A Rough Shaking

Chapter XXI. Tommy is found and found out

When Clare woke from his first sleep, which he did within an hour—for he was too hungry to sleep straight on, and the door, imperfectly closed by Tommy, had come open, and let in a cold wind with the moonlight—he raised himself on his elbow, and peered from his stone shelf into the dreary hut. He could not at once tell where he was, but when he remembered, his first thought was Tommy. He looked about for him. Tommy was nowhere. Then he saw the open door, and remembered he had gone out. Surely it was time he had come back! Stiff and sore, he turned on his longitudinal axis, crept down from the forge, and went out shivering to look for his imp. The moon shone radiant on the rusty iron, and the glamour of her light rendered not a few of its shapes and fragments suggestive of cruel torture. Picking his way among spikes and corners and edges, he walked about the hideous wilderness searching for Tommy, afraid to call for fear of attracting attention. The hen too was walking about, disconsolate, but she took no notice of him, neither did the sight of her give him any hint or rouse in him the least suspicion: how could he suspect one so innocent and troubled for the avenging genius through whom Tommy’s white face lay upturned to the white moon! Her egg-shells lay scattered, each a ghastly point in the moonshine, each a silent witness to the deed that had been done. Tommy scattered and forgot them; the moon gathered and noted them. But they told Clare nothing, either of Tommy’s behaviour or of Tommy himself.

He came at last to the heap of metal, and there lay Tommy, caught in its skeleton protrusions. A shiver went through him when he saw the pallid face, and the dark streak of blood across it. He concluded that in trying to get over the wall he had failed and fallen back. He climbed and took him in his arms. Tommy was no weight for Clare, weak with hunger as he was, to carry to the smithy. He laid him on the hearth, near the fire, and began to blow it up. The roaring of the wind in the fire did not wake him. Clare went on blowing. The heat rose and rose, and brought the boy to himself at last, in no comfortable condition. He opened his eyes, scrambled to his feet, and stared wildly around him.

“Where is it?” he cried.

“Where’s what?” rejoined Clare, leaving the bellows, and taking a hold of him lest he should fall off.

“The head that flew out of the water-but,” answered Tommy with a shudder.

“Have you lost your senses, Tommy?” remonstrated Clare. “I found you lying on a heap of old iron against the wall, with the moon shining on you.”

“Yes, yes!—the moon! She jumped out of the water-but, and got a hold of me as I was getting down. I knew she would!”

“I didn’t think you were such a fool, Tommy!” said Clare.

“Well, you hadn’t the pluck to go yourself! You stopt in!” cried Tommy, putting his hand to his head, but more sorely hurt that an idiot should call him a fool.

“Come and let me see, Tommy,” said Clare.

He wanted to find out if he was much hurt; but Tommy thought he wanted to go to the water-but, and screamed.

“Hold your tongue, you little idiot!” cried Clare. “You’ll have all the world coming after us! They’ll think I’m murdering you!”

Tommy restrained himself, and gradually recovering, told Clare what he had discovered, but not what he had found.

“There’s something yellow on your jacket! What is it?” said Clare. “I do believe—yes, it is!—you’ve been eating an egg! Now I remember! I saw egg-shells, more than two or three, lying in the yard, and the poor hen walking about looking for her eggs! You little rascal! You pig of a boy! I won’t thrash you this time, because you’ve fetched your own thrashing. But—!”

He finished the sentence by shaking his fist in Tommy’s face, and looking as black at him as he was able.

“I do believe it was the hen herself that frighted you!” he added. “She served you right, you thief!”

“I didn’t know there was any harm,” said Tommy, pretending to sob.

“Why didn’t you bring me my share, then?”

“‘Cos I knowed you’d ha’ made me give ‘em back to the hen!”

“And you didn’t know there was any harm, you lying little brute!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Now, look here, Tommy! If you don’t mind what I tell you, you and I part company. One of us two must be master, and I will, or you must tramp. Do you hear me?”

“I can’t do without wictuals!” whimpered Tommy. “I didn’t come wi’ you a purpose to be starved to death!”

“I dare say you didn’t; but when I starve, you must starve too; and when I eat, you shall have the first mouthful. What did you come with me for?”

“‘Acos you was the strongest,” answered Tommy, “an’ I reckoned you would get things from coves we met!”

“Well, I’m not going to get things from coves we meet, except they give them to me. But have patience, Tommy, and I’ll get you all you can eat. You must give me time, you know! I ‘ain’t got work yet!—Come here. Lie down close to me, and we’ll go to sleep.”

The urchin obeyed, pillowed his head on Clare’s chest, and went fast asleep.

Clare slept too after a while, but the necessities of his relation to Tommy were fast making a man of him.

Chapter XXII. The smith in a rage

They had not slept long, when they were roused by a hideous clamour and rattling at the door, and thunderous blows on the wooden sides of the shed. Clare woke first, and rubbed his eyelids, whose hinges were rusted with sleep. He was utterly perplexed with the uproar and romage. The cabin seemed enveloped in a hurricane of kicks, and the air was in a tumult of howling and brawling, of threats and curses, whose inarticulateness made them sound bestial. There never came pause long enough for Clare to answer that they were locked in, and that the smith must have the key in his pocket. But when Tommy came to himself, which he generally did the instant he woke, but not so quickly this time because of his fall, he understood at once.

“It’s the blacksmith! He’s roaring drunk!” he said.

“Let’s be off, Clare! The devil ‘ill be to pay when he gets in! He’ll murder us in our beds!”

“We ought to let him into his own house if we can,” replied Clare, rising and going to the door. It was well for him that he found no way of opening it, for every instant there came a kick against it that threatened to throw it from lock and hinges at once. He protested his inability, but the madman thought he was refusing to admit him, and went into a tenfold fury, calling the boys hideous names, and swearing he would set the shed on fire if they did not open at once. The boys shouted, but the man had no sense to listen with, and began such a furious battery on the door, with his whole person for a ram, that Tommy made for the rear, and Clare followed—prudent enough, however, in all his haste, to close the back-door behind them.

Tommy was in front, and led the way to the bottom of the yard, and over the fence into the waste ground, hoping to find some point in that quarter where he could mount the wall. He could not face the water-but—with the moon in it, staring out of the immensity of the lower world. He ran and doubled and spied, but could find no foothold. Least of all was ascent possible at the spot where the door stood on the other side; the bricks were smoother than elsewhere. He turned the corner and ran along a narrow lane, Clare still following, for he thought Tommy knew what he was about; but Tommy could find no encouragement to attempt scaling the wall. They might have fled into the fields that lay around; but the burrowing instinct was strong, and the deserted house drew them. Then Clare, finding Tommy at fault, bethought him that the little rascal had got up by the heap on which he discovered him, and must be afraid to go that way again. He faced about and ran, in his turn become leader. Tommy wheeled also, and followed, but with misgiving. When they reached the farther corner of the bottom wall, they stopped and peeped round before they would turn it: they might run against the blacksmith in chase of them! But the sound of his continued hammering at the door came to them, and they went on. They crossed the fence and ran again, ran faster, for now every step brought them nearer to their danger: the heap of iron lay between them and the smithy, and any moment the smith might burst into the shed, rush through, and be out upon them.

They reached the heap. Clare sprang up; and Tommy, urged on the one side by the fear of the drunken smith, and drawn on the other by the dread of being abandoned by Clare, climbed shuddering after him.

“Mind the water-but, Clare!” he gasped; “an’ gi’ me a hand up.”

Clare had already turned on the top of the wall to help him.

“Now let me go first!” said Tommy, the moment he had his foot on it. “I know how to get down.”

He scudded along the wall, glad to have Clare between him and the butt. Clare followed swiftly. He was not so quick on the cat-promenade as Tommy, but he had a good head, and was spurred by the apprehension of being seen up there in the moonlight.

Chapter XXIII. Treasure trove

In a few moments they were safe in the thicket at the foot of what had been their enemy and was now their friend—the garden-wall. How many things and persons there are whose other sides are altogether friendly! These are their true selves, and we must be true to get at them.

Tommy again took the lead, though with a fresh sinking of the heart because of that other place with the moon in it. Through the tangled thicket they made or found their way—and there stood the house, with the moon looking down on its roof, and the drunkard’s thunder troubling her still pale light—her moon-thinking. But for the noise and the haste, Clare would have been frightened at them. There seemed some secret between the house and the moon which they were determined no one else should share. They were of one mind to terrify man or boy who should attempt to cross the threshold! There was no time, however, to heed such fancies. “If we could only get in without spoiling anything!” thought Clare. Once in, they would hurt nothing, take but the shelter and rest lying there of no good to anybody, and leave them there all the same when they had done with them!

While they stood looking at the house, the thundering at the door of the smithy ceased. Presently they heard voices in altercation. One voice was that of the smith, quieter than when last they heard it, but ill-tempered and growling as at first. The other seemed that of a woman. She had been able so far to quiet him, probably, that he remembered he had the key in his pocket; for they thought they heard the door of the smithy open. Then all was silent, and the outcasts pursued their quest of an entrance to the house.

Clare went ferreting as Tommy had done. He also tried to get a peep through the window with the swinging shutter, but had no better success than Tommy. Then he started to go round the corner next the blacksmith’s yard.

“Look out!” cried Tommy in a loud whisper, when he saw where he was going.

“Why?” asked Clare.

“Because there’s a horrible hole there, full of water,” answered Tommy.

“I’ll keep a look out,” returned Clare, and went.

When he was about half-way along the end of the house, he heard a noise he did not understand, and stopped to listen. Some one seemed moving somewhere.

Then came a kind of scrambling sound, and presently the noise of a great watery splash. Clare shivered from head to foot.

“Something has fallen into the hole Tommy mentioned!” he said to himself, and ran on to see. A few steps brought him to what Tommy had taken for a great hole. It was nothing but a pool of rain-water: the splash could not have come from that!

Then it occurred to him that the water-but could not be far off. He forced his way through shrubs of various kinds, and reaching the wall, went back along it until he came to the butt. A ray of moonlight showed him that the side of it was wet, as if the water had lately come over the edge. He looked about for some means of getting a peep into the huge thing. It stood on a brick stand, of which it left a narrow edge clear, but on this edge the bulge of the butt would not permit him to mount. With the help of a small tree, however, he got on the wall, which was better.

Spying into the butt, he could see nothing at first, for a chimney was now between it and the moon. A moment more, however, and he descried something white in the dull iron gleam of the water. It was under the water, but floating near the surface. He lay down on the wall, plunged his arm into the butt, laid hold of it, and drew it out. It was a little heavy for the size, for what should it be but a tiny baby, in a flannel night-gown, which, as he drew it out, sent back little noisy streams into the butt! It lay perfectly still in his arms, he did not know whether dead or alive, but he thought it could hardly be drowned so soon after the splash. It had been drugged, and the antagonism of the two means employed to kill it was probably the saving of its life.

Clare stood in stony bewilderment. What was he to do? Certainly not to go after the mother! The first thing was to get it down from the wall. That he could easily have done on the other side, by the heap; but that was the side whence it must have been thrown, and they would be but in worse difficulty there! He must get the baby down inside the wall! With at least one arm occupied, the tree-way was impracticable. There was only one other way, and that full of danger! But where there is only one way, that way must be taken, and Clare did not hesitate. He started along the top of the wall, with the poor unconscious germ of humanity in his arms. He had lifted it from its watery coffin, out of the cold arms of death, up into the clear air of life! True, that air was cold, and filled only with moonshine; but there was the house whose seal might be broken! and the moon saw the sun making warm the under world! Along the narrow way, through the still, keen glimmer, unseen, probably, by any eye in the sleeping town, he bore his burden, speeding as fast as he dared, for he must not set a foot down amiss!

Had any one caught sight of him, what a commotion would not the tale have roused—of the spectre of a boy with a baby in his arms, gliding noiseless in the moon and the middle night, along the top of the high brick wall of a deserted house, where no one had lived within the memory of man!

When he reached the door-ladder, he found descent difficult but possible. It was more difficult to make his way through the tangled bushes without scratching the baby, which, after all, might, alas, be beyond hurt! He held it close to his bosom, life coaxing life to “stay a little.”

Thus laden, he appeared before Tommy, who had heard the splash, and thought Clare had fallen into the deep hole, but had not had courage to go and see, partly from the fear of verifying his fear, but more from his horror of the watery abyss. He stood trembling where Clare had left him.

To save the baby was now Clare’s only thought. The baby was now the one thing in the universe! If only the light that shone on it were that of the hot sun instead of the cold moon, which looked far more like killing than bringing to life! “And,” thought Clare with himself, “there ain’t much more heat in my body than in that shivery moon!” But the sun would wake and mount the sky, and send the moon down, and all would be different! Only, if nothing could be done in the meantime, where would baby be by then!

“Here, Tommy,” he cried, “come and see what I found in the water-butt.”

At the word, Tommy turned to flee; but confidence in Clare, and curiosity to see what, in Clare’s arms, could hardly hurt him, prevailed, and he drew near cautiously.

“Lord, it’s a kid!” he cried.

“It’s not a kid,” said Clare, who had no slang; “it’s a baby!”

“Well! ain’t a baby a kid, just?”

Tommy did not know that the word stood for anything else than a child, which was indeed its meaning long before it was specially applied to the young of the goat. A kidnapper or kidnabber is a stealer of children. Mr. Skeat tells us that kid meant at first just a young one.

“You can’t tell me what to do with it, I’m afraid, Tommy!” said Clare.

Already it was as if from all eternity he had loved this helpless little waif of Time, with its small, thin, blue-gray, gin-drugged face; this tiny life, so hopeless, so miserable, yet so uncomplaining: the thing that was, was the thing for it to bear; it had come into the world to bear it! Ready to die, even Death would not have it; it must live where it was not wanted, where it was not welcome!

“Yes, I can!” answered Tommy with evil promptitude. “Put it in again.”

“But that would drown it, you know, Tommy!” answered Clare, treating him like the child he was not. “We want it to live, Tommy!”

His tenderness for the baby made him speak with foolish gentleness.

“No, we don’t!” returned Tommy. “What business has it to live, when we can’t get nothing to eat?”

Clare held faster to the baby with one arm, and with the fist of the other struck straight out at Tommy, hit him between the eyes, and knocked him flat. It was a miserable thing to have to do, and it made Clare miserable, for Tommy was not half his size, and was still suffering from his fall on the iron. But then the dying baby was not half Tommy’s size, and any milder argument would have been lost on him: he was thus sent on the way to understand that the baby had rights; and that if the baby could not enforce them, there was one in the world that could and would. Never in his life did Clare show more instinctive wisdom than in that knock-down blow to the hardly blamable little devil!

Tommy got up at once. He was not much hurt, for he had a hard head though he was easily knocked over. From that moment he began to respect Clare. He had loved him before in a way; he had patronized him, and feared to offend him because he was stronger than he; but until now he had had no respect for him, believing little Tommy a much finer fellow than big Clare. There are thousands for whom a blow is a better thing than expostulation, persuasion, or any sort of kindness. They are such that nothing but a blow will set their door ajar for love to get in. That is why hardships, troubles, disappointments, and all kinds of pain and suffering, are sent to so many of us. We are so full of ourselves, and feel so grand, that we should never come to know what poor creatures we are, never begin to do better, but for the knock-down blows that the loving God gives us. We do not like them, but he does not spare us for that.

Chapter XXIV. Justifiable burglary

Tommy rose rubbing his forehead, and crying quietly. He did not dare say a word. It was well for him he did not. Clare, perplexed and anxious about the baby, was in no mood to accept annoyance from Tommy. But the urchin remaining silent, the elder boy’s indignation began immediately to settle down.

The infant lay motionless, its little heart beating doubtfully, like the ticking of a clock off the level, as if the last beat might be indeed the last.

“We must get into the house, Tommy!” said Clare.

“Yes, Clare,” answered Tommy, very meekly, and went off like a shot to renew investigation at the other end of the house. He was back in a moment, his face as radiant with success as such a face could be, with such a craving little body under it.

“Come, come,” he cried. “We can get in quite easy. I ha’ been in!”

The keen-eyed monkey had found a cellar-window, sunk a little below the level of the ground—a long, narrow, horizontal slip, with a grating over its small area not fastened down. He had lifted it, and pushed open the window, which went inward on rusty hinges—so rusty that they would not quite close again. That he had been in was a lie. He knew better than go first! He belonged to the school of No. 1!—all mean beggars.

Clare hastened after him.

“Gi’ me the kid, an’ you get in; you can reach up for it better, ‘cause ye’re taller,” said Tommy.

“Is it much of a drop?” asked Clare.

“Nothing much,” answered Tommy.

Clare handed him the baby, instructing him how to hold it, and threatening him if he hurt it; then laid himself on his front, shoved his legs across the area through the window, and followed with his body. Holding on to the edge of the window-sill, he let his feet as far down as he could, then dropped, and fell on a heap of coals, whence he tumbled to the floor of the cellar.

“You should have told me of the coals!” he said, rising, and calling up through the darkness.

“I forgot,” answered Tommy.

“Give me the baby,” said Clare.

When Tommy took the baby, he renewed that moment, and began to cherish the sense of an injury done him by the poor helpless thing. He did not pinch it, only because he dared not, lest it should cry. When he heard Clare fall on the coals, and then heard him call up from the depth of the cellar, he was greatly tempted to turn with it to the other end of the house, and throw it in the pool, then make for the wall and the fields, leaving Clare to shift for himself. But he durst not go near the pool, and Clare would be sure to get out again and be after him! so he stood with the hated creature in his unprotective arms. When Clare called for it, he got into the shallow area, and pushed the baby through the window, grasping the extreme of its garment, and letting it hang into the darkness of the cellar, head downward. I believe then the baby was sick, for, a moment after, and before Clare could get a hold of it, it began to cry. The sound thrilled him with delight.

“Oh, the darling!—Can’t you let her down a bit farther, Tommy?” he said, with suppressed eagerness.

He had climbed on the heap of coals, and was stretching up his arms to receive her. In the faint glimmer from the diffused light of the moon, he could just distinguish the window, blocked up by Tommy; the baby he could not see.

“No, I can’t,” answered Tommy. “Catch! There!”

So saying he yielded to his spite, and waiting no sign of preparedness on the part of Clare, let go his hold, and dropped the little one. It fell on Clare and knocked him over; but he clasped it to him as he fell, and they hurtled to the bottom of the coals without much damage.

“I have her!” he cried as he got up. “Now you come yourself, Tommy.”

He had known no baby but his lost sister, and thought of all babies as girls.

“You’ll catch me, won’t you, Clare?” said Tommy.

“The thing you’ve done once you can do again! I can’t set down the baby to catch you!” replied the unsuspicious Clare, and turned to seek an exit from the cellar. He had not had time yet to wonder how Tommy had got out.

Tommy came tumbling on the top of the coals: he dared not be left with the water-but and the pool and the moon.

“Where are you, Clare?” he called.

Clare answered him from the top of the stone stair that led to the cellar, and Tommy was soon at his heels. Going along a dark passage, where they had to feel their way, they arrived at the kitchen. The loose outside shutter belonged to it, and as it was open, a little of the moonlight came in. The place looked dreary enough and cold enough with its damp brick-floor and its rusty range; but at least they were out of the air, and out of sight of the moon! If only they had some of that coal alight!

“I don’t see as we’re much better off!” said Tommy. “I’m as cold as pigs’ trotters!”

“Then what must baby be like!” said Clare, whose heart was brimful of anxiety for his charge. It seemed to him he had never known misery till now. Life or death for the baby—and he could do nothing! He was cold enough himself, what with hunger, and the night, and the wet and deadly cold little body in his arms; but whatever discomfort he felt, it seemed not himself but the baby that was feeling it; he imputed it all to the baby, and pitied the baby for the cold he felt himself.

“We needn’t stay here, though,” he said. “There must be better places in the house! Let’s try and find a bedroom!”