Chapter VI: Poor Stray!

BOB was eager to tell Mrs. Winter about his visit to the grand hotel on Clifton Down, which had seemed to him quite a palace, and all that Lady Margaret Browning had said to him; but he had no opportunity of doing so till the next day when, late in the evening, he went upstairs for the night. Then he had half an hour's talk with her in her attic. She heard all he had to tell with the greatest interest, and remarked smilingly that she supposed he felt himself a rich man now he was the owner of five pounds.

"Oh, yes!" he agreed; "it's a lot of money, isn't it? But the worst of it is Aunt Martha doesn't want me to spend it. She's going to keep it for me till father comes back. I should like to give Jackie a present; but she won't agree to my spending even a few shillings?"

"I think, perhaps she's right," said Mrs. Winter, "If you broke the five pounds you'd probably spend more than would be wise. Think how surprised and delighted your father will be to find you with five whole pounds, Bob!"

"Yes! He shall have them all, Mrs. Winter!" Mrs. Winter nodded.

"Now," she said, "I've something to tell you. I've been talking to-day to someone who knows about Lady Margaret Browning, and I've found out that she's the daughter of that young lady I was telling you about, the 'Miss Peggy' I loved so much. So you see I had seen the ruby brooch before."

"Oh, how strange!" Bob cried, in amazement.

"Yes, isn't it? Miss Peggy's husband wasn't an earl when she married him; he only became one on the death of an uncle a few years since. Oh, how I'd love to see Miss Peggy's daughter!"

"Perhaps you will some day," Bob replied quickly, "for I do believe she means to come and see Jackie and me, though Aunt Martha says she'll go away and not think of me again."

"She'll think of you again if she's anything like her mother," Mrs. Winter told him, "and from what you say, I think she may be. It was just like her mother to ask God's blessing on your father. 'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.' That's something worth having, isn't it?"

Next morning at breakfast Bob told his aunt that Mrs. Winter had been nurse to Lady Margaret Browning's mother, and she was greatly surprised.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed, "who'd have thought it! And Mrs. Winter so poor too!"

"Do you think she's very poor?" asked Bob anxiously.

His aunt nodded.

"She told me herself she's only a few shillings a week more than her old-age pension to live on," she said; "it's hard lines for her, because I hear from outsiders that her husband left her a few hundreds—she lent the money to a relative who lost it in his business. If I was she I'd apply to Lady Margaret Browning for help."

"Oh, I don't think she'd like to!" Bob answered quickly, for he realised his kind old friend was not the sort of person to ask charity.

Nevertheless, he quite made up his mind that when he saw Lady Margaret Browning again—he believed he would see her again—that he would tell her all about her dead mother's old nurse.

Bob was kept busy by his aunt that morning, running errands. He was toiling along with a heavy basket filled with vegetables and fruit when he came around a corner upon Tom Smith. He would have passed without speaking, but Tom stood in front of him and stopped him.

"Hulloa; youngster!" was the bully's greeting, followed by the question: "What about that brooch?"

"Well, what about it?" said Bob coldly. Tom gave him a shrewd look. "I suppose you saw the printed bills in the shop windows?" he said inquiringly. "Well—" as Bob nodded—"did you get the reward?"

"Yes, of course."

"And what about me in the matter?" Tom asked, much to Bob's amazement. "You know I saw the brooch on the ground at the same time as you did," he went on untruthfully, "but you were quicker than me and picked it up first."

"I don't know anything of the sort!" Bob cried indignantly. "How can you tell such a wicked story?"

"It's not a wicked story and I dare you to say so! It's true! And my word's as good as yours, I hope! You ought to halve that five pounds with me, or, at any rate, give me something out of it."

"I'm not going to give you anything!"

"You're not?"

"No."

Tom took a step nearer to Bob, and made a threatening gesture as though he would strike him. Bob looked him steadily in the eyes, and did not flinch. The bully hesitated a minute, then a cruel expression crossed his face.

"If you don't give me a share of that five pounds I'll make you wish you had!" he declared. "Come, now, a pound will satisfy me. No? Ten shillings then?"

"I won't give you a farthing," Bob told him, "for I am positive you never saw the brooch before I'd picked it up. Let me pass. I can't stop talking any longer! Do you hear? Let me pass!"

Instead of doing so Tom gave Bob a violent push which made him stagger and upset some apples from his basket. In a minute several big boys, friends of Tom Smith's, who had been standing by, listening and watching, had pounced upon the apples and made off with them. Bob stood aghast with dismay, whilst Tom broke into a roar of laughter and quickly followed his friends.

"Whatever will Aunt Martha say?" thought poor Bob. "And they are eating apples, too, not cheap cooking ones!"

Unfortunately for Bob Mrs. Mead was not in a good humour when he returned home with the tale that some boys had stolen the apples from him, and she was too angry to listen when he attempted to explain all that had happened.

"You're not to be trusted!" she said severely. "Why, those apples were worth twopence each! Early apples are always dear, especially dessert ones. What's that you say, that a boy you'd been talking to was to blame and not you? What business had you dawdling away your time talking to any one, pray? Don't try to make any more excuses, and get out of my sight!"

Bob obeyed. He went upstairs, but found the attics empty. No doubt Mrs. Winter and Jackie and Stray had gone for a walk. He seated himself on the edge of his bed to wait for their return, his heart hot with indignation and the feeling that he had been unjustly treated. By-and-bye, being very tired, he took off his dusty boots, and lay down on the bed to rest. In a few minutes he was asleep.

Bob had been asleep for nearly an hour when he was awakened by voices in the other attic. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and called—

"Jackie! Jackie!"

"Oh, come here, Bobbie!" was the answer. "Stray's hurted!"

Bob bounded off the bed and rushed into Mrs. Winter's attic. Jackie was there, in tears, and Mrs. Winter, who was kneeling on the floor beside Stray. The dog was allowing his mistress to examine a nasty cut behind one of his ears.

"Oh, Bobbie," Jackie cried, "Stray's hurted drefful! A bad boy did it. He threw a stone and hit him."

"The brute!" exclaimed Bob furiously. "The cowardly brute! It must have been Tom Smith! Oh, poor Stray!—poor Stray!"