Was it you, my young friend?”
John Halifax, emptying his soaked boots, answered, “I suppose so.”
“Indeed, we owe you much.”
“Not more than a crown will pay,” said young Brithwood, gruffly; “I know him, Cousin March. He works in Fletcher the Quaker’s tan-yard.”
“Nonsense!” cried Mr. March, who had stood looking at the boy with a kindly, even half-sad air. “Impossible! Young man, will you tell me to whom I am so much obliged?”
“My name is John Halifax.”
“Yes; but WHAT are you?”
“What he said. Mr. Brithwood knows me well enough: I work in the tan-yard.”
“Oh!” Mr. March turned away with a resumption of dignity, though evidently both surprised and disappointed. Young Brithwood laughed.
“I told you so, cousin. Hey, lad!” eyeing John over, “you’ve been out at grass, and changed your coat for the better: but you’re certainly the same lad that my curricle nearly ran over one day; you were driving a cart of skins — pah! I remember.”
“So do I,” said John, fiercely; but when the youth’s insolent laughter broke out again he controlled himself. The laughter ceased.
“Well, you’ve done me a good turn for an ill one, young — what’s-your-name, so here’s a guinea for you.” He threw it towards him; it fell on the ground, and lay there.
“Nay, nay, Richard,” expostulated the sickly gentleman, who, after all, WAS a gentleman. He stood apparently struggling with conflicting intentions, and not very easy in his mind. “My good fellow,” he said at last, in a constrained voice, “I won’t forget your bravery. If I could do anything for you — and meanwhile if a trifle like this”— and he slipped something into John’s hand.
John returned it with a bow, merely saying “that he would rather not take any money.”
The gentleman looked very much astonished. There was a little more of persistence on one side and resistance on the other; and then Mr. March put the guineas irresolutely back into his pocket, looking the while lingeringly at the boy — at his tall figure, and flushed, proud face.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen, nearly.”
“Ah!” it was almost a sigh. He turned away, and turned back again. “My name is March — Henry March; if you should ever —”
“Thank you, sir. Good-day.”
“Good-day.” I fancied he was half inclined to shake hands — but John did not, or would not, see it. Mr. March walked on, following young Brithwood; but at the stile he turned round once more and glanced at John. Then they disappeared.
“I’m glad they’re gone: now we can be comfortable.” He flung himself down, wrung out his wet stockings, laughed at me for being so afraid he would take cold, and so angry at young Brithwood’s insults. I sat wrapped in my cloak, and watched him making idle circles in the sandy path with the rose-switch he had cut.
A thought struck me. “John, hand me the stick and I’ll give you your first writing lesson.”
So there, on the smooth gravel, and with the rose-stem for a pen, I taught him how to form the letters of the alphabet and join them together. He learned them very quickly — so quickly, that in a little while the simple copy-book that Mother Earth obliged us with was covered in all directions with “J O H N— John.”
“Bravo!” he cried, as we turned homeward, he flourishing his gigantic pen, which had done such good service; “bravo! I have gained something today!”
Crossing the bridge over the Avon, we stood once more to look at the waters that were “out.” They had risen considerably, even in that short time, and were now pouring in several new channels, one of which was alongside of the high road; we stopped a good while watching it. The current was harmless enough, merely flooding a part of the Ham; but it awed us to see the fierce power of waters let loose. An old willow-tree, about whose roots I had often watched the king-cups growing, was now in the centre of a stream as broad as the Avon by our tan-yard, and thrice as rapid. The torrent rushed round it — impatient of the divisions its great roots caused — eager to undermine and tear it up. Inevitably, if the flood did not abate, within a few hours more there would be nothing left of the fine old tree.
“I don’t quite like this,” said John, meditatively, as his quick eye swept down the course of the river, with the houses and wharves that abutted on it, all along one bank. “Did you ever see the waters thus high before?”
“Yes, I believe I have; nobody minds it at Norton Bury; it is only the sudden thaw, my father says, and he ought to know, for he has had plenty of experience, the tan-yard being so close to the river.”
“I was thinking of that; but come, it’s getting cold.”
He took me safe home, and we parted cordially — nay, affectionately — at my own door.
“When will you come again, David?”
“When your father sends me.”
And I felt that HE felt that our intercourse was always to be limited to this. Nothing clandestine, nothing obtrusive, was possible, even for friendship’s sake, to John Halifax.
My father came in late that evening; he looked tired and uneasy, and instead of going to bed, though it was after nine o’clock, sat down to his pipe in the chimney-corner.
“Is the river rising still, father? Will it do any harm to the tan-yard?”
“What dost thee know about the tan-yard!”
“Only John Halifax was saying —”
“John Halifax had better hold his tongue.”
I held mine.
My father puffed away in silence till I came to bid him good-night. I think the sound of my crutches on the floor stirred him out of a long meditation, in which his ill-humour had ebbed away.
“Where didst thee go out today, Phineas? — thee and the lad I sent.”
“To the Mythe:” and I told him the incident that had happened there. He listened without reply.
“Wasn’t it a brave thing to do, father?”
“Um!”— and a few meditative puffs. “Phineas, the lad thee hast such a hankering after is a good lad — a very decent lad — if thee doesn’t make too much of him. Remember; he is but my servant; thee’rt my son — my only son.”
Alas! my poor father, it was hard enough for him to have such an “only son” as I.
In the middle of the night — or else to me, lying awake, it seemed so — there was a knocking at our hall door. I slept on the ground flat, in a little room opposite the parlour. Ere I could well collect my thoughts, I saw my father pass, fully dressed, with a light in his hand. And, man of peace though he was, I was very sure I saw in the other — something which always lay near his strong box, at his bed’s head at night. Because ten years ago a large sum had been stolen from him, and the burglar had gone free of punishment. The law refused to receive Abel Fletcher’s testimony — he was “only a Quaker.”
The knocking grew louder, as if the person had no time to hesitate at making a noise. “Who’s there?” called out my father; and at the answer he opened the front door, first shutting mine.
A minute afterwards I heard some one in my room. “Phineas, are you here? — don’t be frightened.”
I was not — as soon as his voice reached me, John’s own familiar voice. “It’s something about the tan-yard?”
“Yes; the waters are rising, and I have come to fetch