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Sturdy and Strong; Or, How George Andrews Made His Way

by G. A. Henty · English · Gutenberg #33939 · 396,909 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Sturdy and Strong; Or, How George Andrews Made His Way

Author: G. A. Henty


        
Release date: October 7, 2010 [eBook #33939]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STURDY AND STRONG; OR, HOW GEORGE ANDREWS MADE HIS WAY ***




Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)









                          STURDY AND STRONG

                             G. A. HENTY


      [Illustration: "SURLY JOE SAT WITH A CHILD ON EITHER SIDE,
                     TELLING THEM SEA STORIES."--_Frontispiece._
                                            _Sturdy and Strong._]



                          STURDY AND STRONG
                                  OR
                  _How George Andrews Made His Way_

                                  BY
                             G. A. HENTY

      AUTHOR OF "THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN," "WITH CLIVE IN INDIA,"
    "IN FREEDOM'S CAUSE," "THE LION OF THE NORTH," "FACING DEATH,"
                           ETC., ETC., ETC.


                               NEW YORK
                       THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY
                              PUBLISHERS




PREFACE.


Whatever may be said as to distinction of classes in England, it is
certain that in no country in the world is the upward path more open
to those who brace themselves to climb it than in our own. The
proportion of those who remain absolutely stationary is comparatively
small. We are all living on a hillside, and we must either go up or
down. It is easier to descend than to ascend; but he who fixes his
eyes upwards, nerves himself for the climb, and determines with all
his might and power to win his way towards the top, is sure to find
himself at the end of his day at a far higher level than when he
started upon his journey. It may be said, and sometimes foolishly is
said, that luck is everything; but in nineteen cases out of twenty
what is called luck is simply a combination of opportunity, and of the
readiness and quickness to turn that opportunity to advantage. The
voyager must take every advantage of wind, tide, and current, if he
would make a favorable journey; and for success in life it is
necessary not only to be earnest, steadfast, and true, but to have the
faculty of turning every opportunity to the best advantage; just as a
climber utilizes every tuft of grass, every little shrub, every
projecting rock, as a hold for his hands or feet. George Andrews had
what may be called luck--that is, he had opportunities and took
advantage of them, and his rise in life was consequently far more
rapid than if he had let them pass without grasping them; but in any
case his steadiness, perseverance, and determination to get on would
assuredly have made their way in the long run. If similar qualities
and similar determinations are yours, you need not despair of similar
success in life.

                                                        G. A. HENTY.




CONTENTS.


       STURDY AND STRONG:           PAGE
    I. ALONE,                          1
   II. TWO FRIENDS,                   25
  III. WORK,                          48
   IV. HOME,                          74
    V. AN ADVENTURE,                  97
   VI. FIRE!                         117
  VII. SAVED!                        142
       DO YOUR DUTY,                 165
       SURLY JOE,                    231
       A FISH-WIFE'S DREAM,          257




STURDY AND STRONG.




CHAPTER I.

ALONE.


"You heard what he said, George?"

"Oh, mother, mother!"

"Don't sob so, my boy; he is right. I have seen it coming a long time,
and, hard as it seems, it will be better. There is no disgrace in it.
I have tried my best, and if my health had not broken down we might
have managed, but you see it was not to be. I shall not mind it, dear;
it is really only for your sake that I care about it at all."

The boy had ceased sobbing, and sat now with a white set face.

"Mother, it will break my heart to think that I cannot keep you from
this. If we could only have managed for a year or two I could have
earned more then; but to think of you--you in the workhouse!"

"In a workhouse infirmary, my boy," his mother said gently. "You see it
is not as if it were from any fault of ours. We have done our best. You
and I have managed for two years; but what with my health and my eyes
breaking down we can do so no longer. I hope it will not be for long,
dear. You see I shall have rest and quiet, and I hope I shall soon be
able to be out again."

"Not soon, mother. The doctor said you ought not to use your eyes for
months."

"Even months pass quickly, George, when one has hope. I have felt this
coming so long that I shall be easier and happier now it has come. After
all, what is a workhouse infirmary but a hospital, and it would not seem
so very dreadful to you my going into a hospital; the difference is only
in name; both are, after all, charities, but the one is kept up out of
subscriptions, the other from the rates."

His mother's words conveyed but little comfort to George Andrews. He had
just come in from his work, and had heard what the parish doctor had
told his mother.

"I can do nothing for you here, Mrs. Andrews. You must have rest and
quiet for your eyes, and not only that, but you must have strengthening
food. It is no use my blinking the truth. It is painful for you, I know.
I can well understand that; but I see no other way. If you refuse to go
I won't answer for your life."

"I will go, doctor," she had answered quietly. "I know that it will be
best. It will be a blow to my boy, but I see no other way."

"If you don't want your boy to be alone in the world, ma'am, you will do
as I advise you. I will go round in the morning and get you the order of
admission, and as I shall be driving out that way I will, if you like,
take you myself."

"Thank you, doctor; you are very good. Yes, I will be ready in the
morning, and I thank you for your offer."

"Very well, then, that's settled," the doctor said briskly. "At ten
o'clock I will be here."

Although a little rough in manner, Dr. Jeffries was a kind-hearted and
humane man.

"Poor woman," he said to himself as he went downstairs, "it is hard for
her. It is easy to see that she is a lady, and a thorough lady too; but
what can I do for her! I might get her a little temporary help, but that
would be of no use--she is completely broken down with anxiety and
insufficient food, and unless her eyes have a long holiday she will lose
her sight. No, there's nothing else for it, but it is hard."

It was hard. Mrs. Andrews was, as the doctor said, a lady. She had lost
both her parents while she was at school. She had no near relations, and
as she was sixteen when her mother died she had remained at school
finishing her education and teaching the younger children. Then she had
obtained a situation as governess in a gentleman's family, and two years
afterwards had married a young barrister who was a frequent visitor at
the house.

Mr. Andrews was looked upon as a rising man, and for the first seven or
eight years of her marriage his wife's life had been a very happy one.
Then her husband was prostrated by a fever which he caught in one of the
midland towns while on circuit, and although he partially recovered he
was never himself again. His power of work seemed to be lost; a languor
which he could not overcome took possession of him. A troublesome cough
ere long attacked him, and two years later Mrs. Andrews was a widow, and
her boy, then nine years old, an orphan.

During the last two years of his life Mr. Andrews had earned but
little in his profession. The comfortable house which he occupied had
been given up, and they had removed to one much smaller. But in spite
of this, debts mounted up, and when, after his death, the remaining
furniture was sold and everything settled, there remained only about
two hundred pounds. Mrs. Andrews tried to get some pupils among her
late husband's friends, but during the last two years she had lost
sight of many of these, and now met with but poor success among the
others. She was a quiet and retiring woman, and shrank from continuous
solicitations, and at the end of three years she found her little
store exhausted.

Hitherto she had kept George at school, but could no longer do so,
and, giving up her lodging in Brompton, went down to Croydon, where
someone had told her that they thought she would have a better chance
of obtaining pupils, but the cards which some of the tradesmen allowed
her to put in the window led to no result, and finding this to be the
case she applied at one of the milliner's for work. This she obtained,
and for a year supported herself and her boy by needlework.

From the time when George left school she had gone on teaching him his
lessons; but on the day when he was thirteen years old he declared
that he would no longer submit to his mother working for both of them,
and, setting out, called at shop after shop inquiring if they wanted
an errand-boy. He succeeded at last in getting a place at a grocer's
where he was to receive three shillings a week and his meals, going
home to sleep at night in the closet-like little attic adjoining the
one room which his mother could now afford.

For a while they were more comfortable than they had been for some
time; now that his mother had no longer George to feed, her earnings
and the three shillings he brought home every Saturday night enabled
them to live in comparative ease, and on Sunday something like a feast
was always prepared. But six months later Mrs. Andrews felt her
eyesight failing, the lids became inflamed, and a dull aching pain
settled in the eyeballs. Soon she could only work for a short time
together, her earnings became smaller and smaller, and her employers
presently told her that she kept the work so long in hand that they
could no longer employ her. There was now only George's three
shillings a week to rely upon, and this was swallowed up by the rent.
In despair she had applied to the parish doctor about her eyes. For a
fortnight he attended her, and at the end of that time had
peremptorily given the order of which she had told her son.

To her it was a relief; she had seen that it must come. Piece by piece
every article of clothing she possessed, save those she wore, had been
pawned for food, and every resource was now exhausted. She was worn
out with the struggle, and the certainty of rest and food overcame her
repugnance to the house. For George's sake too, much as she knew he
would feel her having to accept such a refuge, she was glad that the
struggle was at an end. The lad had for the last six months suffered
greatly for her sake. Every meal to which he sat down at his
employer's seemed to choke him as he contrasted it with the fare to
which she was reduced, although, as far as possible, she had concealed
from him how sore was her strait.

George cried himself to sleep that night, and he could scarce speak
when he said good-by to his mother in the morning, for he could not
tell when he should see her again.

"You will stop where you are, my boy, will you not?"

"I cannot promise, mother. I don't know yet what I shall do; but
please don't ask me to promise anything. You must let me do what I
think best. I have got to make a home for you when you are cured. I am
fourteen now, and am as strong as most boys of my age. I ought to be
able to earn a shilling a day somehow, and with seven shillings a
week, mother, and you just working a little, you know, so as not to
hurt your eyes, we ought to be able to do. Don't you bother about me,
mother. I want to try anyhow what I can do till you come out. When you
do, then I will do whatever you tell me; that's fair, isn't it?"

Mrs. Andrews would have remonstrated, but he said:

"Well, mother, you see at the worst I can get a year's character from
Dutton, so that if I can't get anything else to do I can get the same
sort of place again, and as I am a year older than I was when he took
me, and can tie up parcels neatly now, I ought to get a little more
anyhow. You see I shall be safe enough, and though I have never
grumbled, you know, mother--have I?--I think I would rather do
anything than be a grocer's boy. I would rather, when I grow up, be a
bricklayer's laborer, or a plowman, or do any what I call man's work,
than be pottering about behind a counter, with a white apron on,
weighing out sugar and currants."

"I can't blame you, George," Mrs. Andrews said with a sigh. "It's
natural, my boy. If I get my eyesight and my health again, when you
grow up to be a man we will lay by a little money, and you and I will
go out together to one of the colonies. It will be easier to rise
again there than here, and with hard work both of us might surely hope
to get on. There must be plenty of villages in Australia and Canada
where I could do well with teaching, and you could get work in
whatever way you may be inclined to. So, my boy, let us set that
before us. It will be something to hope for and work for, and will
cheer us to go through whatever may betide us up to that time."

"Yes, mother," George said. "It will be comfort indeed to have
something to look forward to. Nothing can comfort me much to-day; but
if anything could it would be some such plan as that."

The last words he said to his mother as, blinded with tears, he kissed
her before starting to work, were:

"I shall think of our plan every day, and look forward to that more
than anything else in the world--next to your coming to me again."

At ten o'clock Dr. Jeffries drove up to Mrs. Andrews' humble lodging
in a brougham instead of his ordinary gig, having borrowed the
carriage from one of the few of his patients who kept such a vehicle,
on purpose to take Mrs. Andrews, for she was so weak and worn that he
was sure she would not be able to sit upright in a gig for the three
miles that had to be traversed. He managed in the course of his rounds
to pass the workhouse again in the afternoon, and brought George,
before he left work, a line written in pencil on a leaf torn from his
pocketbook:

     "My darling, I am very comfortable. Everything is clean and
     nice, and the doctor and people kind. Do not fret about
     me.--Your loving mother."

Although George's expressed resolution of leaving his present
situation, and seeking to earn his living in some other way, caused
Mrs. Andrews much anxiety, she had not sought strongly to dissuade him
from it. No doubt it would be wiser for him to stay in his present
situation, where he was well treated and well fed, and it certainly
seemed improbable to her that he would be able to get a better living
elsewhere. Still she could not blame him for wishing at least to try.
She herself shared to some extent his prejudice against the work in
which he was employed. There is no disgrace in honest work; but she
felt that she would rather see him engaged in hard manual labor than
as a shop boy. At any rate, as he said, if he failed he could come
back again to Croydon, and, with a year's character from his present
employer, would probably be able to obtain a situation similar to that
which he now held. She was somewhat comforted, too, by a few words
the doctor had said to her during their drive.

"I think you are fortunate in your son, Mrs. Andrews. He seems to me a
fine steady boy. If I can, in any way, do him a good turn while you
are away from him, I will."

George remained for another month in his situation, for he knew that
it would never do to start on his undertaking penniless. At the end of
that time, having saved up ten shillings, and having given notice to
his employer, he left the shop for the last time, and started to walk
to London. It was not until he began to enter the crowded streets that
he felt the full magnitude of his undertaking. To be alone in London,
a solitary atom in the busy mass of humanity, is a trying situation
even for a man; to a boy of fourteen it is terrible. Buying a penny
roll, George sat down to eat it in one of the niches of a bridge over
the river, and then kneeling up watched the barges and steamers
passing below him.

Had it not been for his mother, his first thought, like that of most
English boys thrown on the world, would have been to go to sea; but
this idea he had from the first steadily set aside as out of the
question. His plan was to obtain employment as a boy in some
manufacturing work, for he thought that there, by steadiness and
perseverance, he might make his way.

On one thing he was resolved. He would make his money last as long as
possible. Three penny-worth of bread a day would, he calculated, be
sufficient for his wants. As to sleeping, he thought he might manage
to sleep anywhere; it was summer time and the nights were warm. He had
no idea what the price of a bed would be, or how to set about getting
a lodging. He did not care how roughly he lived so that he could but
make his money last. The first few days he determined to look about
him. Something might turn up. If it did not he would set about getting
a place in earnest. He had crossed Waterloo Bridge, and, keeping
straight on, found himself in Covent Garden, where he was astonished
and delighted at the quantities of fruit, vegetables, and flowers.

Although he twice set out in different directions to explore the
streets, he each time returned to Covent Garden. There were many lads
of his own age playing about there, and he thought that from them he
might get some hints as to how to set about earning a living. They
looked ragged and poor enough, but they might be able to tell him
something--about sleeping, for instance. For although before starting
the idea of sleeping anywhere had seemed natural enough, it looked
more formidable now that he was face to face with it.

Going to a cook-shop in a street off the market he bought two slices
of plum-pudding. He rather grudged the twopence which he paid; but he
felt that it might be well laid out. Provided with the pudding he
returned to the market, sat himself down on an empty basket, and began
to eat slowly and leisurely.

In a short time he noticed a lad of about his own age watching him
greedily.

He was far from being a respectable-looking boy. His clothes were
ragged, and his toes could be seen through a hole in his boot. He wore
neither hat nor cap, and his hair looked as if it had not been combed
since the day of his birth. There was a sharp, pinched look on his
face. But had he been washed and combed and decently clad he would not
have been a bad-looking boy. At any rate George liked his face better
than most he had seen in the market, and he longed for a talk with
someone. So he held out his other slice of pudding, and said:

"Have a bit?"

"Oh, yes!" the boy replied "Walker, eh?"

"No, I mean it, really. Will you have a bit?"

"No larks?" asked the boy.

"No; no larks. Here you are."

Feeling assured now that no trick was intended the boy approached,
took without a word the pudding which George held out, and, seating
himself on a basket close to him, took a great bite.

"Where do you live?" George asked, when the slice of pudding had half
disappeared.

"Anywheres," the boy replied, waving his hand round.

"I mean, where do you sleep?"

The boy nodded, to intimate that his sleeping-place was included in
the general description of his domicile.

"And no one interferes with you?" George inquired.

"The beaks, they moves you on when they ketches you; but ef yer get
under a cart or in among the baskets you generally dodges 'em."

"And suppose you want to pay for a place to sleep, where do you go and
how much do you pay?"

"Tuppence," the boy said; "or if yer want a first-rate, fourpence.
Does yer want to find a crib?" he asked doubtfully, examining his
companion.

"Well, yes," George said. "I want to find some quiet place where I can
sleep, cheap, you know."

"Out of work?" the boy inquired.

"Yes. I haven't got anything to do at present. I am looking for a
place, you know."

"Don't know no one about?"

"No; I have just come in from Croydon."

The boy shook his head.

"Don't know nothing as would suit," he said. "Why, yer'd get them
clothes and any money yet had walked off with the wery fust night."

"I should not get a room to myself, I suppose, even for fourpence?"
George asked, making a rapid calculation that this would come to two
and fourpence per week, as much as his mother had paid for a
comparatively comfortable room in Croydon.

The boy opened his eyes in astonishment at his companion requiring a
room for himself.

"Lor' bless yer, yer'd have a score of them with yer!"

"I don't care about a bed," George said. "Just some place to sleep in.
Just some straw in any quiet corner."

This seemed more reasonable to the boy, and he thought the matter
over.

"Well," he said at last, "I knows of a place where they puts up the
hosses of the market carts. I knows a hostler there. Sometimes when
it's wery cold he lets me sleep up in the loft. Aint it warm and
comfortable just! I helps him with the hosses sometimes, and that's
why. I will ax him if yer likes."

George assented at once. His ideas as to the possibility of sleeping
in the open air had vanished when he saw the surroundings, and a bed
in a quiet loft seemed to him vastly better than sleeping in a room
with twenty others.

"How do you live?" he asked the lad, "and what's your name?"

"They calls me the Shadder," the boy said rather proudly; "but my real
name's Bill."

"Why do they call you the Shadow?" George asked.

"'Cause the bobbies finds it so hard to lay hands on me," Bill
replied.

"But what do they want to lay hands on you for?" George asked.

"Why, for bagging things, in course," Bill replied calmly.

"Bagging things? Do you mean stealing?" George said, greatly shocked.

"Well, not regular prigging," the Shadow replied; "not wipes, yer
know, nor tickers, nor them kind of things. I aint never prigged
nothing of that kind."

"Well, what is it then you do--prig?" George asked, mystified.

"Apples or cabbages, or a bunch of radishes, onions sometimes, or
'taters. That aint regular prigging, you know."

"Well, it seems to me the same sort of thing," George said, after a
pause.

"I tell yer it aint the same sort of thing at all," the Shadow said
angrily. "Everyone as aint a fool knows that taters aint wipes, and no
one can't say as a apple and a ticker are the same."

"No, not the same," George agreed; "but you see one is just as much
stealing as the other."

"No, it aint," the boy reasserted. "One is the same as money and
t'other aint. I am hungry and I nips a apple off a stall. No one aint
the worse for it. You don't suppose as they misses a apple here? Why,
there's wagon-loads of 'em, and lots of 'em is rotten. Well, it aint
no more if I takes one than if it was rotten. Is it now?"

George thought there was a difference, but he did not feel equal to
explaining it.

"The policemen must think differently," he said at last, "else they
wouldn't be always trying to catch you."

"Who cares for the bobbies?" Bill said contemptuously. "I don't; and I
don't want no more jaw with you about it. If yer don't likes it, yer
leaves it. I didn't ask for yer company, did I? So now then."

George had really taken a fancy to the boy, and moreover he saw that
in the event of a quarrel his chance of finding a refuge for the night
was small. In his sense of utter loneliness in the great city he was
loath to break with the only acquaintance he had made.

"I didn't mean to offend you, Bill," he said; "only I was sorry to
hear you say you took things. It seems to me you might get into
trouble; and it would be better after all to work for a living."

"What sort of work?" Bill said derisively. "Who's agoing to give me
work? Does yer think I have only got to walk into a shop and ask for
'ployment? They wouldn't want to know nothing about my character, I
suppose? nor where I had worked before? nor where my feyther lived?
nor nothing? Oh, no, of course not! It's blooming easy to get work
about here; only got to ax for it, that's all. Good wages and all
found, that's your kind."

"I don't suppose it's easy," George said; "but it seems to me people
could get something to do if they tried."

"Tried!" the boy said bitterly. "Do yer think we don't try! Why, we
are always trying to earn a copper or two. Why, we begins at three
o'clock in the morning when the market-carts come in, and we goes on
till they comes out of that there theater at night, just trying to
pick up a copper. Sometimes one does and sometimes one doesn't. It's a
good day, I tell you, when we have made a tanner by the end of it.
Don't tell me! And now as to this ere stable; yer means it?"

"Yes," George said; "certainly I mean it."

"Wery well then, you be here at this corner at nine o'clock. I will go
before that and square it with Ned. That's the chap I was speaking
of."

"I had better give you something to give him," George said. "Will a
shilling do?"

"Yes, a bob will do for three or four nights. Are you going to trust
me with it?"

"Of course I am," George replied. "I am sure you wouldn't be so mean
as to do me out of it; besides, you told me that you never stole money
and those sort of things."

"It aint everyone as would trust me with a bob for all that," Bill
replied; "and yer are running a risk, yer know, and I tells yer if yer
goes on with that sort of game yer'll get took in rarely afore yer've
done. Well, hand it over. I aint a-going to bilk yer."

The Shadow spoke carelessly, but this proof of confidence on the part
of his companion really touched him, and as he went off he said to
himself, "He aint a bad sort, that chap, though he is so precious
green. I must look arter him a bit and see he don't get into no
mischief."

George, on his part, as he walked away down into the Strand again,
felt that he had certainly run a risk in thus intrusting a tenth of
his capital to his new acquaintance; but the boy's face and manner had
attracted him, and he felt that, although the Shadow's notions of
right and wrong might be of a confused nature, he meant to act
straight toward him.

George passed the intervening hours before the time named for his
meeting in Covent Garden in staring into the shop windows in the
Strand, and in wondering at the constant stream of vehicles and foot
passengers flowing steadily out westward. He was nearly knocked under
the wheels of the vehicles a score of times from his ignorance as to
the rule of the road, and at last he was so confused by the jostling
and pushing that he was glad to turn down a side street and to sit
down for a time on a doorstep.

When nine o'clock approached he went into a baker's shop and bought a
loaf, which would, he thought, do for supper and breakfast for himself
and his companion. Having further invested threepence in cheese, he
made his way up to the market.

The Shadow was standing at the corner whistling loudly.

"Oh, here yer be! That's all right; come along. I have squared Ned,
and it's all right."

He led the way down two or three streets and then stopped at a
gateway.

"You stop here," he said, "and I will see as there aint no one but Ned
about."

He returned in a minute.

"It's all clear! Ned, he's a-rubbing down a hoss; he won't take no
notice of yer as yer pass. He don't want to see yer, yer know, 'cause
in case anyone comed and found yer up there he could swear he never
saw yer go in, and didn't know nothing about yer. I will go with yer
to the door, and then yer will see a ladder in the corner; if yer whip
up that yer'll find it all right up there."

"But you are coming too, aint you?" George asked.

"Oh, no, I aint a-coming. Yer don't want a chap like me up there. I
might pick yer pocket, yer know; besides I aint your sort."

"Oh, nonsense!" George said. "I should like to have you with me, Bill;
I should really. Besides, what's the difference between us? We have
both got to work for ourselves and make our way in the world."

"There's a lot of difference. Yer don't talk the way as I do; yer have
been brought up different. Don't tell me."

"I may have been brought up differently, Bill. I have been fortunate
there; but now, you see, I have got to get my living in the best way I
can, and if I have had a better education than you have, you know ever
so much more about London and how to get your living than I do, so
that makes us quits."

"Oh, wery well," Bill said; "it's all the same to this child. So if
yer aint too proud, here goes."

He led the way down a stable yard, past several doors, showing the
empty stalls which would be all filled when the market carts arrived.
At the last door on the right he stopped. George looked in. At the
further end a man was rubbing down a horse by the faint light of a
lantern, the rest of the stable was in darkness.

"This way," Bill whispered.

Keeping close behind him, George entered the stable. The boy stopped
in the corner.

"Here's the ladder. I will go up fust and give yer a hand when yer
gets to the top."

George stood quiet until his companion had mounted, and then ascended
the ladder, which was fixed against the wall. Presently a voice
whispered in his ear:

"Give us your hand. Mind how yer puts your foot."

In a minute he was standing in the loft. His companion drew him along
in the darkness, and in a few steps arrived at a pile of hay.

"There yer are," Bill said in a low voice; "yer 'ave only to make
yourself comfortable there. Now mind you don't fall down one of the
holes into the mangers."

"I wish we had a little light," George said, as he ensconced himself
in the hay.

"I will give you some light in a minute," Bill said, as he left his
side, and directly afterwards a door opened and the light of a
gaslight in the yard streamed in.

"That's where they pitches the hay in," Bill said as he rejoined him.
"I shuts it up afore I goes to sleep, 'cause the master he comes out
sometimes when the carts comes in, and there would be a blooming row
if he saw it open; but we are all right now."

"That's much nicer," George said. "Now here's a loaf I brought with
me. We will cut it in half and put by a half for the morning, and eat
the other half between us now, and I have got some cheese here too."

"That's tiptop!" the boy said. "Yer're a good sort, I could see that,
and I am pretty empty, I am, for I aint had nothing except that bit
of duff yer gave me since morning, and I only had a crust then. 'Cept
for running against you I aint been lucky to-day. Couldn't get a job
nohows, and it aint for want of trying neither."

For some minutes the boys ate in silence. George had given much the
largest portion to his companion, for he himself was too dead tired to
be very hungry. When he had finished, he said:

"Look here, Bill; we will talk in the morning. I am so dead beat I can
scarcely keep my eyes open, so I will just say my prayers and go off
to sleep."

"Say your prayers!" Bill said in astonishment. "Do yer mean to say as
yer says prayers!"

"Of course I do," George replied; "don't you?"

"Never said one in my life," Bill said decidedly; "don't know how,
don't see as it would do no good ef I did."

"It would do good, Bill," George said. "I hope some day you will think
differently, and I will teach you some you will like."

"I don't want to know none," Bill said positively. "A missionary chap,
he came and prayed with an old woman I lodged with once. I could not
make head nor tail of it, and she died just the same, so you see what
good did it do her?"

But George was too tired to enter upon a theological argument. He was
already half asleep, and Bill's voice sounded a long way off.

"Good-night," he muttered; "I will talk to you in the morning," and in
another minute he was fast asleep.

Bill took an armful of hay and shook it lightly over his companion;
then he closed the door of the loft and threw himself on the hay, and
was soon also sound asleep. When George woke in the morning the
daylight was streaming in through the cracks of the door. His
companion was gone. He heard the voices of several men in the yard,
while a steady champing noise and an occasional shout or the sound of
a scraping on the stones told him the stalls below were all full now.

George felt that he had better remain where he was. Bill had told him
the evening before that the horses and carts generally set out again
at about nine o'clock, and he thought he had better wait till they had
gone before he slipped down below. Closing his eyes he was very soon
off to sleep again. When he woke, Bill was sitting by his side looking
at him.

"Well, you are a oner to sleep," the boy said. "Why, it's nigh ten
o'clock, and it's time for us to be moving. Ned will be going off in a
few minutes, and the stables will be locked up till the evening."

"Is there time to eat our bread and cheese?" George asked.

"No, we had better eat it when we get down to the market; come
along."

George at once rose, shook the hay off his clothes, and descended the
ladder, Bill leading the way. There was no one in the stable, and the
yard was also empty. On reaching the market they sat down on two empty
baskets, and at once began to eat their bread and cheese.




CHAPTER II.

TWO FRIENDS.


"I did wake before, Bill," George said after he had eaten a few
mouthfuls; "but you were out."

"Yes, I turned out as soon as the carts began to come in," Bill said,
"and a wery good morning I have had. One old chap gave me twopence for
looking arter his hoss and cart while he went into the market with his
flowers. But the best move was just now. A chap as was driving off
with flowers, one of them swell West-end shops, I expect, by the look
of the trap, let his rug fall. He didn't see it till I ran after him
with it, then he gave me a tanner; that was something like. Have yer
finished yer bread and cheese?"

"Yes," George said, "and I could manage a drink of water if I could
get one."

"There's a fountain handy," Bill said; "but you come along with me, I
am agoing to stand two cups of coffee if yer aint too proud to take
it;" and he looked doubtfully at his companion.

"I am not at all too proud," George said, for he saw that the
slightest hesitation would hurt his companion's feelings.

"It aint fust-rate coffee," Bill said, as with a brightened look on
his face he turned and led the way to a little coffee-stall; "but it's
hot and sweet, and yer can't expect more nor that for a penny."

George found the coffee really better than he had expected, and Bill
was evidently very much gratified at his expression of approval.

"Now," he said, when they had both finished, "for a draw of 'baccy,"
and he produced a short clay pipe. "Don't yer smoke?"

"No, I haven't begun yet."

"Ah! ye don't know what a comfort a pipe is," Bill said. "Why, when
yer are cold and hungry and down on your luck a pipe is a wonderful
thing, and so cheap; why, a ounce of 'baccy will fill yer thirty pipes
if yer don't squeeze it in too hard. Well, an ounce of 'baccy costs
threepence halfpenny, so, as I makes out, yer gets eight pipes for a
penny; and now," he went on when he had filled and lit his pipe,
"let's know what's yer game."

"You mean what am I going to do?" George asked.

Bill nodded.

"I want to get employment in some sort of works. I have been an
errand-boy in a grocer's for more than a year, and I have got a
written character from my master in my pocket; but I don't like the
sort of thing; I would rather work with my own hands. There are plenty
of works where they employ boys, and you know one might get on as one
gets older. The first thing is to find out whereabouts works of that
sort are."

"There are lots of works at the East End, I have heard tell," Bill
said; "and then there's Clerkenwell and King's Cross, they aint so far
off, and there are works there, all sorts of works, I should say; but
I don't know nuffin' about that sort of work. The only work as I have
done is holding hosses and carrying plants into the market, and
sometimes when I have done pretty well I goes down and lays out what I
got in _Echoes_, or _Globes_, or _Evening Standards_; that pays yer,
that does, for if yer can sell them all yer will get a bob for eight
penn'orth of papers, that gives yer fourpence for an hour's work, and
I calls that blooming good, and can't yer get a tuck-out for a bob!
Oh, no, I should think not! Well, what shall it be? I knows the way
out to Whitechapel and to Clerkenwell, so whichever yer likes I can
show yer."

"If Clerkenwell's the nearest we may as well try that first," George
said, "and I shall be much obliged to you for showing the way."

The two boys spent the whole day in going from workshop to workshop
for employment; but the answers to his application were unvarying:
either he was too young or there was no place vacant. George took the
disappointment quietly, for he had made up his mind that he would have
difficulty in getting a place; but Bill became quite angry on behalf
of his companion.

"This is worse nor the market," he said. "A chap can pick up a few
coppers there, and here we have been a-tramping about all day and aint
done nothing."

Day after day George set out on his quest, but all was without
success. He and Bill still slept in the loft, and after the first day
he took to getting up at the same time as his companion, and going out
with him to try and pick up a few pence from the men with the
market-carts. Every other morning they were able to lie later, as
there were only regular marketdays three mornings a week.

On market mornings he found that he earned more than Bill, his better
clothes giving him an advantage, as the men were more willing to trust
their carts and rugs to the care of a quiet, respectable-looking boy
than to that of the arabs who frequented the Garden. But all that was
earned was laid out in common between the two boys, and George found
himself seldom obliged to draw above a few pence on his private stock.
He had by this time told the Shadow exactly how much money he had, and
the boy, seeing the difficulty that George found in getting work, was
most averse to the store being trenched upon, and always gave his vote
against the smallest addition to their ordinary fare of bread and
cheese being purchased, except from their earnings of the day. This
George felt was the more creditable on Bill's part, inasmuch as the
latter had, in deference to his prejudices, abstained from the petty
thefts of fruit with which before he had seasoned his dry crusts.

George had learned now what Bill knew of his history, which was little
enough. He supposed he had had a father, but he knew nothing of him;
whether he had died, or whether he had cut away and left mother, Bill
had no idea. His mother he remembered well, though she had died when
he was, as he said, a little chap. He spoke of her always in a hushed
voice, and in a tone of reverence, as a superior being.

"We was poor, you know," he said to George, "and I know mother was
often short of grub, but she was just kind. I don't never remember her
whacking me; always spoke soft and low like; she was good, she was.
She used to pray, you know, and what I remember most is as the night
afore she was took away to a hospital she says, 'Try and live honest,
Bill; it will be hard, but try, my boy. Don't you take to stealing,
however poor you may be;' and I aint," Bill said earnestly over and
over again. "When I has seed any chap going along with a ticker handy,
which I could have boned and got away among the carts as safe as
ninepence, or when I has seed a woman with her purse a-sticking out of
them outside pockets, and I aint had a penny to bless myself with, and
perhaps nothing to eat all day, I have felt it hard not to make a
grab; but I just thought of what she said, and I aint done it. As I
told yer, I have often nabbed things off the stalls or out of the
baskets or carts. It didn't seem to me as that was stealing, but as
you says it is, I aint going to do so no more. Now look yer here,
George; they tells me as the parsons says as when people die and they
are good they goes up there, yer know."

George nodded, for there was a question in his companion's tone.

"Then, of course," Bill went on, "she is up there. Now it aint likely
as ever I should see her again, 'cause, you know, there aint nothing
good about me; but if she was to come my way, wherever I might be, and
was to say to me, 'Bill, have you been a-stealing?' do yer think she
would feel very bad about them 'ere apples and things?"

"No, Bill, I am sure she would not. You see you didn't quite know that
was stealing, and you kept from stealing the things that you thought
she spoke of, and now that you see it is wrong taking even little
things you are not going to take them any more."

"That I won't, so help me bob!" the boy said; "not if I never gets
another apple between my teeth."

"That's right, Bill. You see you ought to do it, not only to please
your mother, but to please God. That's what my mother has told me over
and over again."

"Has she now?" Bill said with great interest, "and did you use to prig
apples and sichlike sometimes?"

"No," George said, "not that sort of thing; but she was talking of
things in general. Of doing things that were wrong, such as telling
lies and deceiving, and that sort of thing."

"And your mother thinks as God knows all about it?"

George nodded.

"And that he don't like it, eh, when things is done bad?"

George nodded again.

"Lor', what a time he must have of it!" Bill said in solemn wonder.
"Why, I heard a woman say last week as six children was enough to
worrit anyone into the grave; and just to think of all of us!" and
Bill waved his arm in a comprehensive way and repeated, "What a time
he must have of it!"

For a time the boys sat silent in their loft, Bill wondering over the
problem that had presented itself to him, and George trying to find
some appropriate explanation in reply to the difficulty Bill had
started. At last he said:

"I am afraid, Bill, that I can't explain all this to you, for I am not
accustomed to talk about such things. My mother talks to me sometimes,
and of course I went to church regularly; but that's different from my
talking about it; but you know what we have got to do is to try and
please God, and love him because he loves us."

"That's whear it is," Bill said; "that's what I've heard fellows say
beats 'em. If he loves a chap like me how is it he don't do something
for him? why don't he get you a place, for instance? You aint been
a-prigging apples or a-putting him out. That's what I wants to know."

"Yes, Bill, but as I have heard my mother say, it would be very hard
to understand if this world were the only one; but you see we are only
here a little time, and after that there's on and on and on, right up
without any end, and what does it matter if we are poor or unhappy in
this little time if we are going to be ever so happy afterwards? This
is only a sort of little trial to see how we behave, as it were, and
if we do the best we can, even though that best is very little, then
you see we get a tremendous reward. For instance, you would not think
a man was unkind who kept you five minutes holding his horse on a cold
day, if he were going to give you enough to get you clothes and good
lodging for the rest of your life."

"No, I should think not," Bill said fervently; "so it's like that, is
it?"

George nodded. "Like that, only more."

"My eye!" Bill murmured to himself, lost in astonishment at this new
view of things.

After that there were few evenings when, before they nestled
themselves down in the hay, the boys did not talk on this subject. At
first George felt awkward and nervous in speaking of it, for like the
generality of English boys, however earnest their convictions may be,
he was shy of speaking what he felt; but his companion's eagerness to
know more of this, to him, new story encouraged him to speak, and
having in his bundle a small Bible which his mother had given him, he
took to reading to Bill a chapter or two in the mornings when they had
not to go out to the early market.

It is true that Bill's questions frequently puzzled him. The boy saw
things in a light so wholly different from that in which he himself
had been accustomed to regard them that he found a great difficulty in
replying to them.

George wrote a letter to his mother, telling her exactly what he was
doing, for he knew that if he only said that he had not yet succeeded
in getting work she would be very anxious about him, and although he
had nothing satisfactory to tell her, at least he could tell her that
he had sufficient to eat and as much comfort as he cared for. Twice he
received replies from her, directed to him at a little coffee-house,
which, when they had had luck, the boys occasionally patronized. As
time went on without his succeeding in obtaining employment George's
hopes fell, and at last he said to his mate; "I will try for another
fortnight, Bill, and if at the end of that time I don't get anything
to do I shall go back to Croydon again."

"But yer can earn yer living here!" Bill remonstrated.

"I can earn enough to prevent me from starving, but that is all,
Bill. I came up to London in hopes of getting something to do by which
I might some day make my way up; if I were to stop here like this I
should be going down, and a nice sight I should be to mother if, when
she gets well enough to come out of the infirmary, I were to go back
all in rags."

"What sort of a place is Croydon?" Bill asked. "Is there any chance of
picking up a living there? 'cause I tells yer fair, if yer goes off I
goes with yer. I aint a-thinking of living with yer, George; but we
might see each other sometime, mightn't we? Yer wouldn't mind that?"

"Mind it! certainly not, Bill! You have been a good friend to me, and
I should be sorry to think of you all alone here."

"Oh, blow being a good friend to yer!" Bill replied. "I aint done
nothing except put yer in the way of getting a sleeping-place, and as
it's given me one too I have had the best of that job. It's been good
of yer to take up with a chap like me as don't know how to read or
write or nothing, and as aint no good anyway. But you will let me go
with yer to Croydon, won't yer?"

"Certainly I will, Bill; but you won't be able to see much of me. I
shall have to get a place like the last. The man I was with said he
would take me back again if I wanted to come, and you know I am all
day in the shop or going out with parcels, and of course you would
have to be busy too at something."

"What sort of thing do yer think, George? I can hold a hoss, but that
aint much for a living. One may go for days without getting a chance."

"I should say, Bill, that your best chance would be to try and get
work either in a brickfield or with a market-gardener. At any rate we
should be able to get a talk for half an hour in the evening. I was
always done at nine o'clock, and if we were both in work we could take
a room together."

Bill shook his head.

"That would be wery nice, but I couldn't have it, George. I knows as I
aint fit company for yer, and if yer was with a shop-keeping bloke he
would think yer was going to run off with the money if he knew yer
kept company with a chap like me. No, the 'greement must be as yer
goes yer ways and I goes mine; but I hopes as yer will find suffin to
do up here, not 'cause as I wouldn't like to go down to this place of
yourn, but because yer have set yer heart on getting work here."

A week later the two boys were out late in Covent Garden trying to
earn a few pence by fetching up cabs and carriages for people coming
out from a concert in the floral hall. George had just succeeded in
earning threepence, and had returned to the entrance to the hall, and
was watching the people come out, and trying to get another job.
Presently a gentleman, with a girl of some nine or ten years old, came
out and took their place on the footpath.

"Can I call you a carriage, sir?" George asked.

"No, thank you, lad, a man has gone for it."

George fell back and stood watching the girl, who was in a white
dress, with a little hood trimmed with swansdown over her head.

Presently his eye fell on something on which the light glittered as it
hung from her neck. Just as he was looking a hand reached over her
shoulder, there was a jerk, and a sudden cry from the child, then a
boy dived into the crowd, and at the same moment George dashed after
him. There was a cry of "Stop, thief!" and several hands made a grab
at George as he dived through the crowd; but he slipped through them
and was soon in the roadway.

Some twenty yards ahead of him he saw the boy running. He turned up
Bow Street and then dashed down an alley. He did not know that he was
followed until suddenly George sprang upon his back, and the two fell
with a crash, the young thief undermost. George seized his right hand,
and kneeling upon him, twisted it behind his back and forced him to
open his fingers, the boy, taken by surprise, and not knowing who was
his assailant, making but slight resistance.

George seized the gold locket and dashed back at full speed into the
market, and was soon in the thick of the crowd round the entrance. The
gentleman was standing talking to a policeman, who was taking a note
of the description of the lost trinket. The girl was standing by
crying.

"Here is your locket," George said, putting it into her hand. "I saw
the boy take it, and have got it from him."

"Oh, papa! papa!" the girl cried. "Here is my locket again."

"Why, where did you get it from?" her father asked in astonishment.

"This boy has just given it to me," she replied. "He says he took it
from the boy who stole it."

"Which boy, Nellie? Which is the boy who brought it back?"

The girl looked round, but George was gone.

"Why didn't you stop him, my dear?" her father said. "Of course I
should wish to thank and reward him, for the locket was a very
valuable one, and the more so to us from its having belonged to your
mother. Did you notice the boy, policeman?"

"No, sir, I did not see him at all."

"Was he a poor boy, Nellie?"

"Not a very, very poor boy, father," the girl replied. "At least I
don't think so; but I only looked at his face. He didn't speak like a
poor boy at all."

"Would you know him again?"

"Oh, yes, I am sure I should. He was a good-looking boy with a nice
face."

"Well, I am very sorry he has gone away, my dear. Evidently he does
not want a reward, but at any rate I should have liked to thank him.
Are you always on this beat, policeman?"

"I am on night duty, sir, while the concerts are on."

"At any rate, I dare say you know the constables who are about here in
the daytime. I wish you would mention the fact to them, and ask them
if they get any clew to the boy who has rendered me this service, to
let me know. Here is a card with my name and address."

After restoring the locket George made his way to the entrance to the
stables, where he generally met Bill after the theater had closed and
there was no farther chance of earning money. It was not till half an
hour later that the boy came running up.

"I have got eightpence," he said. "That is something like luck. I got
three jobs. One stood me fourpence, the other two gave me tuppence
each. What do yer say? Shall we have a cup of coffee afore we turns
in?"

"I think we had better not, Bill. I have got sixpence. We will put
that by, with the sixpence we saved the other day, for the hostler. We
haven't given him anything for some time. Your eightpence will get us
a good breakfast in the morning."

When they had comfortably nestled themselves in the hay George told
his companion how he had rescued and restored the locket.

"And he didn't give yer nuffin! I never heerd tell of such a scaly
trick as that. I should ha' said it ought to have been good for a bob
anyway."

"I did not wait to see, Bill. Directly I had given the little girl her
locket I bolted."

"Well, that were soft. Why couldn't yer have waited to have seen what
the bloke meant to give yer?"

"I did not want to be paid for such a thing as that," George replied.
"I don't mind being paid when I have done a job for anyone; but this
was different altogether."

Bill meditated for a minute or two.

"I can't see no difference, nohow," he said at last. "Yer did him a
good turn, and got the thing back. I dare say it were worth five bob."

"A good deal more than that, Bill."

"More nor that! Well, then, he ought to have come down handsome.
Didn't yer run like winking, and didn't yer jump on the chap's back
and knock him down, and didn't yer run back again? And warn't there a
chance, ef one of the bobbies had got hold of yer collar and found it
in yer hand, of yer being had up for stealing it? And then yer walks
off and don't give him a chance of giving yer nuffin. My eye, but yer
are a flat!"

"I don't suppose you will quite understand, Bill. But when people do a
thing to oblige somebody, and not as a piece of regular work, they
don't expect to be paid. I shouldn't have liked it if they had offered
me money for such a thing."

"Well, ef yer says so, no doubt it's right," Bill rejoined; "but it
seems a rum sort of notion to me. When people loses things they
expects to pay to get 'em back. Why, don't yer see outside the p'lice
station, and in the shop winders, papers offering so much for giving
back things as is lost. I can't read 'em myself, yer know; but chaps
have read 'em to me. Why, I've heerd of as much as five quid being
offered for watches and sichlike as was lost by ladies coming out of
theayters, and I have often thought what a turn of luck it would be to
light on one of 'em. And now yer says as I oughtn't to take the money
ef I found it."

"No, I don't say that, Bill. If you found a thing and saw a reward
offered, and you wanted the money, you would have good right to take
it. But, you see, in this case I saw how sorry the girl was at losing
her locket, and I went after it to please her, and I was quite content
that I got it back for her."

Bill tried again to think the matter over in his mind, but he was
getting warm and sleepy, and in a few minutes was sound off.

Two or three days later the lads had, to their great satisfaction,
obtained a job. Walnuts were just coming in, and the boys were engaged
to take off the green shucks. Bill was particularly pleased, for he
had never before been taken on for such a job, and he considered it a
sort of promotion. Five or six women were also employed, and as the
group were standing round some great baskets Bill suddenly nudged his
friend:

"I say, my eye, aint that little gal pretty?"

George looked up from his work and at once recognized the girl to whom
he had restored the locket. Her eye fell on him at the same moment.

"There, papa!" she exclaimed. "I told you if you brought me down to
the market I felt sure I should know the boy again if I saw him.
That's him, the one looking down into the basket. But he knew me
again, for I saw him look surprised when he noticed me."

The gentleman made his way through the women to George.

"My lad, are you the boy who restored the locket to my daughter three
evenings ago?"

"Yes, sir," George said, coloring as he looked up. "I was standing
close by when the boy took it, so I gave chase and brought it back,
and that's all."

"You were off again in such a hurry that we hadn't time to thank you.
Just come across to my daughter. I suppose you can leave your work for
a minute?"

"Yes, sir. We are working by the job," George said, and looking rather
shamefaced he followed the gentleman to the sidewalk.

"This is your boy, as you call him, Nellie."

"I was sure I should know him again," the child said, "though I only
saw him for a moment. We are very much obliged to you, boy, papa and
me, because it had been mamma's locket, and we should have been very
sorry to have lost it."

"I am glad I was able to get it back for you," George said; "but I
don't want to be thanked for doing it; and I don't want to be paid
either, thank you, sir," he said, flushing as the gentleman put his
hand into his pocket.

"No! and why not?" the gentleman said in surprise. "You have done me a
great service, and there is no reason why I should not pay you for it.
If I had lost it I would gladly have paid a reward to get it back."

"Thank you, sir," George said quietly; "but all the same I would
rather not be paid for a little thing like that."

"You are a strange fellow," the gentleman said again. "One does not
expect to find a boy in the market here refusing money when he has
earned it."

"I should not refuse it if I had earned it," George said; "but I don't
call getting back a locket for a young lady who has lost it earning
money."

"How do you live, lad? You don't speak like a boy who has been brought
up in the market here."

"I have only been here three months," George said. "I came up to
London to look for work, but could not get any. Most days I go about
looking for it, and do what odd jobs I can get when there's a chance."

"What sort of work do you want? Have you been accustomed to any work?
Perhaps I could help you."

"I have been a year as an errand-boy," George answered; "but I didn't
like it, and I thought I would rather get some sort of work that I
could work at when I got to be a man instead of sticking in a shop."

"Did you run away from home, then?" the gentleman asked.

"No, sir. My mother was ill and went into an infirmary, and so as I
was alone I thought I would come to London and try to get the sort of
work I liked; but I have tried almost all over London."

"And are you all alone here?"

"No, sir, not quite alone. I found a friend in that boy there, and we
have worked together since I came up."

"Well, lad, if you really want work I can give it you."

"Oh, thank you, sir!" George exclaimed fervently.

"And your friend too, if he likes. I have some works down at Limehouse
and employ a good many boys. Here is the address;" and he took a card
from his pocket, wrote a few words on the back of it, and handed it to
George.

"Ask for the foreman, and give him that, and he will arrange for you
to begin work on Monday. Come along, Nellie; we have got to buy the
fruit for to-morrow, you know."

So saying he took his daughter's hand, and George, wild with delight,
ran off to tell Bill that he had obtained work for them both.

"Well, Nellie, are you satisfied?"

"Yes, I am glad you could give him work, papa; didn't he look pleased?
Wasn't it funny his saying he wouldn't have any money?"

"Yes; I hardly expected to have met with a refusal in Covent Garden;
but you were right, child, and you are a better judge of character
than I gave you credit for. You said he was a nice-looking lad, and
spoke like a gentleman, and he does. He is really a very good style of
boy. Of course he is shabby and dirty now, and you see he has been an
errand-boy at a grocer's; but he must have been better brought up than
the generality of such lads. The one he called his friend looked a
wild sort of specimen, altogether a different sort of boy. I should
say he was one of the regular arabs hanging about this place. If so, I
expect a very few days' work will sicken him; but I shouldn't be
surprised if your boy, as you call him, sticks to it."

The next morning the two boys presented themselves at Mr. Penrose's
works at Limehouse. These were sawing and planing works, and the sound
of many wheels, and the hoarse rasping sound of saws innumerable, came
out through the open windows of the building as they entered the yard.

"Now what do you boys want?" a workman said as he appeared at one of
the doors.

"We want to see the foreman," George said. "I have a card for him from
Mr. Penrose."

"I will let him know," the man replied.

Two minutes later the foreman came out, and George handed him the
card. He read what Mr. Penrose had written upon it and said:

"Very well, you can come in on Monday; pay, eight shillings a week;
seven o'clock; there, that will do. Oh, what are your names?" taking
out a pocket-book. "George Andrews and William Smith;" and then, with
a nod, he went back into his room, while the boys, almost bewildered
at the rapidity with which the business had been arranged, went out
into the street again.

"There we are, Bill, employed," George said in delight.

"Yes, there we is," Bill agreed, but in a more doubtful tone; "it's a
rum start, aint it? I don't expect I shall make much hand of it, but I
am wery glad for you, George."

"Why shouldn't you make much hand of it? You are as strong as I am."

"Yes; but then, you see, I aint been accustomed to work regular, and I
expect I shan't like it--not at first; but I am going to try. George,
don't yer think as I aint agoing to try. I aint that sort; still I
expects I shall get the sack afore long."

"Nonsense, Bill! you will like it when you once get accustomed to it,
and it's a thousand times better having to draw your pay regularly at
the end of the week than to get up in the morning not knowing whether
you are going to have breakfast or not. Won't mother be pleased when I
write and tell her I have got a place! Last time she wrote she said
that she was a great deal better, and the doctor thought she would be
out in the spring, and then I hope she will be coming up here, and
that will be jolly."

"Yes, that's just it," Bill said; "that's whear it is; you and I will
get on fust-rate, but it aint likely as your mother would put up with
a chap like me."

"My mother knows that you have been a good friend to me, Bill, and
that will be quite enough for her. You wait till you see her."

"My eye, what a lot of little houses there is about here!" Bill said,
"just all the same pattern; and how wide the streets is to what they
is up Drury Lane!"

"Yes, we ought to have no difficulty in getting a room here, Bill, now
that we shall have money to pay for it; only think, we shall have
sixteen shillings a week between us!"

"It's a lot of money," Bill said vaguely. "Sixteen bob! My eye, there
aint no saying what it will buy! I wish I looked a little bit more
respectable," he said, with a new feeling as to the deficiencies of
his attire. "It didn't matter in the Garden; but to go to work with a
lot of other chaps, these togs aint what you may call spicy."

"They certainly are not, Bill," George said with a laugh. "We must see
what we can manage."

George's own clothes were worn and old, but they looked respectable
indeed by the side of those of his companion. Bill's elbows were both
out, the jacket was torn and ragged, he had no waistcoat, and his
trousers were far too large for him, and were kept up by a single
brace, and were patched in a dozen places.

When George first met him he was shoeless, but soon after they had set
up housekeeping together George had bought from a cobbler's stall a
pair of boots for two shillings, and these, although now almost
falling to pieces, were still the best part of Bill's outfit.




CHAPTER III.

WORK.


The next morning George went out with the bundle containing his Sunday
clothes, which had been untouched since his arrival in town, and going
to an old-clothes shop he exchanged them for a suit of working clothes
in fair condition, and then returning hid his bundle in the hay and
rejoined Bill, who had from early morning been at work shelling
walnuts. Although Bill was somewhat surprised at his companion not
beginning work at the usual time he asked no questions, for his faith
in George was so unbounded that everything he did was right in his
eyes.

"There is our last day's work in the market, Bill," George said as
they reached their loft that evening.

"It's your last day's work, George, I aint no doubt; but I expects it
aint mine by a long way. I have been a-thinking over this 'ere go, and
I don't think as it will act nohow. In the first place I aint fit to
go to such a place, and they are sure to make it hot for me."

"That's nonsense, Bill; there are lots of roughish sort of boys in
works of that sort, and you will soon be at home with the rest."

"In the next place," Bill went on, unheeding the interruption, "I
shall be getting into some blooming row or other afore I have been
there a week, and they will like enough turn you out as well as me.
That's what I am a-thinking most on, George. If they chucks me the
chances are as they chucks you too; and if they did that arter all the
pains you have had to get a place I should go straight off and make a
hole in the water. That's how I looks at it."

"But I don't think, Bill, that there's any chance of your getting into
a row. Of course at first we must both expect to be blown up
sometimes, but if we do our best and don't answer back again we shall
do as well as the others."

"Oh, I shouldn't cheek 'em back," Bill said. "I am pretty well used to
getting blown up. Every one's always at it, and I know well enough as
it don't pay to cheek back, not unless you have got a market-cart
between you and a clear road for a bolt. I wasn't born yesterday.
Yer've been wery good to me, you have, George, and before any harm
should come to yer through me, s'help me, I'd chuck myself under a
market-wagon."

"I know you would, Bill; but, whatever you say, you have been a far
greater help to me than I have to you. Anyhow we are not going to part
now. You are coming to work with me to start with, and I know you will
do your best to keep your place. If you fail, well, so much the worse,
it can't be helped; but after our being sent there by Mr. Penrose I
feel quite sure that the foreman would not turn me off even if he had
to get rid of you."

"D'yer think so?"

"I do, indeed, Bill."

"Will yer take yer davey?"

"Yes, if it's any satisfaction to you, Bill, I will take my davey that
I do not think that they would turn me off even if they sent you
away."

"And yer really wants me to go with yer, so help yer?"

"Really and truly, Bill."

"Wery well, George, then I goes; but mind yer, it's 'cause yer wishes
me."

So saying, Bill curled himself up in the hay, and George soon heard by
his regular breathing that he was sound asleep.

The next morning, before anyone was stirring, they went down into the
yard, as was their custom on Sunday mornings, for a good wash,
stripping to the waist and taking it by turns to pump over each other.
Bill had at first protested against the fashion, saying as he did very
well and did not see no use in it; but seeing that George really
enjoyed it he followed his example. After a morning or two, indeed,
and with the aid of a piece of soap which George had bought, Bill got
himself so bright and shiny as to excite much sarcastic comment and
remark from his former companions, which led to more than one
pugilistic encounter.

That morning George remained behind in the loft for a minute or two
after Bill had run down, attired only in his trousers. When Bill went
up the ladder after his ablutions he began hunting about in the hay.

"What are you up to, Bill?"

"Blest if I can find my shirt. Here's two of yourn knocking about, but
I can't see where's mine, nor my jacket neither."

"It's no use your looking, Bill, for you won't find them, and even if
you found them you couldn't put 'em on. I have torn them up."

"Torn up my jacket!" Bill exclaimed in consternation. "What lark are
yer up to now, George?"

"No lark at all. We are going together to work to-morrow, and you
could not go as you were; so you put on that shirt and those things,"
and he threw over the clothes he had procured the day before.

Bill looked in astonishment.

"Why, where did yer get 'em, George? I knows yer only had four bob
with what we got yesterday. Yer didn't find 'em, and yer didn't--no,
in course yer didn't--nip 'em."

"No, I didn't steal them certainly," George said, laughing. "I swapped
my Sunday clothes for them yesterday. I can do without them very well
till we earn enough to get another suit. There, don't say anything
about it, Bill, else I will punch your head."

Bill stared at him with open eyes for a minute, and then threw
himself down in the hay and burst into tears.

"Oh, I say, don't do that!" George exclaimed. "What have you to cry
about?"

"Aint it enough to make a cove cry," Bill sobbed, "to find a chap
doing things for him like that? I wish I may die if I don't feel as if
I should bust. It's too much, that's what it is, and it's all on one
side; that's the wust of it."

"I dare say you will make it even some time, Bill; so don't let's say
anything more about it, but put on your clothes. We will have a cup of
coffee each and a loaf between us for breakfast, and then we will go
for a walk into the park, the same as we did last Sunday, and hear the
preaching."

The next morning they were up at their accustomed hour and arrived at
the works at Limehouse before the doors were opened. Presently some
men and boys arrived, the doors were opened, and the two boys followed
the others in.

"Hallo! who are you?" the man at the gate asked.

George gave their names, and the man looked at his time-book.

"Yes, it's all right; you are the new boys. You are to go into that
planing-shop," and he pointed to one of the doors opening into the
yard.

The boys were not long before they were at work. Bill was ordered to
take planks from a large pile and to hand them to a man, who passed
them under one of the planing-machines. George was told to take them
away as fast as they were finished and pile them against a wall. When
the machines stopped for any adjustment or alteration both were to
sweep up the shavings and ram them into bags, in which they were
carried to the engine-house.

For a time the boys were almost dazzled by the whirl of the machinery,
the rapid motion of the numerous wheels and shafting overhead, and of
the broad bands which carried the power from them to the machinery on
the floor, by the storm of shavings which flew from the cutters, and
the unceasing activity which prevailed around them. Beyond receiving
an occasional order, shouted in a loud tone--for conversation in an
ordinary voice would have been inaudible--nothing occurred till the
bell rang at half-past eight for breakfast. Then the machinery
suddenly stopped, and a strange hush succeeded the din which had
prevailed.

"How long have we got now?" George asked the man from whose bench he
had been taking the planks.

"Half an hour," the man said as he hurried away.

"Well, what do you think of it, Bill?" George asked when they had got
outside.

"Didn't think as there could be such a row," Bill replied. "Why, talk
about the Garden! Lor', why it aint nothing to it. I hardly knew what
I was a-doing at first."

"No more did I, Bill. You must mind what you do and not touch any of
those straps and wheels and things. I know when I was at Croydon there
was a man killed in a sawmill there by being caught in the strap; they
said it drew him up and smashed him against the ceiling. And now we
had better look out for a baker's."

"I suppose there aint a coffee-stall nowhere handy?"

"I don't suppose there is, Bill; at any rate we have no time to spare
to look for one. There's a pump in the yard, so we can have a drink of
water as we come back. Well, the work doesn't seem very hard, Bill,"
George said as they ate their bread.

"No, it aint hard," Bill admitted, "if it weren't for all them
rattling wheels. But I expect it aint going to be like that regular.
They've just gived us an easy job to begin with. Yer'll see it will be
worse presently."

"We shall soon get accustomed to the noise, Bill, and I don't think we
shall find the work any harder. They don't put boys at hard work, but
just jobs like we are doing, to help the men."

"What shall we do about night, George?"

"I think that at dinner-time we had better ask the man we work for. He
looks a good-natured sort of chap. He may know of someone he could
recommend us to."

They worked steadily till dinner-time; then as they came out George
said to the man with whom they were working:

"We want to get a room. We have been lodging together in London, and
don't know anyone down here. I thought perhaps you could tell us of
some quiet, respectable people who have a room to let?"

The man looked at George more closely than he had hitherto done.

"Well, there aint many people as would care about taking in two boys,
but you seem a well-spoken young chap and different to most of 'em. Do
you think you could keep regular hours, and not come clattering in and
out fifty times in the evening, and playing tom-fools' tricks of all
sorts?"

"I don't think we should be troublesome," George said; "and I am quite
sure we shouldn't be noisy."

"You would want to be cooked for, in course?"

"No, I don't think so," George said. "Beyond hot water for a cup of
tea in the evening, we should not want much cooking done, especially
if there is a coffee-stall anywhere where we could get a cup in the
morning."

"You haven't got any traps, I suppose?"

George looked puzzled.

"I mean bed and chairs, and so on."

George shook his head.

"We might get them afterwards, but we haven't any now."

"Well, I don't mind trying you young fellows. I have got a bedroom in
my place empty. A brother of mine who lodged and worked with me has
just got a job as foreman down in the country. At any rate I will try
you for a week, and if at the end of that time you and my missis don't
get on together you must shift. Two bob a week. I suppose that will
about suit you?"

George said that would suit very well, and expressed his thanks to the
man for taking them in.

They had been walking briskly since they left the works, and now
stopped suddenly before the door of a house in a row. It was just like
its neighbor, except that George noticed that the blinds and windows
were cleaner than the others, and that the door had been newly painted
and varnished.

"Here we are," the man said. "You had best come in and see the missis
and the room. Missis!" he shouted, and a woman appeared from the
backroom. "I have let Harry's room, mother," he said, "and these are
the new lodgers."

"My stars, John!" she exclaimed; "you don't mean to say that you let
the room to them two boys. I should have thought you had better sense.
Why, they will be trampling up and down the stairs like young hosses,
wear out the oil cloth, and frighten the baby into fits. I never did
hear such a thing!"

"I think they are quiet boys, Bessie, and won't give much trouble. At
any rate I have agreed to try them for a week, and if you don't get
on with them at the end of that time, of course they must go. They
have only come to work at the shop to-day; they work with me, and as
far as I can see they are quiet young chaps enough. Come along, lads,
I will show you your room."

It was halfway up the stairs, at the back of the house, over the
kitchen, which was built out there. It was a comfortable little room,
not large, but sufficiently so for two boys. There was a bed, a chest
of drawers, two chairs, and a dressing-table, and a strip of carpet
ran alongside the bed, and there was, moreover, a small fireplace.

"Will that do for you?" the man asked.

"Capitally," George said; "it could not be nicer;" while Bill was so
taken aback by its comfort and luxury that he was speechless.

"Well, that's settled, then," the man said. "If you have got any
things you can bring 'em in when you like."

"We have not got any to speak of," George said, flushing a little. "I
came up from the country three months ago to look for work, and beyond
odd jobs I have had nothing to do since, so that everything I had is
pretty well gone; but I can pay a week's rent in advance," he said,
putting his hand in his pocket.

"Oh, you needn't mind that!" the man said; "as you work in the shop
it's safe enough. Now I must get my dinner, else I shall be late for
work."

"Well, Bill, what do you think of that?" George asked as they left the
house.

"My eye," Bill exclaimed in admiration; "aint it nice just! Why, yer
couldn't get a room like that, not furnished, anywhere near the
market, not at four bob a week. Aint it clean just; so help me if the
house don't look as if it has been scrubbed down every day! What a
woman that must be for washing!"

"Yes; we shall have to rub our feet well, Bill, and make as little
mess as we can in going in and out."

"I should think so," Bill said. "It don't seem to me as if it could be
true as we're to have such a room as that to ourselves, and to walk
into a house bold without being afraid as somebody would have his eye
on you, and chivey you; and eight bob a week for grub regular."

"Well, let's get some bread and cheese, Bill; pretty near half our
time must be gone, and mind we must be very saving at first. There
will be several things to get; a kettle and a teapot, and a coffeepot,
and some cups and saucers, and we shall want a gridiron for frying
rashers of bacon upon."

"My eye, won't it be prime!" Bill broke in.

"And we shall want some towels," George went on with his enumeration.

"Towels!" repeated Bill. "What are they like?"

"They are cloths for wiping your hands and face after you have
washed."

"Well, if yer says we wants 'em, George, of course we must get 'em;
but I've always found my hands dried quick enough by themselves,
especially if I gived 'em a rub on my trousers."

"And then, Bill, you know," George went on, "I want to save every
penny we can, so as to get some things to furnish two rooms by the
time mother comes out."

"Yes, in course we must," Bill agreed warmly, though a slight shade
passed over his face at the thought that they were not to be always
alone together. "Well, yer know, George, I am game for anythink. I can
hold on with a penn'orth of bread a day. I have done it over and over,
and if yer says the word I am ready to do it again."

"No, Bill, we needn't do that," George laughed. "Still, we must live
as cheap as we can. We will stick to bread for breakfast, and bread
and cheese for dinner, and bread for supper, with sometimes a rasher
as a great treat. At any rate we will try to live on six shillings a
week."

"Oh! we can do that fine," Bill said confidently; "and then two
shillings for rent, and that will leave us eight shillings a week to
put by."

"Mother said that the doctor didn't think she would be able to come
out 'til the spring. We are just at the beginning of November, so if
she comes out the first of April, that's five months, say twenty-two
weeks. Twenty-two weeks at eight shillings, let me see. That's eight
pounds in twenty weeks, eight pounds sixteen altogether, that would
furnish two rooms very well, I should think."

"My eye, I should think so!" Bill exclaimed, for to his mind eight
pound sixteen was an almost unheard-of sum, and the fact that his
companion had been able to calculate it increased if possible his
admiration for him.

It needed but two or three days to reconcile Mrs. Grimstone to her new
lodgers.

"I wouldn't have believed," she said at the end of the week to a
neighbor, "as two boys could have been that quiet. They comes in after
work as regular as the master. They rubs their feet on the mat, and
you can scarce hear 'em go upstairs, and I don't hear no more of 'em
till they goes out agin in the morning. They don't come back here to
breakfast or dinner. Eats it, I suppose, standing like."

"But what do they do with themselves all the evening, Mrs. Grimstone?"

"One of 'em reads to the other. I think I can hear a voice going
regular over the kitchen."

"And how's their room?"

"As clean and tidy as a new pin. They don't lock the door when they
goes out, and I looked in yesterday, expecting to find it like a
pigsty; but they had made the bed afore starting for work, and set
everything in its place, and laid the fire like for when they come
back."

Mrs. Grimstone was right. George had expended six pence in as many
old books at a bookstall. One of them was a spelling-book, and he had
at once set to work teaching Bill his letters. Bill had at first
protested. "He had done very well without reading, and didn't see much
good in it." However, as George insisted he gave way, as he would have
done to any proposition whatever upon which his friend had set his
mind. So for an hour every evening after they had finished tea Bill
worked at his letters and spelling, and then George read aloud to him
from one of the other books.

"You must get on as fast as you can this winter, Bill," he said;
"because when the summer evenings come we shall want to go for long
walks."

They found that they did very well upon the sum they agreed on. Tea
and sugar cost less than George had expected. Mrs. Grimstone took in
for them regularly a halfpenny-worth of milk, and for tea they were
generally able to afford a bloater between them, or a very thin rasher
of bacon. Their enjoyment of their meals was immense. Bill indeed
frequently protested that they were spending too much money; but
George said as long as they kept within the sum agreed upon, and paid
their rent, coal, candles, and what little washing they required out
of the eight shillings a week, they were doing very well.

They had by this time got accustomed to the din of the machinery, and
were able to work in comfort. Mr. Penrose had several times come
through the room, and had given them a nod. After they had been there
a month he spoke to Grimstone.

"How do those boys do their work?"

"Wonderful well, sir; they are the two best boys we have ever had. No
skylarking about, and I never have to wait a minute for a plank. They
generally comes in a few minutes before time and gets the bench
cleared up. They are first-rate boys. They lodge with me, and two
quieter and better-behaved chaps in a house there never was."

"I am glad to hear it," Mr. Penrose said. "I am interested in them,
and am pleased to hear so good an account."

That Saturday, to their surprise, when they went to get their money
they received ten shillings apiece.

"That's two shillings too much," George said as the money was handed
to them.

"That's all right," the foreman said. "The governor ordered you both
to have a rise."

"My eye!" Bill said as they went out. "What do you think of that,
George? Four bob a week more to put by regularly. How much more will
that make by the time your mother comes?"

"We won't put it all by, Bill. I think the other will be enough. This
four shillings a week we will put aside at present for clothes. We
want two more shirts apiece, and some more stockings, and we shall
want some shoes before long, and another suit of clothes each. We must
keep ourselves decent, you know."

From the time when they began work the boys had gone regularly every
Sunday morning to a small iron church near their lodging, and they
also went to an evening service once a week. Their talk, too, at home
was often on religion, for Bill was extremely anxious to learn, and
although his questions and remarks often puzzled George to answer, he
was always ready to explain things as far as he could.

February came, and to George's delight he heard, from his mother that
she was so much better that the doctor thought that when she came out
at the end of April she would be as strong as she had ever been. Her
eyes had benefited greatly by her long rest, and she said that she was
sure she should be able to do work as before. She had written several
times since they had been at Limehouse, expressing her great pleasure
at hearing that George was so well and comfortable. At Christmas, the
works being closed for four days, George had gone down to see her, and
they had a delightful talk together. Christmas had indeed been a
memorable occasion to the boys, for on Christmas Eve the carrier had
left a basket at Grimstone's directed "George Andrews." The boys had
prepared their Christmas dinner, consisting of some fine rashers of
bacon and sixpenny-worth of cold plum pudding from a cook-shop, and
had already rather lamented this outlay, for Mrs. Grimstone had that
afternoon invited them to dine downstairs. George was reading from a
book which he bought for a penny that morning when there was a knock
at the door, and Mrs. Grimstone said:

"Here is a hamper for you, George."

"A hamper for me!" George exclaimed in astonishment, opening the door.
"Why, whoever could have sent a hamper for me! It must be a mistake."

"That's your name on the direction, anyhows," Mrs. Grimstone said.

"Yes, that's my name, sure enough," George agreed, and at once began
to unknot the string which fastened down the lid.

"Here is a Christmas card at the top!" he shouted. He turned it over.
On the back were the words:

"With all good wishes, Helen Penrose."

"Well, that is kind," George said in rather a husky voice; and indeed
it was the kindness that prompted the gift rather than the gift itself
that touched him.

"Now, then, George," Bill remonstrated; "never mind that there card,
let's see what's inside."

The hamper was unpacked, and was found to contain a cold goose, a
Christmas pudding, and some oranges and apples. These were all placed
on the table, and when Mrs. Grimstone had retired Bill executed a
war-dance in triumph and delight.

"I never did see such a game," he said at last, as he sat down
exhausted. "There's a Christmas dinner for yer! Why, it's like them
stories of the genii you was a-telling me about--chaps as come
whenever yer rubbed a ring or an old lamp, and brought a tuck-out or
whatever yer asked for. Of course that wasn't true; yer told me it
wasn't, and I shouldn't have believed it if yer hadn't, but this 'ere
is true. Now I sees, George, as what yer said was right and what I
said was wrong. I thought yer were a flat 'cause yer wouldn't take
nothing for getting back that there locket, and now yer see what's
come of it, two good berths for us and a Christmas dinner fit for a
king. Now what are we going to do with it, 'cause yer know we dines
with them downstairs to-morrow?"

"The best thing we can do, I think," George answered, "will be to
invite all of them downstairs, Bob Grimstone, his wife, and the three
young uns, to supper, not to-morrow night nor the night after, because
I shan't be back from Croydon till late, but say the evening after."

"But we can't hold them all," Bill said, looking round the room.

"No, we can't hold them here, certainly, but I dare say they will let
us have the feed in their parlor. There will be nothing to get, you
know, but some bread and butter, and some beer for Bob. Mrs. Grimstone
don't take it, so we must have plenty of tea."

"I should like some beer too, just for once, George, with such a
blow-out as that."

"No, no, Bill, you and I will stick to tea. You know we agreed that we
wouldn't take beer. If we begin it once we shall want it again, so we
are not going to alter from what we agreed to. We see plenty of the
misery which drink causes all round and the way in which money is
wasted over it. I like a glass of beer as well as you do, and when I
get to be a man I dare say I shall take a glass with my dinner
regularly, though I won't do even that if I find it makes me want to
take more; but anyhow at present we can do without it."

Bill agreed, and the dinner-party downstairs and the supper two nights
afterwards came off in due course, and were both most successful.

The acknowledgment of the gift had been a matter of some trouble to
George, but he had finally bought a pretty New Year's card and had
written on the back, "with the grateful thanks of George Andrews," and
had sent it to the daughter of his employer.

At the beginning of April George had consulted Grimstone and his wife
as to the question of preparing a home for his mother.

"How much would two rooms cost?" he had asked; "one a good-sized one
and the other the same size as ours."

"Four shillings or four and sixpence," Mrs. Grimstone replied.

"And supposing we had a parlor and two little bedrooms?"

"Five and sixpence or six shillings, I should say," Mrs. Grimstone
replied.

"And how much for a whole house?"

"It depends upon the size. We pay seven shillings a week, but you
might get one without the kitchen and bedroom over it behind for six
shillings."

"That would be much the nicest," George said, "only it would cost such
a lot to furnish it."

"But you needn't furnish it all at once," Mrs. Grimstone suggested.
"Just a kitchen and two bedrooms for a start, and you can put things
into the parlor afterwards. That's the way we did when we first
married. But you must have some furniture."

"And how much will it cost for the kitchen and two bedrooms?"

"Of course going cheaply to work and buying the things secondhand, I
should say I could pick up the things for you, so that you could do
very well," Mrs. Grimstone said, "for six or seven pounds."

"That will do capitally," George said, "for by the end of this month
Bill and I will have more than ten pounds laid by."

"What! since you came here?" Grimstone exclaimed in astonishment. "Do
you mean to say you boys have laid by five pounds apiece?"

"Yes, and bought a lot of things too," his wife put in.

"Why, you must have been starving yourselves!"

"We don't look like it," George laughed. "I am sure Bill is a stone
heavier than when he came here."

"Well, young chap, it does you a lot of credit," Bob Grimstone said.
"It isn't every boy, by a long way, would stint himself as you must
have done for the last five months to make a comfortable home for his
mother, for I know lots of men who are earning their two quid a week
and has their old people in the workhouse. Well, all I can say is that
if I or the missis here can be of any use to you in taking a house we
shall be right down glad."

"Thank you," George said. "We will look about for a house, and when we
have fixed on one if you or Mrs. Grimstone will go about it for us I
shall be much obliged, for I don't think landlords would be inclined
to let a house to two boys."

"All right, George! we will do that for you with pleasure. Besides,
you know, there are things, when you are going to take a house, that
you stand out for; such as papering and painting, or putting in a new
range, and things of that sort."

After their dinner on the following Sunday the two boys set out
house-hunting.

"If it's within a mile that will do," George said. "It doesn't matter
about our going home in the breakfast time. We can bring our grub in a
basket and our tea in a bottle, as several of the hands do; but if
it's over a mile we shall have to hurry to get there and back for
dinner. Still there are plenty of houses in a mile."

There were indeed plenty of houses, in long regular rows, bare and
hard-looking, but George wanted to find something more pleasant and
homelike than these. Late in the afternoon he came upon what he
wanted. It was just about a mile from the works and beyond the lines
of regular streets. Here he found a turning off the main road with but
eight houses in it, four on each side. It looked as if the man who
built them had intended to run a street down for some distance, but
had either been unable to obtain enough ground or had changed his
mind.

They stood in pairs, each with its garden in front, with a bow-window
and little portico. They appeared to be inhabited by a different class
to those who lived in the rows, chiefly by city clerks, for the
gardens were nicely kept, the blinds were clean and spotless, muslin
curtains hung in the windows, and fancy tables with pretty ornaments
stood between them. Fortunately one of them, the last on the left-hand
side, was to let.

"What do you think of this, Bill?"

"It seems to be just the thing; but how about the rent, George? I
should think they were awful dear."

"I don't suppose they are any more than the houses in the rows, Bill.
They are very small, you see, and I don't suppose they would suit
workmen as well as the others; at any rate we will see."

Whereupon George noted down on a scrap of paper the name of the agent
of whom inquiry was to be made.

"No. 8," he said; "but what's the name of the street? Oh, there it is.
Laburnum Villas. No. 8 Laburnum Villas; that sounds first-rate,
doesn't it? I will get Mrs. Grimstone to go round to the agent
to-morrow."

This Mrs. Grimstone agreed to do directly she was asked. After
speaking to her husband she said, "I will get the key from the agent's
and will be there just after twelve to-morrow, so if you go there
straight when you get out you will be able to see the rooms and what
state it's in."

"But how about Bob's dinner?" George asked.

"Oh, he will have it cold to-morrow, and I will set it out for him
before I start."

"That is very kind, Mrs. Grimstone, thank you very much. It would be
just the thing."

Accordingly, at ten minutes past twelve on the following day the two
boys arrived breathless at No. 8 Laburnum Villas.

"Hurrah!" George shouted, "there is Mrs. Grimstone at the window."

The door was opened and they rushed in.

"It's a tidy little place," Mrs. Grimstone said; "and it's in good
order and won't want any money laying out upon it."

The house was certainly small, but the boys were delighted with it. On
the ground-floor were two little rooms opening with folding doors,
and a little kitchen built out behind. There was a room over this, and
two rooms above the sitting rooms.

"That's just the right number," George said, "a bedroom each for us;
it couldn't be nicer; and what pretty paper!"

"And there is a good long slip of garden behind," Mrs. Grimstone said,
"where you could grow lots of vegetables. Of course in the front you
would have flowers."

"And how much do they want for it?"

"Seven and sixpence a week, including rates and taxes. I call it dear
for its size, but then of course it's got the garden and it looks
pretty and nice. The agent says it's been painted and papered from top
to bottom since the last people left, but he says the owner won't let
it unless somebody comes who is likely to stop, and he will want
references of respectability."

"All right!" George said; "I can manage that," for he had already been
thinking of the question in his mind; "and we can manage seven and
sixpence a week; can't we, Bill?"

"We will try, anyhow," Bill said stoutly, for he was as much pleased
with the cottage as George was.

They explored the garden behind the house. This was about a hundred
feet long by twenty-five wide. Half of it was covered with stumps of a
plantation of cabbages, the other half was empty and had evidently
been dug up by the last tenants ready for planting.

"Why, I should think we shall be able to grow all our own potatoes
here!" George exclaimed in delight.

Mrs. Grimstone was a country woman, and she shook her head.

"You wouldn't be able to do that, George, not if you gave it all up to
potatoes; but if you planted the further end with potatoes you might
get a good many, and then, you know, at this end you might have three
or four rows of peas and French beans, and lettuces and such like, but
you will have to get some manure to put in. Things won't grow without
manure even in the country, and I am sure they won't here; and then
you know you can have flowers in the front of the house. But it's time
for you to be off, else you will be late at the works. I am sure it's
more than half an hour since you came in. I will take the key back and
tell them they shall have an answer by Wednesday or Thursday."

George did not think they could have been a quarter of an hour;
however, he and Bill started at a trot, which they increased into a
run at the top of their speed when the first clock they saw pointed to
seven minutes to one. The bell was ringing as they approached the
works; it stopped when they were within fifty yards, and the gate was
just closing as they rushed up.

"Too late," the man said.

"Oh, do let us through," George panted out; "it's the first time we
have ever been late, and we have run a mile to be here in time!"

"Oh, it's you, is it?" the man said, opening the gate a few inches to
look through. "Ah, well I will let you in this time, 'cause you are
well-behaved young chaps; but don't you run it so close another time,
else you will have to lose your hour."




CHAPTER IV.

HOME.


That evening George wrote a letter to Dr. Jeffries at Croydon, saying
that he had taken a little house for his mother to come to when she
came out of the infirmary, and as he had kindly said that he would
render her help if he could, would he be good enough to write to the
agent whose address he gave, saying that Mrs. Andrews, who was about
taking No. 8 Laburnum Villas, was a person of respectability.

The following evening he received a letter from the doctor saying that
he had written to the agent, and that he was glad indeed to hear that
George was getting on so well that he was able to provide a home for
his mother.

On Wednesday at dinner-time Mrs. Grimstone handed George a key.

"There you are, George. You are master of the house now. The agent
said the reference was most satisfactory; so I paid him the seven and
sixpence you gave me for a week's rent in advance, and you can go in
when you like. We shall be sorry to lose you both, for I don't want
two better lodgers. You don't give no trouble, and all has been quiet
and pleasant in the house; and to think what a taking I was in that
day as Bob brought you here for the first time, to think as he had let
the room to two boys. But there, one never knows, and I wouldn't have
believed it as boys could be so quiet in a house."

"Now we must begin to see about furniture," Bob Grimstone said. "The
best plan, I think, will be for you two to go round of an evening to
all the shops in the neighborhood, and mark off just what you think
will suit you. You put down the prices stuck on them, and just what
they are, and then the missis can go in the morning and bargain for
them. She will get them five shillings in the pound cheaper than you
would. It's wonderful how women do beat men down, to be sure. When a
man hears what's the price of a thing he leaves it or takes it just as
he likes, but a woman begins by offering half the sum. Then the chap
says no, and she makes as if she was going away; he lets her go a
little way and then he hollers after her, and comes down a goodish bit
in the price. Then she says she don't particularly want it and
shouldn't think of giving any such price as that. Then he tries again,
and so they gets on till they hit on a figure as suits them both. You
see that little tea-caddy in the corner? My wife was just three weeks
buying that caddy. The chap wanted seven and six for it, and she
offered him half a crown. He came down half a crown at the end of the
first week, and at last she got it for three and nine. Now, the first
thing you have got to do is to make out a list. First of all you have
got to put down the things as you must have, and then the things you
can do without, though you will get them if you can afford it. Mother
will help you at that."

So Mrs. Grimstone and George sat down with paper and a pencil, and
George was absolutely horrified at the list of things which Mrs.
Grimstone declared were absolutely indispensable. However, after much
discussion, some few items were marked as doubtful. When the list was
finished the two boys started on an exploring expedition, and the next
week all their evenings were fully occupied. In ten days after they
began the three bedrooms and the kitchen were really smartly
furnished, Mrs. Grimstone proving a wonderful hand at bargaining, and
making the ten pounds go farther than George had believed possible. On
the Sunday Bob went with his wife and the boys to inspect the house.

"It's a very comfortable little place," he said, "and that front
bedroom with the chintz curtains the missis made up is as nice a
little room as you want to see. As to the others they will do well
enough for you boys."

The only articles of furniture in the sitting room were two long
muslin curtains, which Mrs. Grimstone had bought a bargain at a shop
selling off; for it was agreed that this was necessary to give the
house a furnished appearance. Bob Grimstone was so much pleased at
what had been done that he shared George's feeling of regret that one
of the sitting rooms could not also be furnished, and on the walk home
said:

"Look here, George. I know you would like to have the house nice for
your mother. You couldn't make one of those sitting rooms comfortable
not under a five-pound note, not even with the missis to market for
you, but you might for that. I have got a little money laid by in the
savings-bank, and I will lend you five pounds, and welcome, if you
like to take it. I know it will be just as safe with you as it will be
there."

"Thank you very much, Bob--thank you very much, but I won't take it.
In the first place, I should like mother to know that the furniture is
all ours, bought out of Bill's savings and mine; and in the next
place, I should find it hard at first to pay back anything. I think we
can just manage on our money, but that will be all. I told you mother
does work, but she mayn't be able to get any at first, so we can't
reckon on that. When she does, you know, we shall be able gradually to
buy the furniture."

"Well, perhaps you are right, George," the man said after a pause.
"You would have been welcome to the money: but perhaps you are right
not to take it. I borrowed a little money when I first went into
housekeeping, and it took a wonderful trouble to pay off, and if
there's illness or anything of that sort it weighs on you. Not that I
should be in any hurry about it. It wouldn't worry me, but it would
worry you."

A week later Mrs. Andrews was to leave the infirmary, and on Saturday
George asked for a day off to go down to fetch her. Every evening
through the week he and Bill had worked away at digging up the garden.
Fortunately there was a moon, for it was dark by the time they came
out from the works. Bill was charged with the commission to lay in the
store of provisions for the Sunday, and he was to be sure to have a
capital fire and tea ready by four o'clock, the hour at which George
calculated he would be back.

Very delighted was George as in his best suit--for he and Bill had two
suits each now--he stepped out of the train at Croydon and walked to
the workhouse. His mother had told him that she would meet him at the
gate at half-past two, and punctually at the time he was there. A few
minutes later Mrs. Andrews came out, not dressed as he had seen her at
Christmas, in the infirmary garb, but in her own clothes. George gave
a cry of delight as he ran forward to meet her.

"My darling mother! and you are looking quite yourself again."

"I am, thank God, George. It has seemed a long nine months, but the
rest and quiet have done wonders for me. Everyone has been very kind;
and of course the knowledge, dear boy, that you had got work that you
liked helped me to get strong again. And you are looking well too; and
your friend, I hope he is well?"

"Quite well, mother, but in a great fright about you. He is glad you
are coming because I am glad; but the poor fellow has quite made up
his mind that you won't like him and you won't think him a fit
companion for me. I told him over and over again that you are not that
sort; but nothing can persuade him. Of course, mother, he doesn't talk
good grammar, and he uses some queer expressions; but he is very much
changed in that way since I first knew him, and he tries very hard,
and don't mind a bit how often I correct him, and he is beginning to
read easy words quite well; and he is one of the best-hearted fellows
in the world."

"If he is kind to you, George, and fond of you, that's enough for me,"
Mrs. Andrews said; "but I have no doubt I shall soon like him for
himself. You could not like him as much as you do if there were not
something nice about him. And you have succeeded in getting a room for
me in the house in which you lodge?" for George had never mentioned a
word in his letter about taking a house, and had asked Dr. Jeffries if
he should see his mother to say nothing to her about his application
to him.

"Yes, that's all right, mother," he replied briskly.

"And you have got some new clothes since I saw you last, George. You
wanted them; yours were getting rather shabby when I saw you at
Christmas."

"Yes, mother, they were."

"I suppose you had to part with your best suit while you were so long
out of work?"

"That was it, mother; but you see I have been able to get some more
things. They are only cheap ones, you know, but they will do very well
until I can afford better ones. I am not walking too fast for you, am
I? But we shall just catch the train. Or look here, would you mind
going straight by yourself to the railway station? Then you can walk
slowly. I will go round and get your box. I went into our old place as
I came along, and Mrs. Larkins said she would bring it downstairs for
me as I came back."

"No, I would rather go round with you, George. I want to thank her for
having kept it for me so long. Even if we do miss the train it will
not matter much, as it will make no difference whether we get in town
an hour earlier or later."

As George could not explain his special reason for desiring to catch
that train he was obliged to agree, and they stopped a quarter of an
hour at their old lodging, as Mrs. Larkins insisted upon their having
a cup of tea which she had prepared for them. However, when they
reached the station they found that a train was going shortly, and
when they reached town they were not so very much later than George
had calculated upon.

They took a cab, for although Mrs. Andrews' box was not heavy, it was
too much for George to carry that distance; besides, Mrs. Andrews
herself was tired from her walk to the station from the infirmary,
having had no exercise for so long. When they got into the
neighborhood of Limehouse George got outside to direct the cabman. It
was just a quarter past four when the cab drew up at No. 8 Laburnum
Villas.

"Why, is this the house?" Mrs. Andrews asked in surprise as George
jumped down and opened the door. "Why, you told me in one of your
letters it was a house in a row. What a pretty little place! It is
really here, George?"

"It is here, mother; we moved the other day. There is Bill at the
door;" but Bill, having opened the door, ran away out into the garden,
and George, having paid the cabman, carried his mother's box in and
entered the house with her.

"Straight on, mother, into the little room at the end."

"What a snug little kitchen!" Mrs. Andrews said as she entered it;
"and tea all laid and ready! What, have they lent you the room for
this evening?"

"My dear mother," George said, throwing his arms round her neck,
"this is your kitchen and your house, all there is of it, only the
sitting room isn't furnished yet. We must wait for that, you know."

"What! you have taken a whole house, my boy! that is very nice; but
can we afford it, George? It seems too good to be true."

"It is quite true, mother, and I think it's a dear little house, and
will be splendid when we have got it all furnished. Now come up and
see the bedrooms. This is Bill's, you know," and he opened the door on
the staircase, "and this is mine, and this is yours."

"Oh, what a pretty little room!" Mrs. Andrews said: "but, my dear
George, the rent of this house and the hire of the furniture will
surely be more than we can afford to pay. I know what a good manager
you are, my boy, but I have such a horror of getting into debt that it
almost frightens me."

"The rent of the house is seven and sixpence a week, mother, with
rates and taxes, and we can afford that out of Bill's earnings and
mine, even if you did not do any work at all; and as to the furniture,
it is every bit paid for out of our savings since we went to work."

On hearing which Mrs. Andrews threw her arms round George's neck and
burst into tears of happiness. She was not very strong, and the
thought of the sacrifices these two boys must have made to get a
house together for her completely overpowered her.

"It seems impossible, George," she said when she had recovered
herself. "Why, you have only been earning ten shillings a week each,
and you have had to keep yourselves and get clothes and all sorts of
things; it seems impossible."

"It has not cost so much as you think, mother, and Bill and I had both
learned to live cheap in Covent Garden; but now let us go downstairs;
you have not seen Bill yet, and I know tea will be ready."

But Bill had not yet come in, and George had to go out into the garden
to fetch him.

"Come on, Bill; mother is delighted with everything. She won't eat
you, you know."

"No, she won't eat me, George; but she will think me an out-and-out
sort of 'ottentot," which word had turned up in a book the boys had
been reading on an evening previously.

"Well, wait till she says so; come along."

So linking his arm in Bill's, George drew him along, and brought him
shamefaced and bashful into the kitchen.

"This is Bill, mother."

"I am glad to see you, Bill," Mrs. Andrews said, holding out her hand.
"I have heard so much of you from George that I seem to know you quite
well."

Bill put his hand out shyly.

"I am sure we shall get on well together," Mrs. Andrews went on. "I
shall never forget that you were a friend to my boy when he was
friendless in London."

"It's all the t'other way, ma'am," Bill said eagerly; "don't you go
for to think it. Why, just look what George has done for me! There was
I, a-hanging about the Garden, pretty nigh starving, and sure to get
quadded sooner or later; and now here I am living decent, and earning
a good wage; and he has taught me to read, ma'am, and to know about
things, and aint been ashamed of me, though I am so different to what
he is. I tell you, ma'am, there aint no saying what a friend he's been
to me, and I aint done nothing for him as I can see."

"Well, Bill, you perhaps both owe each other something," Mrs. Andrews
said: "and I owe you something as well as my son, for George tells me
that it is to your self-denial as well as to his own that I owe this
delightful surprise of finding a home ready for me; and now," she went
on, seeing how confused and unhappy Bill looked, "I think you two
ought to make tea this evening, for you are the hosts, and I am the
guest. In future it will be my turn."

"All right, mother! you sit down in this armchair; Bill, you do the
rashers, and I will pour the water into the pot and then toast the
muffins."

Bill was at home now; such culinary efforts as they had hitherto
attempted had generally fallen to his share, as he had a greater
aptitude for the work than George had, and a dish of bacon fried to a
turn was soon upon the table.

Mrs. Andrews had been watching Bill closely, and was pleased with the
result of her observation. Bill was indeed greatly improved in
appearance since he had first made George's acquaintance. His cheeks
had filled out, and his face had lost its hardness of outline; the
quick, restless, hunted expression of his eyes had nearly died out,
and he no longer looked as if constantly on the watch to dodge an
expected cuff; his face had always had a large share of that merriment
and love of fun which seem the common portion of the London arabs, and
seldom desert them under all their hardships; but it was a happier and
brighter spirit now, and had altogether lost its reckless character. A
similar change is always observable among the waifs picked up off the
streets by the London refuges after they have been a few months on
board a training ship.

When all was ready the party sat down to their meal. Mrs. Andrews
undertook the pouring out of the tea, saying that although she was a
guest, as the only lady present she should naturally preside. George
cut the bread, and Bill served the bacon. The muffins were piled on a
plate in the front of the fire as a second course.

It was perhaps the happiest meal that any of the three had ever sat
down to. Mrs. Andrews was not only happy at finding so comfortable a
home prepared for her, but was filled with a deep feeling of pride and
thankfulness at the evidence of the love, steadiness, and
self-sacrifice of her son. George was delighted at having his mother
with him again, and at seeing her happiness and contentment at the
home he had prepared for her. Bill was delighted because George was
so, and he was moreover vastly relieved at finding Mrs. Andrews less
terrible than he had depicted her.

After tea was cleared away they talked together for a while, and then
Bill--feeling with instinctive delicacy that George and his mother
would like to talk together for a time--said he should take a turn for
an hour, and on getting outside the house executed so wild a war-dance
of satisfaction that it was fortunate it was dark, or Laburnum Villas
would have been astonished and scandalized at the spectacle.

"I like your friend Bill very much," Mrs. Andrews said when she was
alone with George. "I was sure from what you told me that he must be a
good-hearted lad; but brought up as he has been, poor boy, I feared a
little that he would scarcely be a desirable companion in point of
manners. Of course, as you say, his grammar is a little peculiar; but
his manners are wonderfully quiet and nice, considering all."

"Look what an example he's had, mother," George laughed; "but really
he has taken great pains ever since he knew that you were coming
home. He has been asking me to tell him of anything he does which is
not right, especially about eating and that sort of thing. You see he
had never used a fork till we came down here, and he made me show him
directly how it should be held and what to do with it. It has been
quite funny to me to see him watching me at meals, and doing exactly
the same."

"And you have taught him to read, George?"

"Yes, mother."

"And something of better things, George?" she asked.

"Yes, mother, as much as I could. He didn't know anything when I met
him; but he goes to church with me now regularly, and says his prayers
every night, and I can tell you he thinks a lot of it. More, I think,
than I ever did," he added honestly.

"Perhaps he has done you as much good as you have done him, George."

"Perhaps he has, mother; yes, I think so. When you see a chap so very
earnest for a thing you can't help being earnest yourself; besides,
you know, mother," he went on a little shyly, for George had not been
accustomed to talk much of these matters with his mother--"you see
when one's down in the world and hard up, and not quite sure about the
next meal, and without any friend, one seems to think more of these
things than one does when one is jolly at school with other fellows."

"Perhaps so, George, though I do not know why it should be so, for the
more blessings one has the more reason for love and gratitude to the
giver. However, dear, I think we have both reason to be grateful now,
have we not?"

"That we have, mother. Only think of the difference since we said
good-by to each other last summer! Now here you are strong and well
again, and we are together and don't mean to be separated, and I have
got a place I like and have a good chance of getting on in, and we
have got a pretty little house all to ourselves, and you will be able
to live a little like a lady again,--I mean as you were accustomed
to,--and everything is so nice. Oh, mother, I am sure we have every
reason to be grateful!"

"We have indeed, George, and I even more than you, in the proofs you
have given me that my son is likely to turn out all that even I could
wish him."

Bill's hour was a very long one.

"You must not go out of an evening, Bill, to get out of our way," Mrs.
Andrews said when he returned, "else I shall think that I am in your
way. It was kind of you to think of it the first evening, and George
and I are glad to have had a long talk together, but in future I hope
you won't do it. You see there will be lots to do of an evening. There
will be your lessons and George's, for I hope now that he's settled he
will give up an hour or two every evening to study. Not Latin and
Greek, George," she added, smiling, seeing a look of something like
dismay in George's face, "that will be only a waste of time to you
now, but a study of such things as may be useful to you in your
present work and in your future life, and a steady course of reading
really good books by good authors. Then perhaps when you have both
done your work, you will take it by turns to read out loud while I do
my sewing. Then perhaps some day, who knows, if we get on very
flourishingly, after we have furnished our sitting room, we may be
able to indulge in the luxury of a piano again and have a little music
of an evening."

"That will be jolly, mother. Why, it will be really like old times,
when you used to sing to me!"

Mrs. Andrews' eyes filled with tears at the thought of the old times,
but she kept them back bravely, so as not to mar, even for a moment,
the happiness of this first evening. So they chatted till nine
o'clock, when they had supper. After it was over Mrs. Andrews left the
room for a minute and went upstairs and opened her box, and returned
with a Bible in her hand.

"I think, boys," she said, "we ought to end this first happy evening
in our new home by thanking God together for his blessings."

"I am sure we ought, mother," George said, and Bill's face expressed
his approval.

So Mrs. Andrews read a chapter, and then they knelt and thanked God
for his blessings, and the custom thus begun was continued henceforth
in No. 8 Laburnum Villas.

Hitherto George and his companion had found things much more pleasant
at the works than they had expected. They had, of course, had
principally to do with Bob Grimstone; still there were many other men
in the shop, and at times, when his bench was standing idle while some
slight alterations or adjustment of machinery were made, they were set
to work with others. Men are quick to see when boys are doing their
best, and, finding the lads intent upon their work and given neither
to idleness nor skylarking, they seldom had a sharp word addressed to
them. But after Mrs. Andrews had come home they found themselves
addressed in a warmer and more kindly manner by the men. Bob Grimstone
had told two or three of his mates of the sacrifices the boys had made
to save up money to make a home for the mother of one of them when she
came out of hospital. They were not less impressed than he had been,
and the story went the round of the workshops and even came to the
ears of the foreman, and there was not a man there but expressed
himself in warm terms of surprise and admiration that two lads should
for six months have stinted themselves of food in order to lay by half
their pay for such a purpose.

"There's precious few would have done such a thing," one of the older
workmen said, "not one in a thousand; why, not one chap in a hundred,
even when he's going to be married, will stint himself like that to
make a home for the gal he is going to make his wife, so as to start
housekeeping out of debt; and as to doing it for a mother, where will
you find 'em? In course a man ought to do as much for his mother as
for the gal who is agoing to be his wife, seeing how much he owes her;
but how many does it, that's what I says, how many does it?"

So after that the boys were surprised to find how many of the men,
when they met them at the gate, would give them a kindly nod or a
hearty, "Good-morning, young chaps!"

A day or two after Mrs. Andrews had settled in Laburnum Villas she
went up to town and called upon a number of shops, asking for work. As
she was able to give an excellent reference to the firm for whom she
had worked at Croydon she succeeded before the end of the week in
obtaining millinery work for a firm in St. Paul's Churchyard, and as
she had excellent taste and was very quick at her needle she was soon
able to earn considerably more than she had done at Croydon.

The three were equally determined that they would live as closely as
possible until the sitting-rooms were furnished, and by strict
management they kept within the boys' pay, Mrs. Andrews' earnings
being devoted to the grand purpose. The small articles were bought
first, and each week there was great congratulation and pleasure as
some new article was placed in the rooms. Then there was a pause for
some time, then came the chairs, then after an interval a table, and
lastly the carpet. This crowning glory was not attained until the end
of July. After this they moved solemnly into the sitting-room,
agreeing that the looking-glass, chiffonier, and sofa could be added
at a more gradual rate, and that the whole of Mrs. Andrews' earnings
need no longer be devoted.

"Now, boys," Mrs. Andrews said on that memorable evening, "I want you
in future, when you come in, to change your working clothes before you
come in here to your teas. So long as we lived in the kitchen I have
let things go on, but I think there's something in the old saying,
'Company clothes, company manners,' and I think it is good when boys
come in that they should lay aside their heavy-nailed shoes and their
working clothes. Certainly such boots and clothes are apt to render
people clumsy in their movements, and the difference of walk which you
observe between men of different classes arises very greatly from the
clumsy, heavy boots which workingmen must wear."

"But what does it matter, mother?" George urged, for it seemed to him
that it would be rather a trouble to change his clothes every day.
"These little things don't make any real difference to a man."

"Not any vital difference, George, but a real difference for all
that. Manners make the man, you know! that is, they influence
strangers and people who only know him in connection with business. If
two men apply together for a place the chances are strongly in favor
of the man with the best manners getting it. Besides, my boy, I think
the observance of little courtesies of this kind make home pleasanter
and brighter. You see I always change my dress before tea, and I am
sure you prefer my sitting down to the table tidy and neat with a
fresh collar and cuffs, to my taking my place in my working dress with
odds and ends of threads and litter clinging to it."

"Of course I do, mother, and I see what you mean now. Certainly I will
change my things in future. You don't mind, do you, Bill?"

Bill would not have minded in the least any amount of trouble by which
he could give the slightest satisfaction to Mrs. Andrews, who had now
a place in his affections closely approximating to that which George
occupied.

During the summer months the programme for the evening was not carried
out as arranged, for at the end of April Mrs. Andrews herself declared
that there must be a change.

"The evenings are getting light enough now for a walk after tea, boys,
and you must therefore cut short our reading and studies till the days
close in again in the autumn. It would do you good to get out in the
air a bit."

"But will you come with us, mother?"

"No, George. Sometimes as evenings get longer we may make little
excursions together: go across the river to Greenwich and spend two or
three hours in the park, or take a steamer and go up the river to Kew;
but as a general thing you had better take your rambles together. I
have my front garden to look after, the vegetables are your work, you
know, and if I like I can go out and do whatever shopping I have to do
while you two are away."

So the boys took to going out walks, which got longer and longer as
the evenings drew out, and when they were not disposed for a long
ramble they would go down to a disused wharf and sit there and watch
the barges drifting down the river or tacking backwards and forwards,
if there was a wind, with their great brown and yellow sails hauled
tautly in, and the great steamers dropping quietly down the river, and
the little busy tugs dragging great ships after them. There was an
endless source of amusement in wondering from what ports the various
craft had come or what was their destination.

"What seems most wonderful to me, George," Bill said one day, "when
one looks at them big steamers----"

"Those," George corrected.

"Thank ye--at those big steamers, is to think that they can be tossed
about, and the sea go over them, as one reads about, just the same
way as the wave they make when they goes down----"

"Go down, Bill."

"Thank ye--go down the river, tosses the little boats about; it don't
seem possible that water can toss itself about so high as that, does
it?"

"It does seem extraordinary, Bill; we know that it is so because there
are constantly wrecks; but looking at the water it does not seem
possible that it should rise up into waves large enough to knock one
of those great steamers in pieces. Some day, Bill, not this year, of
course, because the house isn't finished, but next year, I hope we
shall be able all of us to go down for a trip to the sea. I have seen
it stuck up you can go to Margate and back for three or four
shillings; and though Bob Grimstone says that isn't regular sea, it
would be enough to show us something of what it's like."

The garden occupied a good deal of the boys' time. Bill's long
experience in the market had given him an interest in vegetables, and
he was always ready for an hour's work in the garden after tea. The
results of much labor and plenty of manure were not unsatisfactory,
and Mrs. Andrews was delighted with her regular supply of fresh
vegetables. Bill's anticipation, however, of the amount that could be
grown in a limited space were by no means fulfilled, and seeing the
small amount which could be daily gathered, and recalling the
countless piled-up wagons which he had been accustomed to see in
Covent Garden, he was continually expressing his astonishment at the
enormous quantity of ground which must be employed in keeping up the
supply of the market.

They did not that year get the trip to Margate; but in the autumn,
after the great work of furnishing was finished, they did get several
long jaunts, once out to Epping Forest on an omnibus, once in a
steamer up to Kew, and several times across to Greenwich Park. Mrs.
Andrews found it a very happy summer, free from the wear of anxiety,
which, more even than the work, had brought on her long illness. She
grew stronger and better than she had ever expected to be again, and
those who had only known the pale, harassed-looking needlewoman of
Croydon would not have recognized her now; indeed, as George said
sometimes, his mother looked younger and younger every day. She had
married very young, and was still scarcely five-and-thirty, and
although she laughed and said that George was a foolish boy when he
said that people always took her for his sister, she really looked
some years younger than she was. Her step had regained its elasticity,
and there was a ring of gladness and happiness in her voice which was
very attractive, and even strangers sometimes looked round as they
passed the bright, pleasant-looking woman chatting gayly with the two
healthy, good-looking young fellows.




CHAPTER V.

AN ADVENTURE.


In August the annual outing, or, as it was called, the bean-feast, at
the works took place. Usually the men went in vans down into Epping
Forest; but this year it was determined that a steamer should be
engaged to take the whole party with their wives and families down to
Gravesend. They were to make an early start, and on arriving there all
were to do as they pleased until they assembled to dine in a pavilion
at one of the hotels. After this they were to go to the gardens and
amuse themselves there until the steamer started in the evening. The
party embarked at Blackwell at ten o'clock in the morning. George and
Bill got together up in the bow of the steamer, and were delighted
with their voyage down, their only regret being that Mrs. Andrews had
declined to accompany them, saying that she would far rather go with
them alone than with so large a party.

"What shall we do, Bill?" George said, when they landed. "We are not
to dine till two, so we have two good hours before us. I vote we hire
a boat and go out. It will be ten times as jolly here as up in that
crowded river by London."

This was said in reference to various short rows which they had had
in boats belonging to barges which had been sometimes lent them for
half an hour of an evening by a good-natured bargeman as they hung
about the wharves.

"I suppose you can row, young chaps?" the waterman, whom they hired
the boat of, said.

"Oh, yes, we can row!" George replied with the confidence of youth.

"Mind the tide is running out strong," the waterman said.

"All right, we will mind," George answered, scarce heeding his words;
and getting out the oars they pushed off.

For some little time they rowed among the anchored vessels, both being
especially filled with delight at the yachts moored opposite the
clubhouses. These were new craft to them, and the beauty and neatness
of everything struck them with surprise and admiration. Tide had only
turned a short time before they got into their boat, and while keeping
near the shore they had no difficulty in rowing against it.

Presently they determined to have a look at a fine East-Indiaman
moored well out in the stream a short distance below Gravesend. They
ceased rowing when they approached her, and sat idly on their oars
talking over the distant voyage on which she was probably about to
start, and the country she might visit, George was telling his
companion the ports she would touch if her destination was China, and
absorbed in their conversation they paid no attention to anything
else, until George gave a sudden exclamation.

"Good gracious, Bill! Why, the ship is ever so far behind. It is two
miles, I should think, from the town. We must set to work or we shan't
be back in time for dinner."

The boys' knowledge of the navigation of the Thames was not sufficient
to tell them that to row against tide it is necessary to keep close
inshore, and turning the boat's head they set to work to row back in
the middle of the river. Their knowledge of rowing was but slight, and
the mere operation of their oars took up all their attention. They
rowed away till their hands burned and the perspiration ran down their
faces.

After half an hour of this George looked round, thinking that he ought
to be near to the vessel by this time. He uttered an exclamation of
surprise and dismay. Neither the ship nor Gravesend were visible.
Their puny efforts had availed nothing against the sweeping tide. They
had already, without knowing it, swept round the turn in the river,
and were now entering Sea Reach.

"My goodness, Bill! what are we to do? Just look at that buoy; we are
going past it as fast as a horse could trot. Look what a width the
river is. What on earth are we to do?"

"I have no idea," Bill replied. "Where shall we go to if we go on like
this?"

"Right out to sea, I should think," George said. "I do not know how
far it is; but the river seems to get wider and wider in front."

"Perhaps," Bill suggested, "the tide will turn again and take us
back."

"Not it," George said. "It was against us, you know, all the way down,
and could only have turned a little while before we got in the boat.
Look at that line of barges sailing down on the right-hand side. I
vote we pull to them and ask the men what we had better do. Anyhow we
could row to the land and get out there and wait till tide turns. It
turned at about eleven, so that it will turn again somewhere about
five. The steamer is not to start till eight, so we shall be back in
plenty of time to catch it. We shall lose the dinner and the fun in
the gardens, but that can't be helped."

"That don't make no odds," Bill said cheerfully; "this is a regular
venture, this is; but I say, shan't we have to pay a lot for the
boat?"

"Yes," George assented mournfully; "but perhaps the man will let us
off cheap when he sees we couldn't help it. He looked a good-tempered
sort of chap. Come, let us set to work. Every minute it is taking us
further away."

They set steadily to work. The boat was a large and heavy one, and
their progress was by no means rapid.

"How thick it's getting!" George exclaimed suddenly.

"Aint it just!" Bill assented. "My eye, George, I can't see the
barges!"

Unobserved by them a fog had been steadily creeping up the river. They
were just at its edge when they made the discovery. Another two
minutes and it rolled thickly over them, and they could not see ten
yards away. They looked at each other in silent bewilderment.

"What's to be done, George?" Bill said at length in awe-struck tones.

"I don't know, Bill; I haven't an idea. It's no use rowing, that I
see, for we don't know which way the boat's head is pointing."

"Well, it can't be helped," Bill said philosophically. "I am going to
have a pipe. Oh, I say, aint my hands blistered!"

"All right, you can have your pipe, Bill, but keep your oar in your
hand to be ready to row."

"What for?" Bill demanded. "I thought you said it warn't no use
rowing!"

"No more it is, Bill; but we must look out for those big buoys. If the
tide were to sweep us against one of them we should capsize to a
certainty. That must have been a big steamer," he went on, as the boat
rolled suddenly. "It's lucky we were pretty well over towards the side
of the river, before the fog came on. Listen--there's another. I can
hear the beat of her engines. I have an idea, Bill!" he exclaimed
suddenly. "We know the steamers were passing to the left of us when
the fog came on. If we listen to their whistles and the sound of their
paddles, and then row to the right, we shall get to the bank at last."

"Yes, that's a good idea," Bill agreed, laying down the pipe he had
just lighted. "There's a whistle over there."

"Yes, and another the other way," George said, puzzled. "Why, how can
that be! Oh, I suppose one is coming up the river and one down, but
it's awfully confusing."

It was so, but by dint of listening intently the boys gained some idea
of the proper direction; but they could only row a few strokes at a
time, being obliged to stop continually to listen for fresh guidance.

Fortunately for them the fog lay low on the water, and the upper spars
of the steamers were above it, and men placed there were able to
direct those on deck as to their course. Had it not been for this the
steamers must all have anchored. As it was they proceeded slowly and
cautiously on their way, whistling freely to warn any small craft,
that might be hidden in the fog, of their coming.

Half an hour's rowing and the boys gave a simultaneous exclamation.
The boat had quietly grounded on the edge of a mud flat. They could
not see the bank, and had no idea how far distant it was. Bill at once
offered to get overboard and reconnoiter, but George would not hear of
it.

"You might not be able to find your way back, Bill, or you might sink
in the mud and not be able to get out again. No, we won't separate;
and, look here, we must keep the boat afloat just at the edge of the
mud. If we were to get left here we should not float again till tide
comes up to us, and that wouldn't be till about two hours before high
tide, and it won't be high, you know, until twelve o'clock at night."

"I wish this fog would clear off!" Bill said, looking round at the
wall of white vapor which surrounded them. "It regular confuses a
chap. I say, I expect they are just sitting down to dinner at present.
I feel awfully hungry."

"It's no use thinking about that, Bill. We shall be a good deal more
hungry before we are done; but I am so glad we have found the land and
stopped going out to sea that I don't mind being hungry."

"But I say, George, if this fog keeps on how are we to find our way
back to Gravesend?"

"The only way will be, Bill, to keep quite close to the edge of the
mud--just as close as the boat will swim. That way, you know, we must
come to Gravesend at last."

"So we must. I didn't think of that. You have got a good head, George,
you have. I should never have thought about the way to find the bank
if it hadn't been for you, and might have gone on floating and
floating till we was starved."

"This fog can't last forever, Bill."

"No, but I have known them last a week in London."

"Yes, but not in August, Bill."

"No, not in August," Bill assented; "but you see these here fogs may
last just as long down here in August as they do in London in
November."

"I don't think so, Bill. Anyhow it doesn't matter to us; we have got
the land for a guide, and I hope we shall be back in Gravesend before
it's quite dark."

"But if we don't, George?"

"Well, if we don't we must run her ashore before it gets too dark, and
wait till it is morning. We shall be all right if we keep quite cool
and use our senses. If we had something to eat I shouldn't mind a bit,
except that mother will be getting anxious about us. It's a regular
adventure, and we shall have something to talk about for a long time.
Look out, Bill, we must push her further off--she's getting aground!"

For an hour they sat and chatted.

"Hullo! what's that?" Bill exclaimed at last. "That's the rattle of a
chain. I expect it's a barge anchoring somewhere near. Listen; I can
hear voices. I vote we hollo."

George lifted up his voice in a lusty shout. The shout was repeated
not very far off, and was followed by the shout of "Who are you?"

"We have drifted down from Gravesend and lost our way," George
shouted back. "We will come on board if you will let us."

"All right!" the voice replied; "I will go on shouting and you row to
my voice."

It was but a hundred yards, and then a voice close at hand said
sharply:

"Row bow hard or you will be across the chain."

Bill rowed hard, and George, looking round, saw that they were close
to the bows of a barge. Half a dozen more strokes and they were
alongside. Bill seized a hand-rope and sprang onto the barge, and the
boat was soon towing astern.

"Well, young men, however did you manage to get here?" one of the
bargemen asked. "It's lucky for you you weren't taken out to sea with
the tide."

George related the history of their voyage and how they had managed to
reach the shore.

"Well, you are good-plucked uns anyhow," the man said; "aint they,
Jack? Most chaps your age would just have sat in the boat and howled,
and a good many longshoremen too. You have done the best thing you
could under the circumstances."

"Where are we?" George asked.

"You are on board the _Sarah and Jane_ topsail barge, that's where you
are, about three parts down Sea Reach. We know our way pretty well
even in a fog, but we agreed it was no use trying to find the Swashway
with it as thick as this, so we brought up."

"Where is the Swashway?" George asked.

"The Swashway is a channel where the barges go when they are making
for Sheerness. It's well buoyed out and easy enough to follow with the
help of Sheerness lights on a dark night; but these fogs are worse
than anything. It aint no use groping about for the buoy when you
can't see ten yards ahead, and you might find yourself high and dry on
the mud and have to wait till next tide. Mayhap this fog will clear
off before evening, and we shall be able to work in; and now I expect
you two young uns would like some grub. Come below."

The two boys joyfully followed into the little cabin, and were soon
satisfying their hunger on bread and cold meat. The bargee drew a jug
of water from the breaker and placed it before them.

"The fire has gone out," he said, "or I would give yer a cup of
tea--that's our tipple; we don't keep spirits on board the _Sarah and
Jane_. I like a drop on shore, but it aint stuff to have on a barge,
where you wants your senses handy at all times. And now what are you
thinking of doing?" he asked when the boys had finished.

"What we had made up our minds to do was to lie where we were at the
edge of the mud till tide turned, and then to keep as close to the
shore as we could until we got back to Gravesend. The steamer we came
by does not go back till late, and we thought we should be back by
that time."

"No, you wouldn't," the man said. "Out in the middle of the stream you
would be back in two hours easy, but not close inshore. The tide
don't help you much there, and half your time you are in eddies and
back-currents. No, you wouldn't be back in Gravesend by eight noway."

"Then what would you advise us to do?"

"Well, just at present I won't give no advice at all. We will see how
things are going after a bit. Now let's take a look round."

So saying he climbed the ladder to the deck, followed by the boys. The
white fog still shut the boat in like a curtain.

"What do you think of it, Jack?"

"Don't know," the other replied. "Thought just now there was a puff of
air coming down the river. I wish it would, or we shan't make
Sheerness to-night, much less Rochester. Yes, that's a puff sure
enough. You are in luck, young uns. Like enough in half an hour there
will be a brisk wind blowing, driving all this fog out to sea before
it."

Another and another puff came, and tiny ripples swept across the
oil-like face of the water.

"It's a-coming, sure enough," the bargeman said. "I'd bet a pot of
beer as the fog will have lifted in a quarter of an hour."

Stronger and stronger came the puffs of wind.

The fog seemed as if stirred by an invisible hand. It was no longer a
dull, uniform whitish-gray; dark shadows seemed to flit across it, and
sometimes the view of the water extended here and there.

"There's the shore!" Bill exclaimed suddenly, but ere George could
turn round to look it was gone again.

"I shall have the anchor up directly, lads. Now I tell you what will
be the best thing for you if the wind holds, as I expect it will. We
shall be at Sheerness in little over an hour--that will make it four
o'clock," he added, consulting his watch, "and the young flood will be
coming up soon afterwards, and I shall go up with the first of it to
Rochester. We shall get there maybe somewhere about seven o'clock. Now
the best thing I can do for you is to tow that ere boat up to
Rochester with me, and you can get a train there that will take you up
to town in goodish time."

"You are very kind," George said; "but what are we to do about the
boat?"

"I shall be going back to-morrow night, or more likely next morning,
and I will take her along and hand her over to her rightful owner at
Gravesend."

"James Kitson."

"Yes, I know him."

"But how about paying for it?" George said. "I am afraid he will
expect a great deal of money, for it has been away all the time, and
we have only got six shillings between us."

"You will want that to get up to town. Never mind about the boat. I
will put that square for you. I will tell Kitson as how you have been
shipwrecked, and he will think himself precious lucky in getting the
boat without being damaged. If I take the trouble to tow it up to
Rochester and back, he needn't grumble about getting no fare."

"I would rather pay something," George said; "though, you see, we
can't afford to pay much."

"Well, then, you send him a post-office order for five bob. I will
tell him you are going to send him that, and he will thank his stars
he has got so well out of it. If you had drifted out to sea, as he
expects you have by this time, and the boat didn't get smashed by a
steamer, you would likely enough have been taken off by one of them;
but the captain wouldn't have troubled himself about that old tub. I
looks upon Kitson as being in luck this job, so don't you worry about
him. There, the mist's driving off fast. We will up with the kedge."

The boys lent a hand at the windlass, and the anchor was soon hanging
from the bow. Then the brail of the mainsail was loosed, and the great
sail shaken out. The foresail was hoisted, and in a few minutes the
_Sarah and Jane_ was running before a brisk wind down Sea Reach.

The fog had rolled off now, and it was clear astern, though a thick
bank still hung over the river ahead, but this was rapidly melting
away; and the bargeman, who told them his name was Will Atkins,
pointed out a large building low down on the water ahead.

"That's Sheerness Fort," he said. "You can lend Jack a hand to get up
the topsail. The wind is rising every minute, and we shall soon be
bowling along hand over hand."

Both ahead and astern of them were a line of barges, which had, like
the _Sarah and Jane_, anchored when the fog was thickest, and were,
like her, making their way to Sheerness. The wind was blowing briskly
now, and the barge made her way through the water at a rate which
surprised the boys.

"I had no idea that barges sailed so fast," George said.

"There are not many craft can beat them," Atkins replied. "With a
breeze so strong that they can only just carry their topsails, they
will hold their own with pretty nigh anything afloat. There are mighty
few yachts can keep alongside us when we are doing our best."

As Atkins had predicted, in little over an hour they brought up just
inside the mouth of the Medway, and dropped the anchor to wait till
the tide turned to help them up to Rochester. At six o'clock they were
again under way. The wind had fortunately veered round somewhat to the
north of west, and they were able for the most part to lay their
course, so that soon after seven they were abreast of the dockyard,
and a few minutes later dropped anchor off Rochester.

"Jump into the boat, boys," the good-natured bargeman said; "I will
put you ashore at once. There is the station close to the end of the
bridge."

With many very hearty thanks for his kindness the lads jumped ashore
and hurried up to the station. They found that there would be a train
in half an hour, and by nine o'clock they arrived in town.

Before they had landed the bargeman had scrawled on a piece of paper,
"Your boat was picked up by the _Sarah and Jane_. Will bring her back
on return trip. No damage done. William Atkins." This he had handed to
the boys, and they now got an envelope and directed it to "James
Kitson, Waterman, Gravesend," and posted it, and then set out to walk
home.

"It's not been the sort of day we expected," George said; "but it's
been good fun, hasn't it?"

"Grand!" Bill agreed. "But I didn't think so when we were in the
middle of that fog listening to them whistles and trying to find out
the way. I didn't say much, George, but I felt downright funky."

"I didn't like it either, Bill. There was such a horribly lonely
feeling, lost in the fog there; but it was all right as soon as we
touched the mouth, and got an idea where we were. I was worrying most
about mother getting anxious if we did not get back to-night, and a
little about what we should have to pay for the boat. It was lucky
that bargeman took the matter in his hands for us. I expect we should
have had to pay over a pound. He was an awfully good fellow, wasn't
he?"

"I should just think he was," Bill said. "He was a good un, and no
mistake. It aint cost us so very much either, considering."

"That it hasn't, Bill. Two and threepence apiece railway fare, that's
four and sixpence, and five bob we are to send down for the boat, nine
shillings and sixpence. Well, we should have paid two shillings for
the boat anyhow, and I expect we should have spent another shilling
apiece in things at the gardens, perhaps more; that would make four
shillings anyhow, so we have only spent about five shillings more than
we calculated. And haven't we got a lot to talk about! It's been a
regular adventure."

"It has," Bill said doubtfully; "but I don't think I want many more of
them kind of adventures. It's all right now, you know, but it wasn't
jolly at the time. I always thought as adventures was jolly; but that
didn't seem to me to have no jolliness about it, not when we was out
there. It's all very well to hear tell of shipwrecks and fights with
savages, but I expect there aint no larks about it at the time. I
suppose you will send that five bob off to-morrow, and get it off your
mind?"

"No. Atkins said we had better not send it for another three or four
days. The man will have got his boat back all right then, and the five
bob would come upon him unexpectedly. He was going to tell Kitson that
he had arranged with us that was what we were to pay, as we couldn't
afford more; but he will never expect to get it, so when it comes he
will be only too glad to receive it."

They were met at the door of the house by Bob Grimstone, who was just
coming out.

"Why, what have you boys been up to?" he said angrily. "I have been
wondering all day what has become of you, and the missis has done
nothing but worry and fidget. It's regular spoilt the day. What have
you been up to? I haven't seen you since we got ashore at Gravesend,
and I have just come round to ask your mother if she has heard of
you."

"I am very sorry, Bob, but it wasn't our fault, at least it was not
altogether our fault. We went for a row, and the tide took us down,
and then the fog came on and we got lost."

"I expected better of you," Grimstone said angrily. "Foggy, indeed!
I've been anxious and worried all day. I did think as you warn't like
other boys, but could be trusted, and then you go and play such a
prank as this. Well, go in; your mother is in a nice taking about
you."

"My dear mother," George said as he ran in, "I am so sorry you have
been uneasy about us, awfully sorry; but really it hasn't been our
fault altogether."

"Never mind that now, George," Mrs. Andrews said, throwing her arms
round his neck. "Fortunately I did not know anything about it till Mr.
Grimstone came in a few minutes ago. I had been expecting you in for
some little time, but I supposed the steamer was late, and I was not
at all uneasy till Mr. Grimstone came in and said that he had not
seen either of you since the steamer got to Gravesend, and that you
had not come back with the rest. Is Bill with you?"

"Yes, mother; he is at the door talking to Bob."

"Ask Mr. Grimstone to come in again," Mrs. Andrews said. "He has been
most kind, and he had promised to go down to Gravesend by the first
train in the morning if you did not come home to-night, and to make
inquiries about you there. He tried to cheer me up by saying that as
you were together nothing could very well happen to you and that
probably you had only got into some boyish scrape--perhaps, he
suggested, only gone out into the country and had helped yourselves to
some apples, and had so got locked up."

Bob, however, would not come in again, but went off saying he would
hear all about it in the morning, but would go off to tell his wife at
once that they had returned safely, for "that she was in such a worry
as never was."

Hearing that the boys had had nothing to eat since two o'clock, Mrs.
Andrews at once laid the table for supper; and when they had finished
it listened to George's account of their adventure.

"You had a very narrow escape, boys," she said when they had finished.
"You might have been swept out to sea, or run down by a steamer in the
fog. I hope to-night that you will neither of you forget to thank God
for his protection through the danger you have run; and I do hope, my
dear boys, that you will be more careful in future."

The next evening, after work was over, George went in to Bob
Grimstone's and told them all that had happened. When the story was
told, Bob agreed that after all it was not altogether their fault, and
that, indeed, they had, in some respects, justified his opinion of
them. Mrs. Grimstone, however, was not so easily pacified. They had
come back, she said; but it was more than likely that they wouldn't
have come back at all, but might have been drifting out far at sea,
perhaps cutting each other's throats and eating each other alive,
which was, as the good woman said, what she had heard happened when
boats were lost at sea.

Two days later they sent off the money to the waterman, and received
in reply a letter from him saying that the boat had been brought
safely back by the _Sarah and Jane_ and that he was glad to get the
five shillings.

"Bill Atkins told me as you said you would send it; but knowing what
boys is, I say fair as I didn't expect to see the color of your money.
It aint everyone as would have paid up when they got safe away, and I
consider as you have behaved handsome."

They had heard from Atkins of the wharf off which the _Sarah and Jane_
might generally be found moored, between her cruises, and after one or
two ineffectual attempts they one day found the barge there when they
rowed up to the spot. She had but just returned from a trip to
Rochester and Bill Atkins was still on board. He was very glad to see
the boys, but they had great difficulty in persuading him to accept a
pound of tobacco which their mother had sent off to him with her
compliments as a token of gratitude for his kindness to them.

"Well, young chaps, I didn't look for nothing of the sort, but seeing
as your mother has got it for me it wouldn't be manners to say no.
Well, look here, any time as you are disposed for a sail down to
Rochester and back you're free of the _Sarah and Jane_, and heartily
glad shall I be to have you with me."

The boys thanked him for the offer, but said as they were still at
work there was but small chance of their being able to accept it, but
that they should be glad to come and have a chat with him sometimes
when he was in the Pool.




CHAPTER VI.

FIRE!


One Saturday evening early in October the boys had been for a long
walk down among the marshes. They had told Mrs. Andrews they would be
late, and it was past eight o'clock when they came along past the
works.

"We shan't get home at this hour again for some time, I expect,"
George said, "for they say that we are going to begin to work overtime
on Monday, and that the orders are so heavy that it will very likely
have to be kept up all through the winter."

"I am glad it didn't begin earlier," Bill replied; "it would have been
horrid if we had lost all our walks while the weather was fine. How
dark the place looks how it's shut up, and how quiet and still it is
after the rattle we are accustomed to!"

"Stop a moment," George said, putting his hand on his arm.

"What is it, George?"

"I don't know. It seemed to me, for a moment, as if I saw the big
stack clearly and then it was dark again."

"How could that be, George?"

"I don't know; it looked to me as if it was a reflection of light
from one of the windows at the back there. There it is again."

"Yes, I saw it," Bill agreed. "What can it be?"

"I don't know, Bill; let's run around to the back. There might
be--it's awful to think of--but there might be a fire."

The boys ran down a narrow lane by the side of the works onto a piece
of waste ground behind.

"Look, Bill, look at the glare in the molding-room. There must be
fire. Here, help to put this bit of old timber against the wall."

The piece of wood was placed into position, the two lads climbed up it
onto the wall, and dropped into the yard within. Just as they did so
there was a clatter of falling glass, followed by a glare of light as
a body of flame burst out from one of the windows.

"Let's ring the dinner-bell, Bill; that will call people's attention,
and then we must do the best we can."

They ran along until they reached the front gate, and then, seizing
the bell-rope, rang it violently.

In a minute or two there was a clatter of feet outside, and shouts of
"What's the matter?"

"There is a fire in the molding-room," George shouted; "run for the
engines, someone, and break the gate open. Now come on, Bill."

The two boys ran towards that part of the building where the flames
had been seen, broke a window, and climbed in. There was an almost
stifling smell of burning wood and at a door at the end of the
planing-room they could see a light flame flickering through the
cracks of the door leading into the molding-room, which was next to
it.

"Quick, Bill, screw that leather pipe onto the hydrant. We must stop
it from getting through here till the engines come."

The hydrant communicated with the great tank at the top of the
building, and as soon as the hose was screwed on and Bill stood with
the nozzle directed towards the burning door, George turned the cock
and volumes of water flew out.

The first result seemed disastrous. The door was already nearly burned
through, and, as the powerful jet flew against it, it seemed to
crumble away and a mass of flame darted out from the molding-room. The
joists and timbers supporting the floor above the planing-room would
have caught at once, but the boys deluged them with water, as also the
framework of the door, and then, throwing the stream of water into the
blazing workshop, they kept down the flames near the door. The smoke
was stifling.

"We shall be choked, George!" Bill gasped.

"Lie down, Bill. I have heard the air is always better near the
ground."

This they found to be the case, and they were still able to direct the
jet of water. But three or four minutes had elapsed when the outer
door of the planing-house was unlocked and Bob Grimstone and several
other men rushed in, but were at once driven back by the smoke. George
had recognized Grimstone's voice, and shouted:

"This way, Bob, the fire hasn't got through yet. Come and lend a hand,
for it's gaining on us in spite of the water. You can breathe if you
kneel down."

Grimstone, with two or three of the men, crawled in and joined the
boys.

"What! is it you, George? How on earth did you get here?" Bob
exclaimed.

"We saw a light as we were passing, and got in from behind. When we
saw what it was we rang the alarm-bell, and then came on here to do
what we could till help came."

"You are good-plucked, you are," Grimstone said admiringly; "but I am
afraid it's not much good."

"You take the hose, Bob, and keep the rafters drenched there. Bill and
I will crawl forward and clear the shavings out of the way if we can.
They have caught half a dozen times already."

The two boys crawled forward, and although the heat was tremendous
they managed to clear away the shavings for a considerable distance.
The smoke and heat were so great that they were obliged to crawl back
into the outer air, where for a while they lay almost insensible.
There were crowds of men in the yard now, but most of them were round
at the back, powerless to aid at present, and only watching the
flames as they roared through the whole of the windows of the
molding-room.

Men were hurrying past with buckets of water, and one of them, seeing
the condition of the boys, dashed some over their heads and faces, and
they presently staggered to their feet. It was now a quarter of an
hour since they had first given the alarm, and they were just about to
re-enter the planing-shop to rejoin Bill when they met him and his
comrades coming out.

"All the water's gone," he said; "if the engines aint here in a minute
or two it will be too late."

But just at that moment there was a cheer outside, and immediately
afterwards a fire-engine dashed through the gate. Grimstone ran up to
the firemen as they leaped off.

"The great thing," he said, "is to prevent it spreading from that shop
into this. We have been keeping it back till now, but the tank has
just run dry."

While the other firemen were fitting the hose to the fire-plug just
outside the gates one of them made his way into the planing-room to
ascertain the exact position of affairs.

"Quick, lads," he said; "there's no time to be lost; the fire is
making its way through. Another five minutes and we should have been
too late to save any of this block. Is there any communication through
the upper floors?" he asked Grimstone.

"Yes, there is a door on each floor,"

"Have you got any empty sacks about the place?"

"Yes, there is a pile of them in there."

The fireman gave instructions to one of his comrades, while he himself
made his way into the planing-room with the hose; the other got out
the sacks, and assisted by Grimstone and some of the hands drenched
them with water, and then proceeding to the door on the first floor
piled them against it.

"It is hot already," he said as he laid his hand upon it. "Now, do you
men bring me buckets of water. Keep the sacks drenched till another
engine comes up."

George and Bill, finding they could be of no more use, made their way
out to the back and joined the crowd watching the flames, which had
already spread to the first floor. They were, however, with the rest
of the lookers-on, speedily turned out of the yard by the police, who,
having now arrived in sufficient strength, proceeded at once to clear
the premises of all save a score or two of men who were engaged in
assisting the firemen.

As the boys went out through the front gate another engine dashed up
at full speed, dropping lighted cinders on its way.

"Hurray!" Bill said; "this is a steamer. I expect they will do now."

Then the boys made their way round again to the back, and by means of
the pieces of timber established themselves on the wall, where they
were soon joined by a number of others, and watched the struggle with
the flames.

In half an hour six engines were on the spot; but even this force had
no visible effect upon the flames in that portion of the building in
which they had taken possession, and the firemen turned the whole of
their efforts to prevent it from spreading.

The party wall dividing it from the main building was a very strong
one; but so hot had it become that the floor boards touching it were
over and over again in flames.

A score of men with saws and axes cut away the flooring adjoining the
doors on the first and second stories. The planing-room was
fortunately not boarded. While a portion of the fire brigade worked
unceasingly in preventing the spread of the flames in this direction,
the rest turned their attention to the great wood piles, which were
repeatedly ignited by the fragments of burning wood.

Presently the roof fell in, and the flames shot up high into the air,
but grand as the sight was, the boys did not wait any longer looking
on. Their faces smarted severely from the heat to which they had been
exposed; their hands had been a good deal burned by the shavings;
their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes were singed, and the eyeballs
ached with the glare.

"I will run home now, Bill; mother will likely enough hear of the
fire, and as we said we should be back soon after eight she will be
getting anxious."

"I will go and tell her it's all right; you stop and see the end of it
here."

But this George would not hear of.

"Very well, then, I will go with you. I must get some grease or
something to put on my face and hands; they are smarting awfully."

Mrs. Andrews gave an exclamation of surprise and alarm as the boys
entered. The irritation of the wood smoke had so much inflamed their
eyes that they could scarcely see out of them, and their faces looked
like pieces of raw beef.

"Whatever has happened, boys?" she exclaimed.

"There's a great fire at Penrose's, mother; it broke out just as we
were passing, so we stopped to help for a bit, and then came home to
tell you, thinking that you might be anxious."

"A fire at the works!" Mrs. Andrews exclaimed; "that is dreadful.
Dreadful for Mr. Penrose, and for all of you who work there; more,
perhaps, for you than for him, for no doubt he is insured, and you may
be out of work for months. Thank God I have plenty of work, so I dare
say we shall be able to tide it over."

"It is not all burned, mother; only the molding-shop and the floors
above it are on fire at present, and as there are six fire-engines at
work, and they keep on arriving every minute, I hope they will save
the rest; and now, mother, what can we do to our faces and hands, they
are smarting awfully?"

"Dear me, George, are you burnt? I thought you were only dreadfully
hot."

"We feel hot, mother, just as if our faces were being roasted."

"I will get some oil, that will be the best thing," Mrs. Andrews said,
hurrying away to the kitchen, and coming back with a piece of
cotton-wool, and some olive-oil in a cup.

"You are burned, George. Why, child, your hair is all singed, and your
eyebrows and eyelashes. Why, what have you been doing to yourselves?
There could have been no occasion to put your heads into the flames
like that. Why, your hands are worse still; they are quite blistered.
I had better wrap them up in cotton-wool."

"It's the inside that's the worst, mother; perhaps if you put a bit of
cotton-wool there and tie it round the back it will do; we can't go
out with our hands all swaddled round like that. And now, please,
directly you have done we want to go down again to see the fire. Just
you go up to the road corner, mother. It's a grand sight, I can tell
you."

"We will have tea first," Mrs. Andrews said decidedly; "everything has
been ready except pouring the water in since eight o'clock, and it's a
quarter past nine now. After we have done I will put on my bonnet and
walk down with you as near as I can get. I am not going to lose you
out of my sight again."

So after their meal they went down together, but could not get
anywhere near the works, all the approaches now being guarded by the
police. It was a grand sight, but the worst was over, and there was a
general feeling of confidence in the crowd that it would spread no
further. A dozen engines were at work now. Some of the firemen were on
the roof, some on the stacks of timber, which looked red-hot from the
deep glow from the fire. The flames were intermittent now, sometimes
leaping up high above the shell of the burned-out buildings, then
dying down again.

"Thank God it's no worse!" Mrs. Andrews said fervently. "It would have
been a bad winter for a great many down here if the fire had spread;
as it is, not a quarter of the buildings are burned."

"No, nothing like that, mother; not above a tenth, I should say. It's
lucky that there was a strong wall between that and the next shops, or
it must all have gone. I have heard them say that part was added on
five or six years ago, so that the wall at the end of the planing-shop
was an outside wall before; that accounts for its being so thick."

After looking on for about half an hour they went back home. But
neither of the boys got much sleep that night, the excitement they had
gone through and the pain of their burns keeping them wide awake till
nearly morning. As Mrs. Andrews heard no movement in their
rooms--whereas they were usually up and about almost as early on
Sundays as on other days, being unable to sleep after their usual
hour for rising--she did not disturb them. George was the first to
awake, and looking out of the window felt sure by the light that it
was later than usual. He put his head out of the door and shouted:

"Bill, are you up?" There was no answer. "Mother, are you up; what
o'clock is it?"

"Up! hours ago, George. Why, it's past eleven!"

George gave an exclamation of astonishment and rushed into Bill's
room. The latter had woke at his shout.

"It's past eleven, Bill, and mother has been up for hours;" and he
dashed off again to his room to dress. It was but a few minutes before
they came downstairs just at the same moment.

"Why didn't you wake us, mother?"

"Because I thought it better to let you sleep on, George. I guessed
that your burns had kept you awake for some time."

"That they did. I thought I was never going to get to sleep," George
said; and Bill gave a similar account of himself. "Still, mother, a
short night does no harm for once, and you haven't been able to get to
church."

"It does not matter for once, George. What figures you both are!"

"We are figures," George said ruefully. "I hardly knew myself when I
looked in the glass. My eyes are almost shut up, and the skin is
peeling off my nose, and my hair is all rough and scrubby; and Bill
looks as bad as I do. You are a figure, Bill!" and George burst into a
fit of laughter.

"He's no worse than you, George; but come along, breakfast is
waiting."

"You haven't waited breakfast for us, I hope, mother?"

"I made myself a cup of tea the first thing, boys, and had a slice of
bread and butter, for I thought you might not be down for some time;
but I am quite ready to join you; we have got fish. I put them down
directly you called."

"Well, I am glad you are not starving, mother; and I am glad too you
didn't have your regular breakfast. It would have been horrid to sit
down on Sunday morning without you, when it's the only regular
breakfast we get in the week."

Just as they had finished their meal there was a knock at the door. It
was Bob Grimstone. Bill opened the door.

"Well, how are you to-day, lad? I thought I would just come round and
see. You look pretty badly burned; and so do you, George," he added,
as he followed Bill into the sitting room.

"Good-day, Mrs. Andrews."

"Good-morning, Mr. Grimstone," Mrs. Andrews said. Since her coming the
Grimstones had several times come in on Sunday afternoon to Laburnum
Villas. Mrs. Andrews would, indeed, have wished them to come in more
frequently, for she felt much indebted to them for their kindness to
George, and, moreover, liked them for themselves, for both were good
specimens of their class.

"I see you were busy last night too, Mr. Grimstone; your face looks
scorched; but you did not manage to get yourself burned as these silly
boys did. What a blessing it is for us all that the fire did not
spread!"

"Well, Mrs. Andrews, I don't think those two lads can have told you
what they did, for if they had you would hardly call them silly boys."

Mrs. Andrews looked surprised.

"They told me they lent a hand to put out the fire--I think those were
George's words--but they did not tell me anything else."

"They saved the building, ma'am. If it hadn't been for them there
would not have been a stick or stone of Penrose's standing now; the
shops and the wood piles would all have gone, and we should all have
been idle for six months to come; there is no doubt about that at
all."

"Why, how was that, Mr. Grimstone? How was it they did more than
anyone else?"

"In the first place they discovered it, ma'am, and rung the
alarm-bell; it mightn't have been found out for another five minutes,
and five minutes would have been enough for the fire. In the next
place, when they had given the alarm they did the only thing that
could have saved the place: they got into the planing-shop and turned
on the hose there, and fought the fire from spreading through the
door till we got in seven or eight minutes later. It was all we could
do to stop it then; but if they hadn't done what they did the
planing-shop would have been alight from end to end, and the floors
above it too, before the first engine arrived, and then nothing could
have saved the whole lot. I can tell you, Mrs. Andrews, that there
isn't a man on the works, nor the wife of a man, who doesn't feel that
they owe these two lads their living through the winter. I don't know
what Mr. Penrose will say about it, but I know what we all feel."

"Why, George," Mrs. Andrews said, while her eyes were filled with
happy tears at the praises of her son, "why did you not tell me about
it?"

"Why, mother, there was not anything to tell," George said, "and Bob
has made a great fuss about nothing. As I told you, we saw a light as
we came along and when we went round behind and got on the wall we saw
the place was on fire, so we rang the alarm-bell, and then turned on
the hose and flooded the place with water till Bob and some more came
to help us."

"It sounds very simple, Mrs. Andrews, but I can tell you it wasn't so.
When we opened the door of the planing-shop it was so full of smoke
that it didn't seem as if anyone could breathe there for a minute, and
as we could see the glare of the flames at the other end we thought
the place was gone. We should have gone out and waited for the engines
if we hadn't heard the boys sing out that they were there; and even
though we knelt down and crawled in, as they shouted to us to do, we
were pretty nearly stifled. When we took the hose they crawled forward
and got the shavings cleared away; that was how they burned their
hands, I expect; and I hear they tumbled down insensible when they got
out. Now, ma'am, they may make light of it, but if ever two young
chaps behaved like heroes they did, and you have every right to be
proud of them--I say of them, because although Bill's no son of yours
I know he is what you and your boy have made him. He was telling me
about it one day."

"Will work go on to-morrow as usual, Bob?" George asked, in order to
change the subject.

"In some of the shops it will, no doubt," Bob said; "but in our shop
and the floors above it it will take a day or two to clear up. I saw
the foreman just now, and he tells me that a strong gang of carpenters
will be put on, for both the floors are burned away at the end of the
wall and pretty near twenty feet of the roof are charred. Two
surveyors are coming down this afternoon to examine the wall and say
whether it is safe. The walls of the shops that are burned out must
come down, of course. The surveyor says that if the wall at the end of
the planing-room looks pretty strong they will build up another wall
against it as soon as it gets cold enough and the rubbish is cleared
away for men to work; that will make a strong job of it, and there
won't be any loss of time. Of course if the old one has to come down
there can't be much work done in the shops till it's finished. The
governor got down about ten o'clock last night. A messenger went up to
him almost directly after the fire broke out, but he was out at
dinner, and by the time he got down here all danger of it spreading
was over. He had a talk with the foreman and arranged about the wall
with him. He is as anxious as we are that there should be no delay,
for there are some heavy orders in, and, of course, he doesn't want
them taken anywhere else."

"Will you look at their hands, Mr. Grimstone. I don't know much about
it, but they seem to be badly burned."

"That they are, ma'am," Mr. Grimstone said when he had examined them;
"pretty nigh raw. If I might give an opinion, I should say as the
doctor had better see them; they are precious painful, aint they,
George?"

"They do feel as if they were on fire, Bob, but I don't see any use in
a doctor. I don't suppose he can do more than mother has."

"Perhaps not, George, but he had better see them for all that; he may
give you some cooling lotion for them, and I can tell you burns on the
hand are apt to be serious matters, for the muscles of the fingers may
get stiffened. I have known two or three cases like that. You had
better go at once to Dr. Maxwell; he always attends if there are any
accidents at the works. You know the house, George; it is about
halfway between this and the works."

"Yes, you had better go at once, boys," Mrs. Andrews said; "there, put
on your hats and be off."

"I will walk with them. I must be off anyway, for the missis will be
waiting dinner for me."

"Are we to pay, mother?"

"No, not till you have done, George. I dare say you will have to have
your hands dressed several times."

"There won't be any occasion to pay him, Mrs. Andrews. The firm always
pays the doctor in case of accidents, and you may be very sure that in
this case they will be only too glad."

"Well, in any case, George," Mrs. Andrews said, "you can tell the
doctor that you will pay when he says that you need not come to him
again. If Mr. Penrose hears about it and chooses to pay I should not
think of refusing, as you have been burned in his service; but
certainly I should not assume that he will do so."

"Shall I go in with you, boys?" Bob asked when they reached the door.
"I know the doctor; he attended me two years ago when I pretty nigh
had my finger taken off by one of the cutters."

"Yes, please, Bob, I wish you would."

They were shown into the surgery, where the doctor soon joined them.

"I've brought these two young chaps for you to look at their hands,
Dr. Maxwell. They got them burnt last night at the fire. Mrs.
Andrews, the mother of this lad, wished me to say that she would pay
the charges when you have done with them; but as if it hadn't been for
them the works would have been burnt down as sure as you are standing
there, I expect the firm will take the matter in their own hands."

"Yes, they are nasty burns," the doctor said, examining the boys'
hands. "Can you open and shut them, boy?"

"I think I could if tried, sir," George said, "but I shouldn't like to
try, for if I move my fingers at all it hurts them awfully."

"I see you have had oil and cotton-wool on your hands."

"Yes."

"The best thing you can do, boys, is to put on some soothing
poultices. Tell your mother to get some linseed and mix it with
olive-oil. I will give you a bottle of laudanum. Let her put about
twenty drops of that into the oil before she mixes it with the
linseed. Every four or five hours change the poultices. I think you
will find that will relieve the pain a good deal. I see your faces are
scorched too. You can do nothing better than keep them moistened with
sweet-oil. I should advise you to keep as quiet as possible for three
or four days."

"But we shall want to get to work, sir," George said.

"Nonsense! You will be very lucky if you can use your hands in
another fortnight. I will send in the usual certificate to the works."

"Will you tell the foreman, Bob," George said when they left the
doctor's, "how it is we can't come to work? You tell him we wanted to,
and that we hope to come back as soon as our hands are all right;
because, you see, the men and boys at the shops which have been burnt
down will be all out of work, and it would be awful if we found our
places filled up when we went to work again."

"Don't you be afraid, George; there is no fear of your being out of
work after what you have done."

"Well, what did the doctor say?" was Mrs. Andrews' first question when
they returned home.

"He didn't say much, mother, except that we must not think of going to
work for a fortnight anyhow, and we are to have poultices made with
linseed mixed with oil, and twenty drops of laudanum from this bottle,
and it must be put on fresh every three or four hours. I am afraid it
will be an awful trouble."

"The trouble won't matter," Mrs. Andrews said brightly. "Did he say
you were to go to bed?"

"No, mother; but we were to keep as quiet as we could."

"Then in that case, George, I think you had better go to bed."

"No; I am sure we had better not," George said. "I should toss and
fidget about there horridly. The best thing will be for us to sit
here, and then we shall be all together. And if you talk to us, and
perhaps read to us, we shan't feel it half so much. What are you going
to do, mother?" he asked five minutes afterwards, as Mrs. Andrews came
down with her bonnet on.

"I am going to get some linseed, George, of course. I haven't got any
in the house."

"But it's Sunday, mother, and the shops will be shut."

"I shall get it at the chemist's, George. They will always supply
things that are needed even on Sunday. People are ill on Sunday as
well as any other day, you know. I shan't be gone more than a quarter
of an hour. You must keep very quiet till I come back."

The boys found a good deal of relief from the effect of the poultices,
and were very much better after a good night's rest. At ten o'clock
the next morning, as Mrs. Andrews was sitting at her work, with the
boys both on the hearthrug in front of the fire, there was a knock at
the door. It was a loud double knock, quite unlike the ordinary
summons of the baker's boy, who was the only regular caller. The boys
jumped up in surprise.

"Who can that be, mother?"

"We shall soon see," Mrs. Andrews said quietly.

She was not surprised, on opening the door, to see a gentleman
standing there, whom, by the description the boys had given of him,
she guessed to be their employer. A little girl was standing by his
side.

"Is this Mrs. Andrews?" the gentleman asked.

"I am Mrs. Andrews," the lady answered quietly.

"My name is Penrose. I have called with my daughter to inquire after
the two lads--one of them your son, I believe--who so gallantly saved
my place from being burned down on Saturday evening. I only heard
about it late yesterday evening, when I came down to arrange about
some matters with the foreman. He did not know the facts of the case
on Saturday night, but had learned them yesterday, and there can be no
doubt whatever, from what he says, that had it not been for the
presence of mind and bravery of these two lads nothing could have
saved the entire works and all the wood piles from destruction. I told
my daughter this morning, and she insisted on coming down with me. You
know she is already indebted to your son for saving a locket which we
both greatly valued."

"Will you walk in, sir?" and Mrs. Andrews showed them into the sitting
room.

Mr. Penrose had been somewhat surprised by Mrs. Andrews' manner,
although the foreman, in telling him of the boys' conduct, had also
stated what he knew about them.

"They are out-of-the-way sort of boys, sir," he said. "There was quite
a talk about them in the shops in the spring. They lodged with
Grimstone, and it seems that after they had been here at work five
months Andrews' mother, who had been ill, was coming to them, and they
got Grimstone to take a house for them, and it turned out that ever
since they had been at work here they had been putting by half their
wages to furnish a place for her, so they must have lived on about
five shillings a week each and got clothes for themselves out of it.
Now, sir, boys as would do that aint ordinary boys, and there was
quite a talk among the men about it. I hear from Grimstone that Mrs.
Andrews is a superior sort of person, he says quite a lady. She does
work, I believe, for some London shop."

Mr. Penrose, therefore, was prepared to find the boys in a more
comfortable abode than usual, and their mother what the foreman called
a superior sort of woman; but he perceived at once by her address that
Grimstone's estimate had been a correct one, and that she was indeed a
lady. The prettiness of the little sitting room, with its comfortable
furniture, its snowy curtains and pretty belongings, heightened this
feeling.

"I have come to see you, boys," he said, "and to tell you how indebted
I feel to you for your exertions on Saturday. There is no doubt that
had it not been for you the place would have been entirely burned. It
was fully insured, but it would have been a serious matter for me, as
I should have lost four or five months' work, and it would have been
still more serious for the men to have been thrown out of employment
at this time of the year, so we all feel very much indebted to you. I
hope you are not much burned."

"Oh, no, sir! our hands are burned a bit, but they will be all right
in a few days. Bill and I are very glad, sir, that we happened to be
passing, and were able to give the alarm and do something to stop the
flames till the others came up; but we don't feel that it was anything
out of the way. It was just a piece of fun and excitement to us."

"They didn't say anything about it, Mr. Penrose, when they came home,
and it was only when one of the men came in next day to ask after them
that I heard that they had really been of use."

"It is all very well to say so, lads," Mr. Penrose replied; "but there
is no doubt you showed a great deal of courage, as well as presence of
mind, and you may be sure that I shall not forget it. And now, Mrs.
Andrews," he said, turning round to her, "I feel rather in a false
position. I came round to see the lads, who, when I last saw them,
were not in very flourishing circumstances, and I was going to make
them a present for the service they had done me, and my daughter has
brought them a basket with some wine, jelly, and other things such as
are good for sick boys. Finding them as I find them, in your care and
in such a home, you see I feel a difficulty about it altogether."

"Thank you, sir," Mrs. Andrews said, "for the kindness of your
intention; but my boys--for although one is in no way related to me I
feel towards him as if he were my own--would not like to take money
for doing their duty towards their employer."

"No, indeed!" George and Bill exclaimed simultaneously.

"As you see, sir, thanks to the work you were good enough to give the
boys and to my needle,"--and she glanced towards the articles on the
table,--"we are very comfortable; but I am sure the boys will be very
glad to accept the things which your daughter has been so kind as to
bring down for them, and will feel very much obliged for her
thoughtfulness."

"That is right," Mr. Penrose said, relieved. "Nelly, you may as well
leave the basket as it is. I am sure you don't want to carry it back
again?"

"No, papa," Nelly said; and indeed even the empty basket would have
been more than the child could well have carried. It had come on the
top of the carriage to the railway-station, and a porter had
accompanied Mr. Penrose with it to Laburnum Villas.

"You would have hardly known your young friend. Would you, Nelly?"

"I don't think I should," she said, shaking her head. "He looks
dreadfully burned, and his hair is all funny and frizzled."

"It will soon grow again," George said, smiling. "The doctor says our
faces will be all right when the skin is peeled off. Thank you very
much, Miss Penrose, for all the nice things. It was a fortunate day
indeed for us when I caught that boy stealing your locket."

"And it was a fortunate day for us too," Mr. Penrose responded. "Now,
Mrs. Andrews, we will say good-by. You will not mind my calling again
to see how the boys are getting on?"

"It will be very kind of you, sir, and we shall be glad to see you,"
Mrs. Andrews replied; "but I hope in a few days they will both be out
of the doctor's hands."

"I can't shake hands with you," Mr. Penrose said, patting the boys on
the shoulder, "but I hope next time I see you to be able to do so.
Good-morning, Mrs. Andrews."




CHAPTER VII.

SAVED!


"Now let us have a look at the basket, mother," George said as Mrs.
Andrews returned into the room after seeing her two visitors off.
"It's very kind of him, isn't it? and I am glad he didn't offer us
money; that would have been horrid, wouldn't it?"

"I am glad he did not, too, George. Mr. Penrose is evidently a
gentleman of delicacy and refinement of feeling, and he saw that he
would give pain if he did so."

"You see it too, don't you, Bill?" George asked. "You know you thought
I was a fool not to take money when he offered it for getting back the
locket; but you see it in the same way now, don't you?"

"Yes; I shouldn't have liked to take money," Bill said. "I sees----"

"See," Mrs. Andrews corrected.

"Thank you. I see things different--differently," he corrected
himself, seeing that George was about to speak, "to what I did then."

"Now, mother," George said, "let us open the basket; it's almost as
big as a clothes-basket, isn't it?"

The cover was lifted and the contents, which had after much thought
been settled by Nelly herself, were disclosed. There were two bottles
of port-wine, a large mold of jelly, a great cake, two dozen oranges,
some apples, a box of preserved fruit, some almonds and raisins, two
packets of Everton toffee, a dozen mince-pies, and four pots of
black-currant jelly, on the cover of one of which was written in a
sprawling hand, "Two teaspoonfuls stirred up in a tumbler of water for
a drink at night."

"This will make a grand feast, mother; what a jolly collection, isn't
it? I think Miss Penrose must have chosen it herself, don't you?"

"It certainly looks like it, George," Mrs. Andrews replied, smiling.
"I do not think any grownup person would have chosen mince-pies and
toffee as appropriate for sick boys."

"Yes; but she must have known we were not badly burned, mother; and
besides, you see, she put in currant-jelly to make drinks, and there
are the oranges too. I vote that we have an orange and some toffee at
once, Bill."

"I have tasted oranges," Bill said, "lots of them in the market, but I
never tasted toffee."

"It's first-rate, I can tell you."

"Why, they look like bits of tin," Bill said as the packet was opened.

George burst into a laugh.

"That's tin-foil, that's only to wrap it up; you peel that off, Bill,
and you will find the toffee inside. Now, mother, you have a glass of
wine and a piece of cake."

"I will have a piece of cake, George; but I am not going to open the
wine. We will put that by in case of illness or of any very
extraordinary occasion."

"I am glad the other things won't keep, mother, or I expect you would
be wanting to put them all away. Isn't this toffee good, Bill?"

"First-rate," Bill agreed. "What is it made of?"

"Sugar and butter melted together over the fire."

"You are like two children," Mrs. Andrews laughed, "instead of boys
getting on for sixteen years old. Now I must clear this table again
and get to work; I promised these four bonnets should be sent in
to-morrow morning, and there's lots to be done to them yet."

It was three weeks before the boys were able to go to work again. The
foreman came round on Saturdays with their wages. Mr. Penrose called
again; this time they were out, but he chatted for some time with Mrs.
Andrews.

"I don't wish to pry into your affairs, Mrs. Andrews," he said, after
asking about the boys; "but I have a motive for asking if your son
has, as I suppose he has, from his way of speaking, had a fair
education."

"He was at school up to the age of twelve," Mrs. Andrews said quietly;
"circumstances at that time obliged me to remove him; but I have
since done what I could myself towards continuing his education, and
he still works regularly of an evening."

"Why I ask, Mrs. Andrews, was that I should like in time to place him
in the counting-house. I say in time, because I think it will be
better for him for the next two or three years to continue to work in
the shops. I will have him moved from shop to shop so as to learn
thoroughly the various branches of the business. That is what I should
do had I a son of my own to bring into the business. It will make him
more valuable afterwards, and fit him to take a good position either
in my shops or in any similar business should an opening occur."

"I am greatly obliged to you, sir," Mrs. Andrews said gratefully;
"though I say it myself, a better boy never lived."

"I am sure he is by what I have heard of him, and I shall be only too
glad, after the service he has rendered me, to do everything in my
power to push him forward. His friend, I hear, has not had the same
advantages. At the time I first saw him he looked a regular young
arab."

"So he was, sir; but he is a fine young fellow. He was very kind to my
boy when he was alone in London, and gave up his former life to be
with him. George taught him to read before I came here, and he has
worked hard ever since. No one could be nicer in the house than he is,
and had I been his own mother he could not be more dutiful or anxious
to please. Indeed I may say that I am indebted for my home here as
much to him as to my own boy."

"I am glad to hear you say so, Mrs. Andrews, for of course I should
wish to do something for him too. At any rate, I will give him, like
your son, every opportunity of learning the business, and he will in
time be fit for a position of foreman of a shop--by no means a bad one
for a lad who has had such a beginning as he has had. After that, of
course, it must depend upon himself. I think, if you will allow me to
suggest, it would be as well that you should not tell them the nature
of our conversation. Of course it is for you to decide; but, however
steady boys they are, it might make them a little less able to get on
well with their associates in a shop if they know that they are going
to be advanced."

"I don't think it would make any difference to them, sir; but at the
same time I do think it would be as well not to tell them."

One day Bill was out by himself as the men were coming out of the
shop, and he stopped to speak to Bob Grimstone.

"Oh! I am glad to find you without George," Bob said; "'cause I want
to talk to you. Look here! the men in all the shops have made a
subscription to give you and George a present. Everyone feels that
it's your doing that we have not got to idle all this winter, and when
someone started the idea there wasn't a man in the two shops that
didn't agree with him. I am the treasurer, I am, and it's come to
just thirty pounds. Now I don't know what you two boys would like,
whether you would like it in money, or whether you would like it in
something else, so I thought I would ask you first. I thought you
would know what George would like, seeing what friends you are, and
then you know it would come as a surprise to him. Now, what do you
say?"

"Its very kind of you," Bill said. "I am sure George would like
anything better than money, and so should I."

"Well, you think it over, Bill, and let me know in a day or two. We
were thinking of a watch for each of you, with an inscription, saying
it was presented to you by your shopmates for having saved the
factory, and so kept them at work for months just at the beginning of
winter. That's what seemed to me that you would like; but if there is
anything you would like better, just you say so. You come down here
to-morrow or next day, when you have thought it over, and give me an
answer. Of course you can consult George if you think best."

Bill met Bob Grimstone on the following day.

"I have thought it over," he said, "and I know what George and me
would like better than any possible thing you could get."

"Well, what is it, Bill?"

"Well, what we have set our minds on, and what we were going to save
up our money to get, was a piano for George's mother. I heard her say
that we could get a very nice one for about thirty pounds, and it
would be splendid if you were all to give it her."

"Very well, Bill, then a piano it shall be. I know a chap as works at
Kirkman's, and I expect he will be able to give us a good one for the
money."

Accordingly on the Saturday afternoon before the boys were going to
work again, Mrs. Andrews and George were astonished at seeing a cart
stop before the house, and the foreman, Bob Grimstone, and four other
men coming up to the door.

Bill ran and opened the door, and the men entered. He had been
apprised of the time that they might be expected, and at once showed
them in.

"Mrs. Andrews," the foreman said, "I and my mates here are a
deputation from the hands employed in the shop, and we have come to
offer you a little sort of testimonial of what we feel we owe your son
and Bill Smith for putting out the fire and saving the shops. If it
hadn't been for them it would have been a bad winter for us all. So
after thinking it over and finding out what form of testimonial the
lads would like best, we have got you a piano, which we hope you may
live long to play on and enjoy. We had proposed to give them a watch
each; but we found that they would rather that it took the form of a
piano."

"Oh, how good and kind of you all!" Mrs. Andrews said, much affected.
"I shall indeed be proud of your gift, both for itself and for the
kind feeling towards my boys which it expresses."

"Then, ma'am, with your permission we will just bring it in;" and the
deputation retired to assist with the piano.

"Oh, boys, how could you do it without telling me!" Mrs. Andrews
exclaimed.

George had hitherto stood speechless with surprise.

"But I didn't know anything about it, mother. I don't know what they
mean by saying that we would rather have it than watches. Of course we
would, a hundred times; but I don't know how they knew it."

"Then it must have been your kind thought, Bill."

"It wasn't no kind thought, Mrs. Andrews, but they spoke to me about
it, and I knew that a piano was what we should like better than
anything else, and I didn't say anything about it, because Bob
Grimstone thought that it would be nicer to be a surprise to George as
well as to you."

"You are right, old boy," George said, shaking Bill by the hand; "why,
there never was such a good idea; it is splendid, mother, isn't it?"

The men now appeared at the door with the piano. This was at once
placed in the position which had long ago been decided upon as the
best place for the piano when it should come. Mrs. Andrews opened it,
and there on the front was a silver plate with the inscription:

"To Mrs. Andrews from the Employees at Messrs. Penrose & Co., in token
of their gratitude to George Andrews and William Smith for their
courage and presence of mind, by which the factory was saved from
being destroyed by fire on Saturday the 23d of October, 1857."

The tears which stood in Mrs. Andrews' eyes rendered it difficult for
her to read the inscription.

"I thank you, indeed," she said. "Now, perhaps you would like to hear
its tones." So saying she sat down and played "Home, Sweet Home." "It
has a charming touch," she said as she rose, "and, you see, the air
was an appropriate one, for your gift will serve to make home even
sweeter than before. Give, please, my grateful thanks, and those of my
boys, to all who have subscribed."

The inhabitants of No. 8 Laburnum Villas had long been a subject of
considerable discussion and interest to their neighbors, for the
appearance of the boys as they came home of an evening in their
working clothes seemed altogether incongruous with that of their
mother and with the neatness and prettiness of the villa, and was,
indeed, considered derogatory to the respectability of Laburnum Villas
in general. Upon this evening they were still further mystified at
hearing the notes of a female voice of great power and sweetness,
accompanied by a piano, played evidently by an accomplished musician,
issuing from the house. As to the boys, they thought that, next only
to that of the home-coming of Mrs. Andrews, never was such a happy
evening spent in the world.

I do not think that in all London there was a household that enjoyed
that winter more than did the inmates of No. 8 Laburnum Villas. Their
total earnings were about thirty-five shillings a week, much less than
that of many a mechanic, but ample for them not only to live, but to
live in comfort and even refinement. No stranger, who had looked into
the pretty drawing room in the evening, would have dreamed that the
lady at the piano worked as a milliner for her living, or that the
lads were boys in a manufactory.

When spring came they began to plan various trips and excursions which
could be taken on bank holidays or during the long summer evenings,
when an event happened which, for a time, cut short all their plans.
The word had been passed round the shops the first thing in the
morning that Mr. Penrose was coming down with a party of ladies and
gentlemen to go over the works, and that things were to be made as
tidy as possible.

Accordingly there was a general clearing up, and vast quantities of
shavings and sawdust were swept up

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