Part 12 (1/2)
CHAPTER NINE.
SHANK REVEALS SOMETHING MORE OF HIS CHARACTER.
Taking his way to the railway station Shank Leather found himself ere long at his mother's door.
He entered without knocking.
”Shank!” exclaimed Mrs Leather and May in the same breath.
”Ay, mother, it's me. A bad s.h.i.+lling, they say, always turns up. _I_ always turn up, therefore _I_ am a bad s.h.i.+lling! Sound logic that, eh, May?”
”I'm glad to see you, dear Shank,” said careworn Mrs Leather, laying her knitting-needles on the table; ”you _know_ I'm always glad to see you, but I'm naturally surprised, for this visit is out of your regular time.”
”Has anything happened?” asked May anxiously. And May looked very sweet, almost pretty, when she was anxious. A year had refined her features, developed her mind and body, and almost converted her into a little woman. Indeed, mentally, she had become more of a woman than many girls in her neighbourhood who were much older. This was in all likelihood one of the good consequences of adversity.
”Ay, May, something has happened,” answered the youth, flinging himself gaily into an arm-chair and stretching out his legs towards the fire; ”I have thrown up my situation. Struck work. That's all.”
”Shank!”
”Just so. Don't look so horrified, mother; you've no occasion to, for I have the offer of a better situation. Besides--ha! ha! old Crossley-- close-fisted, crabbed, money-making, skin-flint old Crossley--is going to pray for me. Think o' that, mother--going to pray for me!”
”Shank, dear boy,” returned his mother, ”don't jest about religious things.”
”You don't call old Crossley a religious thing, do you? Why, mother, I thought you had more respect for him than that comes to; you ought at least to consider his years!”
”Come, Shank,” returned Mrs Leather, with a deprecating smile, ”be a good boy and tell me what you mean--and about this new situation.”
”I just mean that my friend and chum and old schoolfellow Ralph Ritson-- jovial, das.h.i.+ng, musical, handsome Ralph--you remember him--has got me a situation in California.”
”Ralph Ritson?” repeated Mrs Leather, with a little sigh and an uneasy glance at her daughter, whose face had flushed at the mention of the youth's name.
”Yes,” continued Shank, in a graver tone, for he had observed the flush on May's face. ”Ralph's father, who is manager of a gold mine in California, has asked his son to go out and a.s.sist him at a good salary, and to take a clerk out with him--a stout vigorous fellow, well up in figures, book-keeping, carpenting, etcetera, and ready to turn his hand to anything, and Ralph has chosen me! What d'ee think o' that?”
From her silence and expression it was evident that the poor lady's thoughts were not quite what her son had hoped.
”Why don't you congratulate me, mother?” he asked, somewhat petulantly.
”Would it not be almost premature,” she replied, with a forced smile, ”to congratulate you before I know anything about the salary or the prospects held out to you? Besides, I cannot feel as enthusiastic about your friend Ralph as you do. I don't doubt that he is a well-meaning youth, but he is reckless. If he had only been a man like your former friend, poor Charlie Brooke, it would have been different, but--”
”Well, mother, it's of no use wis.h.i.+ng somebody to be like somebody else.
We must just take folk as we find them, and I find Ralph Ritson a remarkably fine, sensible fellow, who has a proper appreciation of his friends. And he's not a bad fellow. He and Charlie Brooke were fond of each other when we were all schoolboys together--at least he was fond of Charlie, like everybody else. But whether we like him or not does not matter now, for the thing is fixed. I have accepted his offer, and thrown old Jacob overboard.”
”Dear Shank, don't be angry if I am slow to appreciate this offer,” said the poor lady, laying aside her knitting and clasping her hands before her on the table, as she looked earnestly into her son's face, ”but you must see that it has come on me very suddenly, and I'm so sorry to hear that you have parted with good old Mr Crossley in anger--”
”We didn't part in anger,” interrupted Shank. ”We were only a little less sweet on each other than usual. There was no absolute quarrel.
D'you think he'd have promised to pray for me if there was?”
”Have you spoken yet to your father?” asked the lady.
”How could I? I've not seen him since the thing was settled. Besides, what's the use? _He_ can do nothing for me, an' don't care a b.u.t.ton what I do or where I go.”