A Rough Shaking
Home - George MacDonald - A Rough ShakingChapter LI.
Clare a true master.
It would take a big book to tell all the things of interest that
happened to Clare in the next few weeks. They would be mainly how and
where he found refuge, and how he and Abdiel got things to eat. Verily
they did not live on the fat of the land. Now and then some benevolent
person, seeing him in such evident want, would contrive a job in order
to pay him for it: in one place, although they had no need of him,
certain good people gave him ten days' work under a gardener, and
dismissed him with twenty shillings in his pocket.
One way and another, Clare and Abdiel did not die of hunger or of cold. That is the summary of their history for a good many weeks.
One night they slept on a common, in the lee of a gypsy tent, and contrived to get away in the morning without being seen. For Clare feared they might offer him something stolen, and hunger might persuade him to ask no questions. Many respectable people will laugh at the idea of a boy being so particular. Such are immeasurably more to be pitied than Clare. No one could be hard on a boy who in such circumstances took what was offered him, but he would not be so honest as Clare--though he might well be more honest than such as would laugh at him.
Another time he went up to a large house, to see if he might not there get a job. He found the place, for the time at least, abandoned: I suppose the persons in charge had deserted their post to make holiday. He lingered about until the evening fell, and then got with Abdiel under a glass frame in the kitchen-garden. But the glass was so close to them that Clare feared breaking it; so they got out again, and lay down on a bench in a shed for potting plants.
Clare was waked in the morning by a sound cuff on the side of the head. He got off the bench, took up Abdiel, and coming to himself, said to the gardener who stood before him in righteous indignation,
"I'm much obliged to you for my bedroom, sir. It was very cold last night."
His words and respectful manner mollified the gardener a little.
"You have no business here!" he returned.
"I know that, sir; but what is a boy to do?" answered Clare. "I wasn't hurting anything, and it was so cold we might have died if we had slept out of doors."
"That's no business of mine!"
"But it is of mine," rejoined Clare; "--except you think a boy that can't get work ought to commit suicide. If he mustn't do that, he can't always help doing what people with houses don't like!"
The gardener was not a bad sort of fellow, and perceived the truth in what the boy said.
"That's always the story!" he replied, however. "Can't get work! No idle boy ever could get work! I know the sort of you--well!"
"Would you mind giving me a chance?" returned Clare eagerly. "I wouldn't ask much wages."
"You wouldn't, if you asked what you was worth!"
"We'd be worth our victuals anyhow!" answered Clare, who always counted the dog.
"Who's we?" asked the man. "Be there a hundred of you?"
"No; only two. Only me and Abdiel here!"
"Oh, that beast of a mongrel?"
The gardener made a stride as if to seize the dog. Clare bounded from him. The man burst into a mocking laugh.
"He's a good dog, indeed, sir!" said Clare.
"You'll give him the sack before I give you a job."
"We're old friends, sir; we can't be parted!"
"I thought as much!" cried the gardener. "They're always ready to work, an' so hungry! But will they part with the mangy dog? Not they! Hard work and good wages ain't nowhere beside a mongrel pup! Get out! Don't I know the whole ugly bilin' of ye!"
Clare turned away with a gentle good-morning, which the man did not get out of his heart for a matter of two days, and departed, hugging Abdiel.
He was often cold and always hungry, but his life was anything but dull. The man who does not know where his next meal is to come from, is seldom afflicted with ennui. That is the monopoly of the enviable with nothing to do, and everything money can get them. A foolish west-end life has immeasurably more discomfort in it than that of a street Arab. The ordinary beggar, while in tolerable health, finds far more enjoyment than most fashionable ladies.
Thus Clare went wandering long, seeking work, and finding next to none--all the time upheld by the feeling that something was waiting for him somewhere, that he was every day drawing nearer to it. Not once yet had he lost heart. In very virtue of unselfishness and lack of resentment, he was strong. Not once had he shed a tear for himself, not once had he pitied his own condition.