not one to break his word. It was only half-a-crown; but there could be no certainty that sovereigns would not go next. Not to speak of the disagreeable sense of feeling the thief was amongst us still, and taking to his tricks again.

Tod was writing to Evesham for some articles he wanted. Bill Whitney, knowing this, got him to add an order for some stationery for himself: which came back in the parcel. The account, nine-and-tenpence, was made out to Tod ("Joseph Todhetley, Esquire!"), half-a-crown of it being Whitney's portion. Bill handed him the half-crown at once; and Tod, who was busy with his own things and had his hands full, asked him to put it on the mantelpiece.

The tea-bell rang, and they went away and forgot it. Only they two had been in the room. But others might have gone in afterwards. We were getting up from tea when Tod called to me to go and fetch him the half-crown.

"It is on the mantelpiece, Johnny."

I went through the passages and turned into the box-room; a place where knots of us gathered sometimes. But the mantelpiece had no half-crown on it, and I carried the news back to Tod.

"Did you take it up again, Bill?" he asked of Whitney.

"I didn't touch it after I put it down," said Whitney. "It was there when the tea-bell rang."

They said I had overlooked it, and both went to the box-room. I followed slowly; thinking they should search for themselves. Which they did; and were standing with blank faces when I got in.

"It has gone after my guinea," Whitney was saying.

"What guinea?"

"My guinea. The one you saw. That disappeared a week ago."

Bill was not a fellow to make much row over anything; but Tod--and I, too--wondered at his having taken it so easily. Tod asked him why he had not spoken.

"Because Lacketer--who was with me when I discovered the loss--asked me to be silent for a short time," said Whitney. "He has a suspicion; and is looking out for himself."

"Lacketer has?"

"He says so. I am sure he has. He thinks he could put his finger any minute on the fellow; but it would not do to accuse him without proof; and he is waiting for it."

Tod glanced at me, and I at him, both of us thinking of Vale.

"Yesterday Lacketer lost something himself," continued Whitney. "A shilling, I think it was. He went into a fine way over it, and said now he'd watch in earnest."

"Who is it he suspects?" asked Tod.

"He won't tell me; says it would not be fair."

"Well, I shall talk about my half-crown, if you and Lacketer choose to be silent over your losses," said Tod, decisively. "And I'll be as good as my word, and give the reptile a ducking if I can track him."

He went straight to the playground. It was a fine October evening, the daylight nearly gone, and the hunter's moon rising in the sky. Tod told about his half-crown, and the boys ceased their noise to listen to him. He talked himself into a passion, and said some stinging things. "He suspected who it was, and he heard that Lacketer suspected, and he fancied that another or two suspected, and one _knew_; and he thought, now that affairs had come to this pitch, when nothing, put for a minute out of hand, was safe, it might be better for them all to declare their suspicions, and hunt the animal as they'd hunt a hare."

There was a pause when Tod finished. He was about the biggest and strongest in the school; his voice was one of power, his manner ready and decisive; so that it was just as though a master spoke. Lacketer came out from amongst them, looking white. I could see that in the twilight.

"Who says I suspect? Speak for yourself, Todhetley. Don't bring up my name."

"Do you scent the fox, or don't you?" roared Tod back again, not at all in a humour to be crossed. "If you _do_, you must speak, and not shirk it. Is the whole school to lie under doubt because of one black sheep?"

Tod's concluding words were drowned in noise; applause for him, murmurs for Lacketer. I looked round for Vale, and saw him behind the rest, as if preparing to make a run for it. That said nothing: he was one of those quiet-natured fellows who liked to keep aloof from rows. When I looked back again, Sanker was standing a little forward, not far from Lacketer.

"As good speak as not, Lacketer," put in Whitney. "I don't mind telling now that that guinea of mine has been taken; and you know you lost a shilling yourself. You say you could put your finger on the fellow."

"Speak!" "Speak!" "Speak!" came the shouts from all quarters. And Lacketer turned whiter.

"There's no proof," he said. "I might have been mistaken in what I fancied. I _won't_ speak."

"Then I shall say you are an accomplice," roared Tod, in his passion. "I intend to hunt the fellow to earth to-night, and I'll do it."

"I don't suspect any one in particular," said Lacketer, looking as if he were run to earth himself. "There."

Great commotion. Lacketer was hustled, but got away and disappeared. Sanker went after him. Tod had been turning on Sanker, saying why didn't _he_ speak.

"Half-a-crown is half-a-crown, and I mean to get mine back again," avowed Tod. "If some of you are rich enough to lose your half-crowns, I'm not. But it isn't that. Sovereigns may go next. It isn't _that_. It is the knowing that we have a light-fingered, disreputable, sneaking rat amongst us, whose proper place would be a reformatory, not a school for honest men's sons."

"Name!" "Proofs!" "Proofs!" "Name!" It was as if a torrent had been let loose. In the midst of the lull that ensued a voice was heard, and a name.

"_Vale._ Harry Vale."

Harding was the one to say it: a clever, first-class boy. You might have heard a pin drop in the surprise: and Harding went on after a minute.

"I beg to state that I do not accuse Vale myself. I know nothing whatever about the case. But I have reason to think Vale's name is the one that has been mentioned in connection with the losses last half."

"I know it is," cried Tod, who had only wanted the lead, not choosing to take it himself. "Now then, Vale, make your defence if you can."

I dare say you recollect how hotly you used to take up a cause when you were at school yourselves, not waiting to know whether it might be right or wrong. Mrs. Frost said to us on one of these occasions she wondered whether we should ever be as eager to take up heaven. They pounced upon Vale with an awful row. He stood with his arm round one of the trees behind, looking scared to death. I glanced back for Sanker, expecting his confirming testimony, but could not see him, and at that moment Lacketer appeared again, peeping round the trees. Whitney called to him.

"Here, Lacketer. Was it Vale you suspected?"

"As much as I did anybody else," doggedly answered Lacketer.

It was taken as an affirmative. The boys believed the thief was found, and were mad against him. Vale spoke something, shaking and trembling like the leaves in the wind, but his words were drowned. He was not brave, and they looked ready to tear him to pieces.

"My half-crown, Vale," roared Tod. "Did you take it just now?"

Vale made no answer; I thought he could not. His face frightened me; the lips were blue and drawn, his teeth chattered.

"Search his pockets."

It was a simultaneous thought, for a dozen said it. Vale was turned out, and half-a-crown found upon him; no other money. The boys yelled and groaned. Tod, with his great strength, pushed them aside, as the coin was flung to him.

"Shall I resume possession of this half-crown?" he asked of Vale, holding it before him in defiant mockery.

"If you like. I----"

Vale broke down with a gasp and a sob. His piteous aspect might have moved even Tod.

"Look here," said he, "I don't care in general to punish a coward; I regard him as an abject animal beneath me: but I cannot go from my word. Ducking is too good for you, Vale, but you shall have it. Be off to that tree yonder; we'll give you so much grace. Let him start fair, boys, and then hound him on. It will be a fine chase."