Part 4 (2/2)
”Don't believe it. Good mind not to let yer go.”
The touch of genius suddenly brushed the boy's forehead. He drew from his pockets the handful of silver and copper that was his week's wages, and, groping in the darkness, poured it over Barney Bill. ”Then keep that for me till I coom back.”
He fumbled hurriedly for the latch of the van door, found it, and leaped out into the waste under the stars, just as the owner of the van rose with a clatter of coins. To pick up money is a deeply rooted human instinct. Barney Bill lit his lamp, and, uttering juicy though innocuous flowers of anathema, searched for the scattered treasure.
When he had retrieved three s.h.i.+llings and sevenpence-halfpenny he peered out. Paul was far away. Barney Bill put the money on the shelf and looked at it in a puzzled way. Was it an earnest of the boy's return, or was it a bribe to let him go? The former hypothesis seemed untenable, for if he got nabbed his penniless condition would be such an aggravation of his offence as to call down upon him a more ferocious punishment than he need have risked. And why in the name of sanity did he want to go home? To kiss his sainted mother in her sleep? To pack his blankety portmanteau? Barney Bill's fancy took a satirical turn. On the latter hypothesis, the boy was in deadly fear, and preferred the certainty of the ferocious punishment to the terrors of an unknown future. Barney Bill smoked a reflective pipe, looking at the matter from the two points of view. Not being able to decide, he put out his lamp, shut his door and went to sleep.
Dawn awoke him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Paul was not there. He did not expect him to be there. He felt sorry. The poor little kid had funked it. He had hoped for better stuff. He rose and stretched himself, put on socks and boots, lit his cooking stove, set a kettle to boil and, opening the door, remained for a while breathing the misty morning air. Then he let himself down and proceeded to the back of the van, where stood a pail of water and a tin basin, his simple was.h.i.+ng apparatus. Having sluiced bead and neck and dried them with something resembling a towel, he hooked up the pail, stowed the basin in a rack, unslung a nosebag, which he attached to the head of the old horse, and went indoors to prepare his own elementary breakfast. That over, he put the horse into the shafts. Barney Bill was a man of his word. He was not going to wait for Paul; but he cast a glance round the limited horizon of the brickfield, hoping, against reason, to see the little slim figure emerge from some opening and run toward him.
”Darn the boy!” said Barney Bill, taking off his cap and scratching his wet head.
A low moan broke the dead silence of the Sunday dawn. He started and looked about him. He listened. There was another. The moans were those of a sleeper. He bent down and looked under the van. There Jay Paul, huddled up, fast asleep on the bare ground.
”Well, I'm jiggered! I'm just jiggered. Here, you--h.e.l.lo!” cried Barney Bill.
Paul awakened suddenly, half sat up, grinned, grabbed at something on the ground beside him and wriggled out between the wheels.
”How long you been there?”
”About two hours,” said Paul.
”Why didn't yer wake me?”
”I didn't like to disturb thee,” said Paul.
”Did yer go home?”
”Ay,” said Paul.
”Into the house?”
Paul nodded and smiled. Now, that it was all over, he could smile. But only afterwards, when he had greater command of language, could he describe the awful terror that shook his soul when he opened the front door, crept twice through the darkness of the sleeping kitchen and noiselessly closed the door again.
For many months he felt the terror of his dreams. Briefly he told Barney Bill of his exploit. How he had to lurk in the shadow of the street during the end of a battle between the b.u.t.tons, in which the lodgers and a policeman had intervened. How he had to wait--interminable hours--until the house was quiet. How he had stumbled over things in the drunken disorder of the kitchen floor, dreading to arouse the four elder little b.u.t.tons who slept in the room.
How narrowly he had missed running into the arms of the policeman who had pa.s.sed the door some seconds before he opened it. How he had crouched on the pavement until the policeman turned the corner, and how he had fled in the opposite direction.
”And if yer mother had caught ye, what would she have done to yer?”
”Half-killed me,” said Paul.
Barney Bill twisted his head on one side and looked at him out of his twinkling eyes. Paul thought he resembled a grotesque bird.
”Wot did yer do it for?” he asked.
”This,” said Paul, holding out a grubby palm in which lay the precious cornelian heart.
His friend blinked at it. ”Wot the blazes is the good of that?”
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