Part 28 (2/2)
”I don't exactly know--though I know better than what I was put in prison for. n.o.body ever told me anything, but I'm always waiting for something.”
”The something will come, child. You will have what you want! Only go on as you're doing, and you'll be a great man one day.”
”I don't want to be a great man,” answered Clare; ”I'm only waiting till what is coming does come.”
The woman cast down her eyes, and seemed lost in thought. Clare dandled the baby gently in his arms, and talked loving nonsense to her.
”Well,” said the old woman, raising at length her eyes, with a look of reverence in them, to Clare's, ”I can't help you, and you want no help of mine. I've got no money, but--”
”I've got plenty of money, ma'am,” interrupted Clare. ”I've got a whole s.h.i.+lling in my pocket!”
”Bless the holy innocent!” murmured the woman. ”--Well, I can only promise you this--that as long as I live, the baby sha'n't forget you; and I ain't so old as I look.”
Here the matron came up, and said he had better be going now; but if he came back any day after a month, he should see the baby again.
”Thank you, ma'am,” replied Clare. ”Keep her a good baby, please. I will come for her one day.”
”Please G.o.d I live to see that day!” said the old woman. ”I think I shall.”
She did live to see it, though I cannot tell that part of the story now.
Chapter x.x.xIX.
Away.
So Clare went once more into the street, where Abdiel was again watching for him, and stood on the pavement, not knowing which way to turn. The big policeman had told him that no one there would give him work after what had happened; and now, therefore, he was only waiting for a direction to present itself. In a moment it occurred to him that, having come in at one end of the town, he had better go out at the other. He followed the suggestion, and Abdiel followed him--his head hanging and his tail also, for the joy of recovering his master had used up all the remnant of wag there was in his clock. He had no more frolic or scamper in him now than when Clare first saw him. How the poor thing had subsisted during the last few days, it were hard to tell. It was much that he had escaped death from ill-usage. Meanest of wretches are the boys or men that turn like grim death upon the helpless. Except they change their way, helplessness will overtake them like a thief, and they will look for some one to deliver them and find none. Traitors to those whom it is their duty to protect, they will one day find themselves in yet more pitiful plight than ever were they. But I fear they will not believe it before their fate has them by the throat.
Clare saw that the dog was famished. He stopped at a butcher's and bought him a sc.r.a.p of meat for a penny. Then he had elevenpence with which to begin the world afresh, and was not hungry.
Out on the highway they went, in a perfect English summer day, with all the world before them. It was not an oyster for Clare to open with sword, pen, or _sesame_; but he might find a place on the outside of it for all that, and a way over it into a better--one that he _could_ open and get at the heart of. The sun shone as on the day of the earthquake--deep in Clare's dimmest memorial cavern;--shone as if he knew, come what might, that all was well; that if he shone his heart out and went dark, nothing would go wrong; while, for the present, everything depended on his s.h.i.+ning his glorious best.
”Come along, Abdiel,” said Clare; ”we're going to see what comes next. At the worst, you know what hunger is, doggie, and that a good deal of it can be borne pretty well--though I'm not fond of it any more than you, doggie! We'll not beg till we're downright forced, and we won't steal. When that's the next thing, we'll just sit down, wag our tails, and die.--There!”
He gave him the last piece of his meat, and they trudged on for some time without speaking.
The sun was very hot, for it was past noon an hour or two, when they came to a public-house, with a pump before it, and a trough. Clare grew very thirsty when he saw the pump, and imagined the rush of a thick sparkling curve from its spout. But its handle was locked with a chain, to keep men and women from having water instead of beer. He went with longing to the trough, but the water in it was so unclean that, thirsty as he was, he could not look on it even as a last resource. He walked into the house.
”Please, ma'am,” he said to the woman at the bar, ”would you allow me to pump myself a little water to drink?”
”You think I've got nothing to do but serve tramps with water!” she answered, throwing back her head till her nostrils were at right angles with the horizon.
”I'm not a tramp, ma'am,” said Clare.
”Show me your money, then, for a pot of beer, like other honest folk.”
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