Part 9 (1/2)

The next morning Clare happened to do something not altogether to the farmer's mind. It was a matter of no consequence--only cleaning that side of one of the cow-houses first which was usually cleaned last. He gave him a box on the ear that made him stagger, and then stand bewildered.

”What do you mean by staring that way?” cried the farmer, annoyed with himself and seeking justification in his own eyes. ”Am I not to box your ears when I choose?” And with that he gave him another blow.

Then first it dawned on Clare that he was not wanted, that he was no good to anybody. He threw down his sc.r.a.per, and ran from the cow-house; ran straight from the farm to the lane, and from the lane to the high road. Buffets from the hand of his only friend, and the sudden sense of loneliness they caused, for the moment bereft Clare of purpose. It was as if his legs had run away with him, and he had unconsciously submitted to their abduction.

At the mouth of the lane, where it opened on the high road, he ran against Tommy turning the corner, eager to find him. The eyes of the small human monkey were swollen with weeping; his nose was bleeding, and in size and shape scarce recognizable as a nose. At the sight, the consciousness of his protectorate awoke in Clare, and he stopped, unable to speak, but not unable to listen. Tommy blubbered out a confused, half-inarticulate something about ”granny and the other devil,” who between them had all but killed him.

”What can I do?” said Clare, his heart sinking with the sense of having no help in him.

Tommy was ready to answer the question. He had been hatching vengeance all the way. Eagerly came his proposition--that they should, in their turn, lie in ambush for Simpson, and knock his crutch from under him. That done, Clare should belabour him with it, while he ran like the wind and set his grandmother's house on fire.

”She'll be drunk in bed, an' she'll be burned to death!” cried Tommy. ”Then we'll mizzle!”

”But it would hurt them both very badly, Tommy!” said Clare, as if unfolding the reality of the thing to a foolish child.

”Well! all right! the worse the better! 'Ain't they hurt us?” rejoined Tommy.

”That's how we know it's not nice!” answered Clare. ”If they set it a going, we ain't to keep it a going!”

”Then they'll be at it for ever,” cried Tommy, ”an' I'm sick of it!

I'll _kill_ granny! I swear I will, if I'm hanged for it! She's said a hundred times she'd pull my legs when I was hanged; but _she_ won't be at the hanging!”

”Why shouldn't you run for it first?” said Clare. ”Then they wouldn't want to hang you!”

”Then I shouldn't have n.o.body!” replied Tommy, whimpering.

”I should have thought n.o.body was as good as granny!” said Clare.

”A big bilin' better!” answered Tommy bitterly. ”I wasn't meanin'

granny--nor yet stumpin' Simpson.”

”I don't know what you're driving at,” said Clare. Tommy burst into tears.

”Ain't you the only one I got, up or down?” he cried.

Tommy had a little bit of heart--not much, but enough to have a chance of growing. If ever creature had less than that, he was not human. I do not think he could even be an ape.

Some of the people about the parson used to think Clare had no heart, and Mrs. Goodenough was sure of it. He had not a spark of grat.i.tude, she said. But the cause of this opinion was that Clare's affection took the shape of deeds far more than of words. Never were judges of their neighbours more mistaken. The chief difference between Clare's history and that of most others was, that his began at the unusual end. Clare began with loving everybody; and most people take a long time to grow to that. Hence, those whom, from being brought nearest to them, he loved specially, he loved without that outbreak of show which is often found in persons who love but a few, and whose love is defiled with partisans.h.i.+p. He loved quietly and constantly, in a fas.h.i.+on as active as undemonstrative. He was always glad to be near those he specially loved; beyond that, the signs of his love were practical--it came out in ministration, in doing things for them. There are those who, without loving, desire to be loved, because they love themselves; for those that are worth least are most precious to themselves. But Clare never thought of the love of others to him--from no heartlessness, but that he did not think about himself--had never done so, at least, until the moment when he fled from the farm with the new agony in his heart that n.o.body wanted him, that everybody would be happier without him. Happy is he that does not think of himself before the hour when he becomes conscious of the bliss of being loved. For it must be and ought to be a happy moment when one learns that another human creature loves him; and not to be grateful for love is to be deeply selfish. Clare had always loved, but had not thought of any one as loving him, or of himself as being loved by any one.

”Well,” rejoined Clare, struggling with his misery, ”ain't I going myself?”

”You going!--That's chaff!”

”'Tain't chaff. I'm on my way.”

”What! Going to hook it? Oh golly! what a lark! Won't Farmer Goodenough look blue!”