Quicksilver: The Boy With No Skid to His Wheel Read online

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

  DAN'L IS TOO ATTENTIVE.

  Things were not quite so smooth as Dr Grayson thought, for there hadbeen stormy weather at Sir James's.

  "Well, my dear, you are my husband, and it is my duty to obey," saidLady Danby; "but I do protest against my darling son being forced toassociate with a boy of an exceedingly low type."

  "Allow me, my dear," said Sir James importantly. "By Dr Grayson's act,in taking that boy into his house, he has wiped away any stigma whichmay cling to him; and I must say that the lad displayed a great deal ofanimal courage--that kind of brute courage which comes from an ignoranceof danger."

  "Is it animal courage not to be afraid of animals, ma?" said MasterEdgar.

  "Yes, my dear, of course," said Lady Danby.

  "I wish Edgar would display courage of any kind," said Sir James.

  "Why, you ran away from the bulls too, papa," said Master Edgar.

  "I am a great sufferer from nervousness, Edgar," said Sir Jamesreprovingly; "but we were not discussing that question. Dr Grayson hasaccepted the invitation for his adopted son. It is his whim for themoment, and it is only becoming on my part to show that we are gratefulfor the way in which the boy behaved. By the time a month has gone by,I have no doubt that the boy will be back at the--the place from whichhe came; but while he is at Dr Grayson's I desire that he be treated asif he were Dr Grayson's son."

  "Very well, James," said Lady Danby, in an ill-used tone of voice. "Youare master here, and we must obey."

  The day of the invitation arrived. Dexter was to be at Sir James's intime for lunch, and directly after breakfast he watched his opportunityand followed Helen into the drawing-room.

  "I say," he said; "I can't go there, can I?"

  "Why not?" said Helen.

  "Lookye here."

  "Why, Dexter!" cried Helen, laughing merrily; "what have you beendoing!"

  "Don't I look a guy!"

  There was a change already in the boy's aspect; his face, short as thetime had been, was beginning to show what fresh air and good feedingcould achieve. His hair had altered very slightly, but still there wasan alteration for the better, and his eyes looked brighter, but hisgeneral appearance was comical all the same.

  Directly after breakfast he had rushed up to his room and put on theclothes in which he had taken his involuntary bath. These garments, aswill be remembered, had been obtained in haste, and were of the kindknown in the trade as "ready-mades," and in this case composed of awell-glazed and pressed material, containing just enough wool to holdtogether a great deal of shoddy.

  The dip in the river had been too severe a test for the suit, especiallyas Maria had been put a little more out of temper than usual by havingthe garments handed to her to dry.

  Maria's mother was a washerwoman who lived outside Coleby on the common,and gained her income by acting as laundress generally for all who wouldintrust her with their family linen; but she called herself in yellowletters on a brilliant scarlet ground a "clear starcher."

  During Maria's early life at home she had had much experience in theways of washing. She knew the smell of boiled soap. She had oftenwatched the steam rising from the copper, and played among the clouds,and she well knew that the quickest way to dry anything that has beensoaked is to give it a good wringing.

  She had therefore given Dexter's new suit a good wringing, and wrung outof it a vast quantity of sticky dye which stained her hands. Then shehad--grumbling bitterly all the time--given the jacket, vest, andtrousers a good shake, and hung them over a clothes-horse as near to thefire as she could get them without singeing.

  Mrs Millett told her to be sure and get them nice and dry, and Mariadid get them "nice and dry."

  And now Dexter had put them on and presented himself before Helen,suggesting that he looked a guy.

  Certainly his appearance was suggestive of the stuffed effigy borneabout on the fifth of November, for the garments were shrunken so thathis arms and legs showed to a terrible extent, and Maria's wringing hadgiven them curves and hollows never intended by the cutter, the worstone being in the form of a hump between the wearer's shoulders.

  "The things are completely spoiled. You foolish boy to put them on."

  "Then I can't go to that other house."

  "Nonsense! You have the new clothes that came from the tailor's--thosefor which you were measured."

  "Yes," said Dexter reluctantly; "but it's a pity to put on them. I mayget 'em spoiled."

  "Then you do not want to go, Dexter," said Helen, smiling.

  "No," he cried eagerly. "Ask him to let me stop here."

  "No, no," said Helen kindly. "Papa wishes you to go there; it is verykind of the Danbys to ask you, and I hope you will go, and behave verynicely, and make great friends with Edgar Danby."

  "How?" said Dexter laconically.

  "Well, as boys generally do. You must talk to him."

  "What about?"

  "Anything. Then you must play with him."

  "What at?"

  "Oh, he'll be sure to suggest something to play at."

  "I don't think he will," said Dexter thoughtfully. "He don't look thesort of chap to."

  "Don't say chap, Dexter; say boy."

  "Sort of boy to play any games. He's what we used to call a soft Tommysort of a chap--boy."

  "Oh no, no, no! I don't suppose he will be rough, and care forboisterous sports; but he may prove to be a very pleasant companion foryou."

  Dexter shook his head.

  "I don't think he'll like me."

  "Nonsense! How can you tell that? Then they have a beautiful garden."

  "Can't be such a nice one as this," said Dexter.

  "Oh yes, it is; and it runs down to the river as this one does, and SirJames has a very nice boat."

  "Boat!" cried Dexter, pricking up his ears. "And may you go in it!"

  "Not by yourselves, I suppose. There, I'm sure you will enjoy yourvisit."

  Dexter shook his head again.

  "I say, you'll come too, won't you?" he cried eagerly.

  "No, Dexter; not this time."

  The boy's forehead grew wrinkled all over.

  "Come, you are pretending that you do not want to go."

  "I don't," said the boy, hanging his head. "I want to stay here alongwith you."

  "Perhaps I should like you to stay, Dexter," said Helen; "but I wish youto go and behave nicely, and you can tell me all about it when you comeback."

  "And how soon may I come back?"

  "I don't suppose till the evening, but we shall see. Now, go and changethose things directly. What would papa say if he saw you?"

  Dexter went slowly up to his room, and came down soon after to look forHelen.

  He found her busy writing letters, so he went off on tiptoe to thestudy, where the doctor was deep in his book, writing with a very severefrown on his brow.

  "Ah, Dexter," he said, looking up and running his eye critically overthe boy, the result being very satisfactory. "Let's see, you are to beat Sir James's by half-past twelve. Now only ten. Go and amuseyourself in the garden, and don't get into mischief."

  Dexter went back into the hall, obtained his cap, and went out throughthe glass door into the verandah, where the great wisteria hung avalance of lavender blossoms all along the edge.

  "He always says don't get into mischief," thought the boy. "I don'twant to get into mischief, I'm sure."

  Half-way across the lawn he was startled by the sudden appearance ofDan'l, who started out upon him from behind a great evergreen shrub.

  "What are you a-doing of now?" snarled Dan'l.

  "I wasn't doing anything," said Dexter, staring.

  "Then you were going to do something," cried the old man sharply. "Lookhere, young man; if you get meddling with anything in my garden there'sgoing to be trouble, so mind that. I know what boys is, so none of yournonsense here."

  He went off grumbling to another part of the garden, and Dexter feltdispo
sed to go back indoors.

  "He's watching me all the time," he thought to himself; "just as if Iwas going to steal something. He don't like me."

  Dexter strolled on, and heard directly a regular rustling noise, whichhe recognised at once as the sound made by a broom sweeping grass, andsure enough, just inside the great laurel hedge, where a little greenlawn was cut off from the rest of the garden, there was Peter Cribb, athis usual pursuit, sweeping all the sweet-scented cuttings of the grass.

  Peter was a sweeper who was always on the look-out for an excuse. Hewas, so to speak, chained to that broom so many hours a day, and if hehad been a galley slave, and the broom an oar, it is morally certainthat he would have been beaten with many stripes, for he would have leftoff rowing whenever he could.

  "Well, squire," he said, laying his hands one over the other on the topof the broom-handle.

  "Well, Peter. How's the horse?"

  "Grinding his corn, and enjoying himself," said Peter. "He's like you:a lucky one--plenty to eat and nothing to do."

  "Don't you take him out for exercise?" said Dexter.

  "Course I do. So do you go out for exercise."

  "Think I could ride?" said Dexter.

  "Dersay you could, if you could hold on."

  "I should like to try."

  "Go along with you!"

  "But I should. Will you let me try!"

  Peter shook his head, and began to examine his half-worn broom.

  "I could hold on. Let me go with you next time!"

  "Oh, but I go at ha'-past six, hours before you're awake. Young gentsdon't get up till eight."

  "Why, I always wake at a quarter to six," said Dexter. "It seems theproper time to get up. I say, let me go with you."

  "Here, I say, you, Peter," shouted Dan'l; "are you a-going to sweep thatbit o' lawn, or am I to come and do it myself. Gawsiping about!"

  "Hear that?" said Peter, beginning to make his broom swing round again."There, you'd better be off, or you'll get me in a row."

  Dexter sighed, for he seemed to be always the cause of trouble.

  "I say," said Peter, as the boy was moving off; "going fishing again?"

  "No; not now."

  "You knows the way to fish, don't you? Goes in after them."

  Dexter laughed, and went on down to the river, examined the place wherethe branch had broken off, and then gazed down into the clear water atthe gliding fish, which seemed to move here and there with no moreeffort than a wave of the tail.

  His next look was across the river in search of Bob Dimsted; but theshabby-looking boy was not fishing, and nowhere in sight either up ordown the stream.

  Dexter turned away with another sigh. The garden was very beautiful,but it seemed dull just then. He wanted some one to talk to, and if hewent again to Peter, old Dan'l would shout and find fault.

  "It don't matter which way I go," said Dexter, after a few minutes,during which time he had changed his place in the garden again andagain; "that old man is always watching me to see what I am going todo."

  He looked round at the flowers, at the coming fruit, at everything inturn, but the place seemed desolate, and in spite of himself he beganthinking of his old companions at the great school, and wondering whatthey were doing.

  Then he recalled that he was to go to Sir James Danby's soon, and hebegan to think of Edgar.

  "I shan't like that chap," he said to himself. "I wonder whether he'lllike me."

  He was standing thinking deeply and gazing straight before him at thehigh red brick wall when he suddenly started, for there was a heavy stepon the gravel.

  Dan'l had come along the grass edge till he was close to the boy, andthen stepped off heavily on to the path.

  "They aren't ripe yet," he said with an unpleasant leer; "and you'd bestlet them alone."

  Dexter walked quickly away, with his face scarlet, and a bitter feelingof annoyance which he could not master.

  For the next quarter of an hour he was continually changing his positionin the garden, but always to wake up to the fact that the old gardenerwas carrying out a purpose which he had confided to Peter.

  This the boy soon learned, for after a time he suddenly encountered thegroom, still busy with the broom.

  "Why, hullo, youngster!" he said; "what's the matter!"

  "Nothing," said Dexter, with his face growing a deeper scarlet.

  "Oh yes, there is; I can see," cried Peter.

  "Well, he's always watching me, and pretending that I'm getting intomischief, or trying to pick the fruit."

  "Hah!" said Peter, with a laugh; "he told me he meant to keep his eye onyou."

  Just then there was a call for Dan'l from the direction of the house,and Mrs Millett was seen beyond a laurel hedge.

  Directly after the old man went up to the house, and it seemed to Dexteras if a cloud had passed from across the sun. The garden appeared tohave grown suddenly brighter, and the boy began to whistle as he wentabout in an aimless way, looking here and there for something to takehis attention.

  He was not long in finding it, for just at the back of the dense yewhedge there were half a dozen old-fashioned round-topped hives, whoseoccupants were busy going to and fro, save that at the hive nearest thecross-path a heavy cluster, betokening a late swarm, was hangingoutside, looking like a double handful of bees.

  Dexter knew a rhyme beginning--

  "How doth the little busy bee--"

  and he knew that bees made honey; but that was all he did know abouttheir habits, save that they lived in hives; and he stood and stared atthe cluster hanging outside.

  "Why, they can't get in," he said to himself. "Hole's stopped up."

  He stood still for a few minutes, and then, as he looked round, hecaught sight of some bean-sticks--tall thin pieces of oak sapling, anddrawing one of these out of the ground he rubbed the mould off thepointed end, and, as soon as it was clean, took hold of it, and returnedto the hive, where he watched the clustering bees for a few minutes, andthen, reaching over, he inserted the thin end of the long stick just bythe opening to the hive, thrust it forward, and gave it a good rake toright and left.

  There was a tremendous buzz and a rush, and the next moment Dexter,stick in hand, was running down the path toward the river, pursued byquite a cloud of angry bees.

  Dexter ran fast, of course, and as it happened, right down one of themost shady paths, beneath the densely growing apple-trees, where thebees could not fly, so that by the time he reached the river-side he wasclear of his pursuers, but tingling from a sting on the wrist, and fromtwo more on the neck, one being among the hair at the back, and theother right down in his collar.

  "Well, that's nice," he said, as he rubbed himself, and began mentallyto try and do a sum in the Rule of Three--if three stings make so muchpain, how much pain would be caused by the stings of a whole hiveful ofbees?

  "Bother the nasty vicious little things!" he cried, as he had anotherrub, and he threw the bean-stick angrily away.

  "Don't hurt so much now," he said, after a few minutes' stamping about.Then his face broke up into a merry smile. "How they did make me run!"

  Just then there was a shout--a yell, and a loud call for help.

  Dexter forgot his own pain, and, alarmed by the cries, ran as hard as hecould back again towards the spot from whence the sounds came, and tohis horror found that Old Dan'l was running here and there, waving hisarms, while Peter had come to his help, and was whisking his broom aboutin all directions.

  For a few moments Dexter could not comprehend what was wrong, then, likea flash, he understood that the bees had attacked the old gardener, andthat it was due to his having irritated them with the stick.

  Dexter knew how a wasp's nest had been taken in the fields by the boysone day, and without a moment's hesitation he ran to the nearest shrub,tore off a good-sized bough, and joined in the task of beating down thebees.

  It is pretty sport to fight either bees or wasps in this way, but itrequires a great deal of courage,
especially as the insects are sure toget the best of it, as they did in this case, putting their enemies toflight, their place of refuge being the tool-house, into whose darkrecesses the bees did not attempt to come.

  "Much stung, Dan'l!" said Peter.

  "Much stung, indeed! I should think I am. Offle!"

  "You got it much, youngster?" said Peter.

  "I've got three stings," replied Dexter, who had escaped without furtherharm.

  "And I've got five, I think," said Peter. "What was you doing to 'em,Dan'l!"

  "Doin' to 'em!" growled Dan'l, who was stamping about and rubbinghimself, and looking exceedingly like the bear in the old fable. "Iwasn't doin' nothin' to 'em. One o' the hives have been threatenin' toswarm again, and I was just goin' by, when they come at me like a swarmo' savidges, just as if some one had been teasing them." Dexter wasrubbing the back of his neck, and feeling horribly guilty, as he askedhimself whether he had not better own to having disturbed the hive; butthere was something so unpleasantly repellent about the old gardener,and he was looking so suspiciously from one to the other, that the boyfelt as if he could not speak to him.

  If it had been Peter, who, with all his roughness, seemed to be tolerantof his presence, he would have spoken out at once; but he could not toDan'l, and he remained silent.

  "They stings pretty sharp," said Peter, laughing. "Blue-bag's bestthing. I shall go up and get Maria to touch mine up. Coming?"

  "Nay, I'm not coming," growled Dan'l. "I can bear a sting or two of abee without getting myself painted up with blue-bags. Dock leaves isgood enough for me."

  "And there aren't a dock left in the garden," said Peter. "You foundfault with me for not pulling the last up."

  So Peter went up to the house to be blue-bagged, Dan'l remained like abear in his den, growling to himself, and Dexter, whose stings stillthrobbed, went off across the lawn to walk off the pain, till it wastime to go to Sir James's.

  "Who'd have thought that the little things could hurt so much!"

  Then the pain began to diminish till it was only a tingle, and the spotswhere the stings went in were round and hard, and now it was thatDexter's conscience began to prick him as sharply as the bees' stings,and he walked about the garden trying to make up his mind as to whetherhe should go and confess to Dan'l that he stirred the bees up with along stick.

  But as soon as he felt that he would do this, something struck him thatDan'l would be sure to think he had done it all out of mischief, and heknew that he could not tell him.

  "Nobody will know," he said to himself; "and I won't tell. I didn'tmean to do any harm."

  "Dexter! Dexter!"

  He looked in the direction from whence the sounds came, and could seeHelen waving her handkerchief, as a signal for him to come in.

  "Time to go," he said to himself as he set off to her. "Nobody willknow, so I shan't tell him."

  And then he turned cold.

  Only a few moments before he had left Dan'l growling in his den, and nowhere he was down the garden, stooping and picking up something.

  For a few moments Dexter could not see what the something was, for thetrees between them hindered the view, but directly after he made outthat Dan'l had picked up a long stick, which had been thrown among thelittle apple-trees, and was carefully examining it.

  The colour came into Dexter's cheeks as he wondered whether Dan'l wouldknow where that stick came from.

  The colour would have been deeper still had he known that Dan'l had asplendid memory, and knew exactly where every stick or plant should be.In fact, Dan'l recognised that stick as having been taken from the endof the scarlet-runner row.

  "A young sperrit o' mischief! that's what he is," muttered the old man,giving a writhe as he felt the stinging of the bees. "Now what's hebeen up to with that there stick? making a fishing-rod of it, I s'pose,and tearing my rows o' beans to pieces. I tell him what it is--"

  Dan'l stopped short, and stared at the end of the stick--the thin end,where there was something peculiar, betraying what had been done withit.

  It was a sight which made him tighten his lips up into a thin red line,and screw up his eyes till they could be hardly seen, for upon the endof that stick were the mortal remains of two crushed bees.