A Rough Shaking
Home - George MacDonald - A Rough ShakingChapter XVII.
The baker's cart.
The sweepings of the mill-floor did not last them long, and by the
time they saw rising before them the spires and chimneys of the small
county town to which the road had been leading them, they were very
hungry indeed--as hungry as they well could be without having begun to
grow faint. The moment he saw them, Clare began revolving in his mind
once more, as many times on the way, what he was to do to get work:
Tommy of course was too small to do anything, and Clare must earn
enough for both. He could think of nothing but going into the shops,
or knocking at the house-doors, and asking for something to do. So
filled was he with his need of work, and with the undefined sense of a
claim for work, that he never thought how much against him must be the
outward appearance which had so dismayed himself when he saw it in the
pond; never thought how unwilling any one would be to employ him, or
what a disadvantage was the company of Tommy, who had every mark of a
born thief.
I do not know if, on his tramps, Tommy had been in a town before, but to Clare all he saw bore the aspect of perfect novelty, notwithstanding the few city-shapes that floated in faintest shadow, like memories of old dreams, in his brain. He was delighted with the grand look of the place, with its many people and many shops. His hope of work at once became brilliant and convincing.
Noiselessly and suddenly Tommy started from his side, but so much occupied was he with what he beheld and what he thought, that he neither saw him go nor missed him when gone. He became again aware of him by finding himself pulled toward the entrance of a narrow lane. Tommy pulled so hard that Clare yielded, and went with him into the lane, but stopped immediately. For he saw that Tommy had under his arm a big loaf, and the steam of newly-baked bread was fragrant in his nostrils. Never smoke so gracious greeted those of incense-loving priest. Tommy tugged and tugged, but Clare stood stock-still.
"Where did you get that beautiful loaf, Tommy?" he asked.
"Off on a baker's cart," said Tommy. "Don't be skeered; he never saw me! That was my business, an' I seed to 't."
"Then you stole it, Tommy?"
"Yes," grumbled Tommy, "--if that's the name you put upon it when your trousers is so slack you've got to hold on to them or they'd trip you up!"
"Where's the cart?"
"In the street there."
"Come along."
Clare took the loaf from Tommy, and turned to find the baker's cart. Tommy's face fell, and he was conscious only of bitterness. Why had he yielded to sentiment--not that he knew the word--when he longed like fire to bury his sharp teeth in that heavenly loaf? Love--not to mention a little fear--had urged him to carry it straight to Clare, and this was his reward! He was going to give him up to the baker! There was gratitude for you! He ought to have known better than trust anybody, even Clare! Nobody was to be trusted but yourself! It did seem hard to Tommy.
They had scarcely turned the corner when they came upon the cart. The baker was looking the other way, talking to some one, and Clare thought to lay down the loaf and say nothing about it: there was no occasion for the ceremony of apology where offence was unknown. But in the very act the baker turned and saw him. He sprang upon him, and collared him. The baker was not nice to look at.
"I have you!" he cried, and shook him as if he would have shaken his head off.
"It's quite a mistake, sir!" was all Clare could get out, so fierce was the earthquake that rattled the house of his life.
"Mistaken am I? I like that!--Police!"
And with that the baker shook him again.
A policeman was not far off; he heard the man call, and came running.
"Here's a gen'leman as wants the honour o' your acquaintance, Bob!" said the baker.
But Tommy saw that, from his size, he was more likely to get off than Clare if he told the truth.
"Please, policeman," he said, "it wasn't him; it was me as took the loaf."
"You little liar!" shouted the baker. "Didn't I see him with his hand on the loaf?"
"He was a puttin' of it back," said Tommy. "I wish he'd been somewheres else! See what he been an' got by it! If he'd only ha' let me run, there wouldn't ha' been nobody the wiser. I am sorry I didn't run. Oh, I ham so 'ungry!"
Tommy doubled himself up, with his hands inside the double.
"'Ungry, are you?" roared the baker. "That's what thieves off a baker's cart ought to be! They ought to be always 'ungry--'ungry to all eternity, they ought! An' that's what's goin' to be done to 'em!"
"Look here!" cried a pale-faced man in the front of the crowd, who seemed a mechanic. "There's a way of tellin' whether the boy's speakin' the truth now!"
He caught up the restored loaf, halved it cleverly, and handed each of the boys a part.
"Now, baker, what's to pay?" he said, and drew himself up, for the man was too angry at once to reply.
The boys were tearing at the delicious bread, blind and deaf to all about them.
"P'r'aps you would like to give me in charge?" pursued their saviour.
"Sixpence," said the man sullenly.
The mechanic laid sixpence on the cover of the cart.
"I ought to ha' made you weigh and make up," he said. "Where's your scales?"
"Mind your own business."
"I mean to. Here! I want another sixpenny loaf--but I want it weighed this time!"
"I ain't bound to sell bread in the streets. You can go to the shop. Them loaves is for reg'lar customers."
He moved off with his cart, and the crowd began to disperse. The boys stood absorbed, each in what remained of his half-loaf.
When he looked up, Clare saw that they were alone. But he caught sight of their benefactor some way off, and ran after him.
"Oh, sir!" he said, "I was so hungry, I don't know whether I thanked you for the loaf. We'd had nothing to-day but the sweepings of a mill."
"God bless my soul!" said the man. "People say there's a God!" he added.
"I think there must be, sir, for you came by just then!" returned Clare.
"How do you come to be so hard-up, my boy? Somebody's to blame somewheres!"
"There ain't no harm in being hungry, so long as the loaf comes!" rejoined Clare. "When I get work we shall be all right!"
"That's your sort!" said the man. "But if there had been a God, as people say, he would ha' made me fit to gi'e you a job, i'stead o' stan'in' here as you see me, with ne'er a turn o' work to do for myself!"
"I'll work my hardest to pay you back your sixpence," said Clare.
"Nay, nay, lad! Don't you trouble about that. I ha' got two or three more i' my pocket, thank God!"
"You have two Gods, have you, sir?" said Clare;"--one who does things for you, and one who don't?"
"Come, you young shaver! you're too much for me!" said the man laughing.
Tommy, having finished his bread, here thought fit to join them. He came slyly up, looking impudent now he was filled, with his hands where his pockets should have been.
"It was you stole the loaf, you little rascal!" said the workman, seeing thief in every line of the boy.
"Yes," answered Tommy boldly, "an' I don't see no harm. The baker had lots, and he wasn't 'ungry! It was Clare made a mull of it! He's such a duffer you don't know! He acshally took it back to the brute! He deserved what he got! The loaf was mine. It wasn't his! I stole it!"
"Oh, ho! it wasn't his! it was yours, was it?--Why do you go about with a chap like this, young gentleman?" said the man, turning to Clare. "I know by your speech you 'ain't been brought up alongside o' sech as him!"
"I had to go away, and he came with me," answered Clare.
"You'd better get rid of him. He'll get you into trouble."
"I can't get rid of him," replied Clare. "But I shall teach him not to take what isn't his. He don't know better now. He's been ill-used all his life."
"You don't seem over well used yourself," said the man.
He saw that Clare's clothes had been made for a boy in good circumstances, though they had been long worn, and were much begrimed. His face, his tone, his speech convinced him that they had been made for him, and that he had had a gentle breeding.
"Look you here, young master," he continued; "you have no right to be in company with that boy. He'll bring you to grief as sure as I tell you."
"I shall be able to bear it," answered Clare with a sigh.
"He'll be the loss of your character to you."
"I 'ain't got a character to lose," replied Clare. "I thought I had; but when nobody will believe me, where's my character then?"
"Now you're wrong there," returned the man. "I'm not much, I know; but I believe every word you say, and should be very sorry to find myself mistaken."
"Thank you, sir," said Clare. "May I carry your bag for you?"
If Clare had seen what then passed in Tommy's mind, at the back of those glistening ferret-eyes of his, he would have been almost reconciled to taking the man's advice, and getting rid of him. Tommy was saying to himself that his pal wasn't such a duffer after all--he was on the lay for the man's tools!
Tommy never reasoned except in the direction of cunning self-help--of fitting means and intermediate ends to the one main object of eating. It is wonderful what a sharpener of the poor wits hunger is!
"I guess I'm the abler-bodied pauper!" answered the man; and picking up the bag he had dropped at his feet while they conversed, he walked away.
There are many more generous persons among the poor than among the rich--a fact that might help some to understand how a rich man should find it hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is hard for everybody, but harder for the rich. Men who strive to make money are unconsciously pulling instead of pushing at the heavy gate of the kingdom.
"Tommy!" said Clare, in a tone new to himself, for a new sense of moral protection had risen in him, "if ever you steal anything again, either I give you a hiding, or you and I part company."
Tommy bored his knuckles into his red eyes, and began to whimper. Again it was hard for Tommy! He had followed Clare, thinking to supply what was lacking to him; to do for him what he was not clever enough to do for himself; in short, to make an advantageous partnership with him, to which he should furnish the faculty of picking up unconsidered trifles. Tommy judged Clare defective in intellect, and quite unpractical. He was of the mind of the multitude. The common-minded man always calls the man who thinks of righteousness before gain, who seeks to do the will of God and does not seek to make a fortune, unpractical. He will not see that the very essence of the practical lies in doing the right thing.
Tommy, in a semi-conscious way, had looked to Clare to supply the strength and the innocent look, while he supplied the head and the lively fingers; and here was Clare knocking the lovely plan to pieces! He did well to be angry! But Clare was the stronger; and Tommy knew that, when Clare was roused, though it was not easy to rouse him, he could and would and did fight--not, indeed, as the little coward said to himself he could fight, like a wild cat, but like a blundering hornless old cow defending her calf from a cur.
In the heart of all his selfishness, however, Tommy did a little love Clare; and his love came, not from Tommy, but from the same source as his desire for food, namely, from the God that was in Tommy, the God in whom Tommy lived and had his being with Clare. Whether Tommy's love for Clare would one day lift him up beside Clare, that is, make him an honest boy like Clare, remained to be seen.
Finding his demonstration make no impression, Tommy took his knuckles out of his eye-holes and thrust them into his pocket-holes, turned his back on his friend, and began to whistle--with a lump of self-pity in his throat.