^ W W W ^ ^ w w ^ w
NORTHWESTERN
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
EVANSTON
ILLINOIS
THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
OTHER STORIES BY
ETHEL TURNER
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS
THE FAMILY AT MISRULE
THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
MISS BOBBIE
THREE LITTLE MAIDS
LITTLE MOTHER MEG
MOTHER'S LITTLE GIRL
''The man . . . marched Loi off instantly to the neighbouring
police station." (Page 27.)
The Little Larrikin.']
[Frontispiece
THE
LITTLE LARRIKIN
BY
ETHEL TURNER
" I beseech you let hia lack oí years be no Impediment
to let him lack a reverend estimation ; for I never knew
so young a body with so old a head."
—Merchant of Venice,
I
f
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND ME^-BOURNE
/
9
MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN
PRINTED BY EBENEZER BAYLIS AND SON, LIMITED
THE TRINITY PRESS, WORCESTER, AND LONDON
DEDICATION
To My Severest Critic—
For you and me for whom " The Larrikin " ha%
a local habitation, and Balcombe Street a real name, it is
difficult to judge impartially of the merits of this story,
even if I, as its author, could ever do so ; for we see living
forms and hear living voices where others will perceive but
the unsubstantial personages of a tale that is told.
Wherefore in dedicating this book of mine to you, per-
chance I present you with a gift that in the eyes of those who
have not our knowledge, will appear worthless ; and I should
hesitate did I not know that, by reason both of your special
information and of the fact that this is the dearest to me of
all the creatures of my pen, you will esteem it highly, as
well for my sake as that of the originals whence it was
drawn.
And, in return, I pray you for one moment to play Sir
Christopher Ration to my Raleigh in the comedy that bears
the name by which I have herein addressed you, and to
listen without impatience while I tell you the origin of the
title I have chosen ; for though this matter is as well
known to you as to me, yet I ask like Puff, " Pray, are
the audience supposed to know ? "
Years ago in the city of Melbourne there dwelt a certain
constable of police^ who in the exercise of his duty brought
some two or three youths before a magistrate, and told how
5
6 DEDICATION
V
tJteir offence consisted in "just larkin' about " ; vir-
tute officii Irish, he pronounced " larkin' " in Elizabethan
fashion, and called it " larr'kin'" All unknowing, he had
coined a new word which to-day is understanded of the
people throughout all Australia, and its interpretation is
" one who just larks about," heedless of whether his larking
disturbs his graver-minded fellow-citizens or not. He is
the foe of all policemen. Chinamen, and dumb animals,
and hates the shadow of the Education Department, crying
with Hood to Pellas, to take away her owl and let him
have a lark instead.
To you, then, I dedicate this book. LetZâland Rustam
{whereby are inte'nded all those who usurp your function
and criticize adversely) bluster as they will ; you will not
heed but will love it in memory of the days we spent
discussing it together while it was yet in mute inglorious
manuscript,
T.
Lindfield. Sydney,
189^.
«
contents
chap.
paga
•I
"As many Young Barristbrs arb"
9
II
A Scalene Triangle . • •
14
III
^^ol Sc C^o. • • • • •
2a
IV
An Interior in Balcombe Street
29
V
In Boyd's Road • . . •
36
VI
Concerning the Jenkinses' Dog
43
VII
Lol makes his Entrance into Polit
Society
• 51
VIII
The Small Chaperon • • •
• 58
IX
Music and Afternoon Tea •
• 66
X
Robert has " Views " • •
• 77
XI
Sunday Morning • • •
• 86
XII
Sunday Afternoon • • •
• 9Ô
XIII
Canvases
XIV
Washing up in Balcombe Street
• "5
XV
All in a Garden Fair • •
• 125
PAGB
132
141
152
160
170
179
191
203
215
226
236
241
249
CONTENTS
An Everyday Dinner ,
A Larrikin Coat
The Setting Out of Ruffy
The End of a Story . .
Lol Puts on the Brake
A Ball at Government House
The End of the Ball.
A Larrikin Picnic
A Morning's Post .
Robert • • • .
Marcia • • • •
«
" Two on a Mountain "
Lol's Wedding-Breakfast ,
i
THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
CHAPTER I
• AS MANY YOUNG BARRISTERS ARE "
Roger CARRUTHERS was getting his own
breakfast ready in the kitchen. Martin and
Clem and Phil had eaten theirs and gone an hour
ago, one to the University, the others to school.
Generally Roger was to be found skirmishing about
for this first meal of the day at the same time as the
younger ones, but just now he could slumber longer,
for the Law Courts were closed and the long vacation
hung heavy on the hearts of the Junior Bar.
He was making cocoa in a little tin billy can sus¬
pended over the gas flame, and cutting sUces of
bread and butter whUe it boiled ; toast was more
to his taste, but Clem had left the coals scattered
in the fireplace, and ashes and a cold kettle were
the result.
The cocoa bubbled musically, a little froth rose
over the top of the can, ran down the sides and
spluttered because of the gas.
Roger took it ofí, poured it into a cup and drank
it, leaning against the wall ; in the intervals he ate
the bread and butter thoughtfully.
Then down the carpetless stairs, and along the
9
10 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
hall and across the lobby that led Idtchenwards
came a little shuffling step.
It was Laurence, Loi, Larrie—the little larrikin.
He had slipped his feet into Clem's oldest lace-up
boots and washed not an atom of a day-time's dirt
and a night-time's sleep from his face. He displayed
some of the scattered crockery on the table, sat on
the extreme edge and swung his legs. The left
boot feU off in the process.
*' You good-for-nothing little beggar," Roger said,
" go and wash yourself."
" When I've had breakfast," said Loi. He took
one of the slices of Roger's püe and began munching
it.
Roger cuffed him off the table.
*' Go and wash," he said ; " didn't Clem give you
yom: breakfast ? "
" Not a crumb,"—the blue wide eyes took a
hungry, appealing look. " Is that cocoa you've
made, Roger, and isn't there any jam ? "
'* Go and wash," said Roger. The last word was
raised, and forcible enough to make Loi drop from
the table and wriggle his foot into the straying
boot.
" Why, I'm hardly dirty at all," he said in a tone
of svuprise and remonstrance, viewing his small
coimtenance in sections through a bit of broken
looking-glass on the dresser. But he had a respect
for that note in Roger's voice and went to the tap
in the comer. Roger cut two more slices of bread
and butter with a hasty hand and doubled them,
sandwich-wise. Then he cut two more and spread
lemon and melon jam between to vary the monotony
of half-past twelve. He divided the rounds into
four sections, wrapped them in brown paper and
dropped the parcel into his tan bag. In tiuming
" AS MANY YOUNG BARRISTERS ARE " ii
to do this Lol's chary ablutionary performance
met his eye. The boy had damped the end of a tea-
towel vmder the running water and was making a
little clean circle on each cheek.
Roger cuffed him again.
" You abominable little larrikin," he said, " go
upstairs and do it properly."
" Well, make's some cocoa, whilst," Loi said, a
persuasive look on his little pale, bright face. Roger
picked him up, marched outside with him and set
him half-way upstairs. " Not a drop till you're
clean," he said. " Hurry up now and be a good
kid."
" Right O 1 " said Loi cheerfully, and shuffled up
in haste. If anything, he rather hked Roger's
cuffings ; they made him feel manly, and he had been
delicate and spoiled so long. When he got to the
top he looked over the banisters. " I hke raspberry
jam better'n melon, Roger," he called. In the bed¬
room that he shared with two of the boys he took
off Clem's old boots and put on sandshoes, his own
lace-ups being still soaking wet from a well-flushed
gutter of yesterday. Then he attacked the wash-
stand.
He soused his curly head by standing on tiptoe
and clinging to the woodwork, then he soaped
himself vigorously, neck, ears, face and hands, and
swilled and splashed away tUl he was aglow with
cold water and exercise.
During the operation the loose flannel of his
saüo» blouse had become considerably more than
damp, but he managed to draw the front parts of
the collar sufficiently together over it, with the aid
of a pin, to escape masculine eyes. After that he
tried to bnish his half-dried curls perfectly flat, but
not succeeding, contented himself with the high-day
12 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Çerfonnance of cleaning his nails and his teeth,
hen he went downstairs again.
An end of the table was cleared for him, and a
cup of well-sweetened cocoa and a plate of bread
and butter with raspberry jam at hand stood ready.
Roger, out in the lobby, was brushing his well-cut
serge suit with careful hand and feeling unhappy
because one of the seams of the coat was just
beginning to shine.
He harangued Loi as he brushed.
" Do ever3rthing Eliza tells you. Loi, and if you
go near that young brute Saunders, I'll thrash you
when I come home, and teU Eliza "
Loi interrupted, his cup midway between the
table and his lips, " Young Saunders isn't hcilf
bad," he said ; ** there was a dog, and me and
Jimmle Smith and "
" Hold your tongue," said Roger, " and remember
what I said. TeU EUza to cook more dinner than
yesterday and to have it ready by six, sharp. And
to clean the place up decently, or I'U get some one
else. And don't you go out of this street."
" Boyd's Road's an awfuUy nice place, Roger,
and a lot safer." Loi looked anxious. *' Me and
Jimmie Smith "
" Hold your tongue," Roger said again. " I'U
have to thrash you. Loi, I can see."
" WeU, Canning Street, Roger, please," the Uttle
boy said, entreaty In his eyes. " BiUy Brown's
got an awful nice mother that gives you tarts and
things."
Roger was not proof against this.
" Nowhere else then," he said.
And " Right O ! " was Lol's glad answer.
Then Roger with the scissors carefuUy cut the
frayed edges of his immaculately starched wrist-
" AS MANY YOUNG BARRISTERS ARE " 13
bands, and picked up the straw hat that Southern
legal etiquette winks at juniors wearing.
" If any letters come for me, just put them in my
room, and if a telegram should come and Clem's at
home for lunch "
" Send him down to your chambers with it," Loi
finished and nodded. " All right, you'll miss your
tram ; go on."
Roger went.
Half-way up the street he saw the postman's
cheerful coat and quickened his pace. For one
thing it showed him how late it was. For another
the brown, slung bag had contents. He stopped
and held out his hand with a light in his grey eyes.
Two wrinkles of annoyance that the house invariably
called into existence died out from his forehead
while the man sorted. A look of peace came round
his mouth.
" Nothing this morning, Mr. Carruthers," the
man said.
Roger went on to the tram with slower step, the
light gone out of his eyes for the day.
f
CHAPTER II
A SCALENE TRIANGLE
" Generally in harmony with occasional bickerings, as
it should be among near relations."
BALCOMBE and Canning Streets made two
sides of a scalene triangle of which Boyd's
Road was the base. The only connection between
the " road " and the streets lay in the fact that the
back yards adjoined, Boyd's Road was fashionable.
There were gardens and red smooth drives, tennis
courts and velvet lawns beyond the fences and
palisadings that edged it. WeU-appointed carriages
bowled along it, ladies with the indefinable last
touch that suggests society with a capital S, trod-
its footpaths. The httle girls there had black-
stockinged legs, high boots or elegant shoes, and
frocks of exceeding shortness and consequent style ;
the httle boys wore gloves with stitched backs on
frequent occasions, leamt dancing, and took ofí their
hats to each other's sisters and mothers as a matter
of course.
In Balcombe Street there were terraces, semi¬
detached viUas with pocket lawns, and bow-win¬
dowed cottages invariably advertized " bijou."
General servants or lady-helps did all the work
of it ; the tenants, with only a few exceptions, were
clerks in Government or merchants' ofi&ces and
14
A SCALENE TRIANGLE 15
banks. Gloves were never seen on the small boy
inhabitant, but the girls wore them on Sundays and
in isolated instances to school. The mothers mostly
looked tired, wore their bonnets three seasons with a
change of flowers, and did their own sewing. Per¬
ambulators with four wheels abounded.
In Canning Street rival landlords had vied in
crowding the greatest possible number of dweUings
on the least possible space of ground. Two was
the average number of rooms to each house, though
in one enyied case there were four and a bathroom.
In the gutters ran malodorous water and small boys.
On the footpaths there were dust-boxes twice a
week—little girls and babies always. The adult
woman was down at heel and aged at thirty, the
adult man drank or belonged to the Salvation Army
—there might possibly have been two exceptions.
Canning Street was the Utopia, the very Paradise
of Lol's httle larrikin soul.
The Carruthers lived in Balcombe Street, in a
house that looked as if the terraces on either side
had given it an unfriendly push off and then shrunk
back to avoid further contact. It stood alone, fairly
large, and bearing traces of past good looks ; but
like a beUe in early morning privacy with time-
touched cheeks that cry out for the all-merciful
paint-brush, and eyes that stare blankly without
the soft shade on the lashes. The surrounding
ground on three sides was a battlefleld for the
opposing forces of rank grass; rose-bushes where
never bloomed a rose, and a valiant little contingent
of violets. On the fourth side there were water¬
works, embankments, railroads, cubby houses and
empty kennels. Loi was the lord of this domain—
except one day a week when Eliza took possession
and ran up her ensigns of sheets and shirts and
i6 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
socks. Inside, the house cried aloud, from the front
door to the back, for a woman, a woman, a woman.
Not Eliza, who at seven or eight shillings a week
came In from a greengrocer's shop in Canning
Street for two or three hours in the morning and
the same in the afternoon, and muddled through
the washing-up, made a pretence of sweeping the
hall, tossed the beds together, gave Loi his limch,
and cooked the late dinner.
But a woman with a great tender heart, strong,
capable hands and tireless feet, a woman who could
gather up the reins of it all and drive it steadily,
cheerily, and with the infinite wisdom of love
through the by-ways and crooked paths and over
all the hard, rough places.
But she was dead, dead, two years ago, dead in
heart for three. Roger had buried her, Roger and
Martin and Clem, PhU and little Loi—the father
had gone a year before. There was her work-
basket in the front room now ; not of dainty wicker-
work and sUk, but a great, gaping brown one that
had always been full and running over with socks,
taider hopes and a woman's sorrow. It still had
a packet of darning-needles in it, a discoloured
thimble, a butcher's bill with anxiously large figures
and many creases, a little old worn Browning that
had supplied Pandora's remaining gift many a time.
It stood on a comer table now ; no one ever touched
its sacredness, not even Loi, but Roger and Clem
looked at it oftenest.
The one weakness of her life had been spoiling
Loi. He had been a delicate baby, in her arms
and care far longer than the other sturdy little in¬
dependents. Always she had wanted a girl, the
great boys would have none of the petting she ached
to give. Roger had fought a battle with a six-year-
A SCALENE TRIANGLE 17
old boy at three and been a man ever since the
victory. Martin had travelled to Melboiune and
back at seven, quite alone. Clem, in a sudden
financial crisis at ten, on his own responsibüity,
appUed for and accepted a position as office-boy,—
more than that, had kept it for a week.
The mother clung to Lol's baby-curls and little
soft hands,—she could not bring herself to refuse
him anything if only he cried pitifully enough.
Roger said it was weaJc of her, that the child would
be ruined.
And she could not defend herself to this son who
had stepped so instantly and quietly into his father's
place ; she knew it to be true.
But she was growing weak altogether, it was not
the wül only.
Ties that are human and close, and of twenty-five
years' tightening round the heart, leave a bleeding
woimd when sharply torn away.
It was her life-blood that fell away in those slow,
scalding drops, day by day on the work in the
stocking-basket. Roger understood it slightly, but
looked aside and never spoke of it. His grief was
an ache, dull, deep enough but not ever present,
hers an open wound, raw and quivering. He felt
the difference and the sacredness.
It hurt him most when she smiled for them. She
did it often, laughed even, made jokes with Martin,
saw humour in Clem's schoolday sins and PhU's
early and amazing Latin verses. He could not bear
it at last ; he put his arms roimd her in a fit of
heart-brokenness and begged her to give up, to
be ill and let him nurse her, to cry out lustily
against fate, to do anything in the world but
struggle on just as before and smile as she was
doing.
B
18 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
She obeyed him and was dead in a month.
Clem offered to leave school and try to take her
place.
He made excellent puddings, and had always
taken command of the kitchen when she had been
U1 or out ; servants had been unknown since the
prosperous days of fifteen years ago. He was a
great ungainly lad of sixteen, with harsh features,
a shock of fair hair, and the softest eyes in the
world.
" I could easily make the beds and do things,
Roger," he said ; " of course we can't afford a
servant. I'll never be anything at school but an
expense."
Roger agreed silently with the last sentence. He
had a contempt for Clem's head but a great respect
for his heart. Still the lad must be educated.
Martin was three years older, with a brain as
good as Roger's, which is saying much, and a heart
as light as Lol's, which is saying more. His hair,
a little darker in colour than the larrikin's, had
the same irrepressible curl in it, the look that was
oftenest in his eyes would have challenged a smile
even at a fimeral. His popularity was a thing
to wonder at—^within a radius of three miles no
house he had ever visited would have dreamed
afterwards of entertaining and not asked him to
help to make things ** go." When he flimg back
his head and laughed, even the most phl^matic
joined in too, thankful to feel so easily happy. î His
very smile was communicative, golden, irresistible.
He had a way of falling into a lecture-room in
the midst of a dull discourse that was a perpetual
joy and dehght to his feUow-students, and a way
of sorrowfully walking out again, when requested
so to do, that even the most irate professor had
A SCALENE TRIANGLE
occasionally found humorous. When amateur
theatricals were the order of the day, the most bored
audience brightened up and smiled with pleased
expectancy the moment he came on from the wings ;
while the smoke-concert at which he—and his
far-famed banjo—^were not present might just as
well not have been. He was in his "fourth year
medicine," and had three more to go through before
he might cure or kill any one and send in a " mem.
of fees." When the mother died he proposed to
give it up and enter a bank or office, burying his
ambition as he made the proposal. But Roger
broke up the grave and gave the ambition life
again. For himself he had a profession in his own
hands and the world before hun. He had had the
best, education Sydney yields—school, followed by
University life, and the power then to make a
choice of paths.
Martin should have the same advantages, he told
himself ; it would be cruelty to cripple him at the
outset. In his own nature there was a strength
and quiet determination that gave him a vast con¬
tempt for obstacles in the Ufa-path. When the
crisis of their evil times had come he had been only
at the beginning of his own law course. But he
asked nobody's lielp, only squared his shoulders
a little more and made a way to the end.
Now he was doing well, extraordinarily well for
a jimior only a year or two at the Bar. He was
making an income of about two htmdred a year.
His mother's annuity died with her : there was
about thirty pounds a year from life insurance, that
was all.
So the two hundred had to do many things.
Fifty of it paid the rent of his chambers and his
own personal expenses ; an equal sum kept Martin,
20 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
with the help of a bursary at the University, Clem
and Phil at school ; the rent of the houee, food,
clothing, and wages for Eliza to do the washing,
skirmish with the dirt, and look after Loi, took
the rest.
More than took it. At the 'end of every quarter
there was a balance on the wrong side of the account-
book that made Roger knit his brows and break
out into Gilbertian verse, leaderettes and smart
paragraphs for the Bulletin and the one or two
papers that appreciated and paid for such things.
It was a bitterly hard struggle, and one that not
two men in fifty woxild have undertaken.
But it had not occurred to Roger that he could
do otherwise. They were his mother's sons, these
lads, he must give them a chance ; he told himself
the strain would only be for two or three years,
then Martin and Clem could help.
Phü blacked Roger's boots for him : it was one
of the few ways the boy could repay him, and he
put his very soul into the shine of them. No one
in Balcombe Street boasted such brilliantly pohshed
uppers, even if underneath they left much to be
desired.
When his father had paid his school hüls Phil
had been one of the greatest loafers in his class.
Now he slaved at his books so hard that Roger had
to take them away sometimes by main force. He
was a very thin boy, tall for his age, which was
fourteen, his eyes were of a warm brown colour, and
his hair a reddish brown. It worried him to death
that Roger should have the burden of them all ; his
happiest dreams were of the days when he could
take his share.
There were times when he did not eat as much
as he wanted.
A SCALENE TRIANGLE 2i
Martin too was in a fair way to blind himself
with his hard reading. He got a little coaching to
do now and then, but it only paid his fares and
shoe-leather.
His latest vagary was vegetarianism.
He was always propoimding his theories about it
and lauding its advantages ; he talked all the stock
talk about the wrongfulness of taking hie, and even
made the momentarily suspicious Roger convinced
that he was on the high road to being a pure Buddhist.
But on the occasions he was asked out to dinner
he seceded.
He wore Roger's coats when they had grown
altogether too shiny for a barrister spoken of as
" rising." As soon as the University began to look
askance at them, Clem took them for school, being
much the same build. Phü was too thin and
narrow-shouldered for them to devolve on him in
their last stage, and as there was no longer any one
to take them in and tum them, after that their only
use was for camping and at home.
Up to the present time the only one who had
not felt the often-quoted shoe that pinches was Loi.
His always fitted comfortably to his little, quick-
growing feet.
CHAPTER III
LOL & CO.
Except at bedtime, or when a childish ailment
made his httle head hot and heavy, or Phil
bullied him imnecessarily. Loi reveUed in being
motherless. No other boy in Balcombe Street had
such hberty as he ; no other the capacity for filling
every moment with such keen bhss. He was six.
Roger had considered five, or even four, old enough
for early school, and had struck cold terror into his
young soul by saying so. But Meirtin and the family
doctor did not think as ill of the streets as he.
There was great constitutional delicacy, they said ;
to lose freedom now, and be forced to apply himself,
would give one more strengthless man to a world
overburdened with them. The bush and the green
hillside, air, gum-tree filtered and without smoke,
would have been best of all ; but failing that, they
said, long, free play-days in the back yard and
wild runnings in the street would work the cme
desired. Speech and manners would sufíer, perhaps,
but that was of easy remedy, and might be attempted
at seven. So far he had been a little larrikin for
two years.
He was very little, and had sweet eyes, darkly
blue, and strangely gentle and winning ; his hair
curled in fair, httle soft rings ; his mouth was red
and babjdsh.
22
LOL & CO
23
He was head of a small-boy " push " he had
organized and recruited lately with several lads of
nine and ten. They were the frequent terror and
permanent mortificationjof the whole neighbourhood,
and followed as closely and carefuUy as such small
feet could in all the wa}^ of the adult larrikin of
recognized type, who so largely helped to make
up the popidation of Caiming Street. The head¬
quarters of the band was the Camithers's back yard.
Loi had to mount on an old kerosene tin to be
heard. But he was always obeyed.
The'other boys were duller, wickeder, utterly
imoriginal : in moments of heat and anxiety over
issues Loll called them " fat-headed," and they
never dreaimed of resenting it. They fought him
sometimes. Saimders had blackened his eyes on
two occasions for refusing to see that the age of
a leader should exceed six. Jimmie Smith had
made his nose bleed because he would brook no
advice in a matter involving a cockatoo, chained
in a Boyd's Road back yard, and several catapults.
But mutiny was infrequent. He had *' a way "
with him, a strange, little passionate rush of words
that spurred the " push " in times of doubt or fear ;
little odd, expressive movements of hands and head
that carried conviction even when words failed.
No one in the house knew what an utter little
larrikin he was ; the boys were away all the
morning, Clem and Phil rushed home mid-day for
a mouthful of lunch, and went off again for the
afternoon.
For dinner, at which they all were present, he
was always beautifully clean after Eliza's scrubbing,
surprisingly pretty, and " good " looking. How
were they to know what he did with his time ?
Roger supposed him in Eliza's care. She wore
24 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
petticoats, and he thought that was sufficient
guarantee for a child's welfare. But Eliza was
herself a larrikiness, pure and simple.
Roger had chosen her among three or four
apphcants on account of her amazing ugliness. He
thought there could not help being faithfulness or
good temper to balance.
She was willing to wash and iron, cook, clean
up occasionally, and be " kind to children " for
eight shillings a week. Later she undertook the
darning and buttons for an extra eighteenpence.
It was low wages, of course, but she had, for ample
compensation, long evenings with the boys and
girls in Canning Street, late mornings in bed and
no mistress.
She was about eighteen, clumsily and largely
buUt : her face was heavy, her mouth wide and
curiously out of drawing, her eyes of no particular
colour. She wore her hair short-long—that is,
she had had it cropped a year ago and it was now
begiiming to straggle down her neck and over her
ears and eyebrows. Her speech was peculiar, owing
to a growth of some kind in her throat. Occasionally
she had the impediment removed, and then she was
more intelligible, but when it increased again her
words bristled with strange, misplaced or struggling
d's and t's and r's.
'* Oh, I'll do it fodgers, Mider Roger," she would
say, heartily and kindly, when Roger, out of patience,
would ask her when she intended to wash the hall
I again or give them a clean tablecloth,—" TU do it
fodgers, and will I pud the keddle on and mate you
some tea now ? you look tiret."
She told Loi half a himdred times a day she
would box his " eard " or " slap his fadt " or " knock
'is nasty 'ed off,"—aU with a laugh that was a httle
LOL & CO
25
less than a roar, a little more than a cackle. She
had an exceeding love for the child, and would not
have laid a finger on him even if he had been of the
kind to permit it
" Gid out wit gers ; how tan I wadge up te
ditches wit shu in te titchen ? "
As Martin complained, there was absolutely no
method or attempt at consistency in the letters she
could not say ; in one sentence she would enunciate
< or A or sA in the ordinary way of English speakers,
and in the next would use any letter in the alphabet
rather than attempt them.
She and Loi were great friends ; he had a respect
almost amounting to veneration for her. Her
" boy " was one of the ring-leaders of the great
" push " he admired so ardently ; he drank in all
the detailed account of his doings with thirsty ears,
then he mounted his kerosene tin, waved his thin
little arms, wriggled his body and shouted at his
followers as incitement to come on and do hke-
wise.
The occupations of Loi and his band had at least
the charm of variety. They very seldom did the
same thing twice.
When the heavy rains came they dragged a great
stone over-night and put it in over the hidden
gutter-drain. Such a grand stream the next morning
showed, wide, leaping and deep ; it washed over the
footpaths and into the gardens of many a house,
it flowed in sharp little waves out upon the road.
Such excitement and happiness it was to watch
an important road inspector come down and look
at it through his glasses, hurry away and send
down a couple of men and many tools. The band
went to school—it was the safest place ; only Loi
stood by with his hands in his pockets, his eyes full
26 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
of thoughtfial sweetness, and his head a little on one
side.
The men would as readily have suspected one
of the perambulator babies of being mixed up in
the mischief as this little deUcate-looking boy. The
constable of the park kept a watchful eye on the
drain for long afterwards, but there would not have
been suflBcient excitement in a repetition to tempt
Loi.
He ran ofí with a hawker's cart one day. The
man was selling pineapples at a penny each, and
Loi and two other boys had followed him up and
down through half his round begging for " just
two." Refusals were shouted at them in rapidly
increasing tones of wrath, but the spirit of mischief
was in their breasts. Every time the man whipped
up his horse and started ofí, they hung on to the
cart behind and jeered at him. He could only
chase them on foot a short distance because of the
horse.
But the last time his whip had caught Loi on the
leg and instantly fired a whole mine of recklessness
seldom found in six-year-olds.
The three " lay low " for a time, hidden in a
narrow lane. Then came a smmd of " Fine pine¬
apples—fine pineapples, a penny each—pineapples,
O I " and the cart came along, the hawker congratu¬
lating himself he had got rid of his tormentors by
that l^-St slash. He looked round, and seeing a
clear road, took a basket of sample fruit up through
a long narrow garden to a house door.
With lightning quickness Loi came out of hiding
and scrambled into the cart ; the other boys made
a half-frightened attempt to follow but were too
late. He shouted at the horse to " gee up," stand¬
ing in the cart and shaking the reins wildly. Now,
LOL & CO
27
the animal by birth and breeding belonged to a
cab, this slow peddling had been loathsome to it.
It Ufted its languid ears and put its head forward
as if it scented a train it had to catch for double fare.
Up streets and down streets they went at a mad
pelter ; there was a look of absolutely mad j oy on
Lol's face. It was the most glorious moment of his
whole life as he stood there shouting, whipping,
brandishing the reins.
The horse made its own glad way roimd comers
and up and down the little streets ; Loi of course
had as much knowledge of driving as of electricity.
It lasted nearly five long minutes, then they banged
into a lamp-post with a force that brought the horse
to a standstill, knocked Loi down in a little heap
on the cart-floor, unlatched the fastening at the
back, and gave a free exit to the road of all the
brown and yellow fruit.
The man came up breathless, purple-faced, a
crowd at his heels. He abandoned the fruit—there
was not much of it—^to the populace, foimd some one
to hold his horse, and marched Loi oS instantly to
the neighbouring police station.
It was a very slack time and the charge was
sheeted for the afternoon.
Loi stood up in the dock at four o'clock,—the
magistrate could only see some pale gold stuff that
meant short cmls.
A policeman put a book imder his feet and two
wide innocent eyes came into sight ; they added a
great foot-thick register of evU, and all the little
sweet child-face was seen. The lumbering, ill-
conditioned hawker made his charge.
** Pooh ! " said the magistrate—" go away, go
away. Next case."
The man became vehement—his lost time and
28 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
fruit, the attempt to make- off with his property !
But the magistrate merely glanced at the little
curls.
'* We can't waste the time of the court. Run
away home, little boy."
Loi ran away.
The only confidant he ever made of his adventure
and escape was Eliza.
" There's a game fiddle tove fodgers," she said to
her young man at night.
CHAPTER IV
AN INTERIOR IN BALCOMBE STREET
" She has taken the loneliness all away
And only the grace and the comfort stay."
Roger had an exceedingly bad fit of the blues
AH day he had tried to shake it off, had smoked
«rith hardly any interruption from the time he went
down to his chambers till now when he was coming
home, but it failed to cure him.
It had begun with the sight of the shining seam
of his coat, deepened with the thought of unmothered
Loi, broken up suddenly when the postman came
in view, fallen again heavily at his empty hands.
No solicitor, no clerk nor office-boy of a solicitor
knocked at his door and dispersed the gloom with
work, none of the men he knew came round to
smoke, play chess and rail at fate ; they had nearly
all been able to use, at any rate, a portion of the
vacation in its legitimate way. The aitemoon posts
came in ; still no letter. At four he told his yawning
boy he might go, tossed some papers into his bag,
locked his door and went home.
He saw the cold, comfortless room all the way,
Eliza's rough cooldng, the noisy boys, bed as a
last resource. Then another day of it, weeks of it—
it stretched a grey, monotonous wall right across
his hfe.
He pushed open the gate and went iii. then
the half-shut door.
29
30 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Firelight danced on the gloom of the front room.
He went in, a little surprised at the extravagance,
for overcoats were the usual thing these evenings.
A girl rose from the sofa in front of the fire, a
girl with soft brown hair, a little rough and curly,
brown eyes that held a laugh and yet were tender.
She went to him with a swift step. He touched
her before he spoke, dropped his bag and put out
his hand to feel she was no vision. A wonderful
look came into his face.
" Linley ! " he said. There were almost tears
in his eyes.
She rubbed her cheek against his coat-sleeve
and laughed.
" Are you glad ? " she said, then laughed again
happily.
He gave a long breath and caught her in his
arms in passionate, imspeakable thankfulness.
The colour came into her cheeks a little, she felt
she could never get used to that part of an engage¬
ment, she even thought she objected. But his arms
held her when she would have moved away.
" My sc-r-r-rimmy 1 "
Loi was standing in the doorway, his hands in
his pockets, a look of keen interest and surprise on
his small face. In the hall behind him was Jimmie
Smith.
" Clear out," Roger said, releasing her instantly
and making for the door ; " clear out of this, you
little beggar."
Loi smiled a little and '* cleared."
Linley Middleton went to the end oi the room,
a high colour in her cheeks. " How could you 1 "
she said vexedly.
'* He's only a very little chap," Roger answered
deprecatingly. He drew her to the sofa, sat down
AN INTERIOR IN BALCOMBE STREET 31
J and put his arm round her. It was a month since
he had touched her.
Neither spoke for a little time, thought was too
quick, content too slow, but finally it occurred to
him to ask how she had come there. When last
he had heard of her she had been snatching a breath
of mountain air for complexion roses that a gay
season was killing.
" They've had another quarrel," Linley said, a
sudden veil of sadness drooping over the soft happi¬
ness of ^er eyes.
Roger looked troubled, and kissed her.
" Majcia's fault ? " he said.
" Of course."
Marcia was her sister, and Linley sighed. " She
was to have stayed at Katoomba the rest of the
winter, you know—the doctor said so—and really
Robert was hardly to blame at aU. But she came
down by the next day's train, and though they've
made it up now she won't go back. Robert and I
have been house-hunting ; she is tired of the old
place. Robert formd a house and sent me out to
look. Have you ever heard of Lloyd's,—Royd's,—
Boyd's Road ? "
" Linley 1 "
" Roger ! "
" Don't worry me dear—dearest." A vein on his
forehead sprang out, his eyes urged her lips.
" Yes, truly, you dear old boy, we come in next
week. The empty house with two tennis courts."
The news held him still two minutes. When he
spoke it was to say, with the eyes of one thanking
the great sky for a dear, saved life, that he would be '
able to see her window,—at least some of the bricks
round her. It had been thought New Zealand,
possibly England, would be the next move.
32 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
'* But how did you find this ? " he said. ** I
thought you had never been in these parts before."
'' I met a little boy," Linley said. " Do you remem¬
ber my big picture I told you of, ' The Fight of
Little Souls,' that I couldn't finish for want of a
child's face ? When I had seen there were electric
bells, tiled hearths, fixed tubs and other life sup¬
porters, I came away through the side gate. And
just outside there was an angel in little blue knicker¬
bockers playing knifey on a heap of builders' sand."
" Loi," Roger said, and laughed.
■' Yes, Loi. If I had known what he was like
before, Roger, I could never have had the strength
of mind to say no as long as I did. He wiU be
invaluable to me. I stared at him with absolutely
hungry eyes till he asked me very sweetly and
pohtely if I would like a game too. And looked
quite hurt when I said no. I told him I wanted to
see his mother quickly : I felt sure he would melt
before I could get him reduced to pigment. ' Dead,'
he said. His father, then. ' Dead,' he said again.
It never occurred to me to connect him. * Any one
in your house,' I cried. ' Come and show me where
you five.' I followed him down the road ; he went
on ahead with his boy-friend, arguing with him
that you got more water-melon by buying six penny
shces separately than by indulging in sixpennyworth
straight away."
Roger laughed again. " Yes, that's Loi," he said.
Linley was enjo3dng the recital.
" He turned up this street. I never dreamed of
asking its name ; then he opened the gate and asked
me in, dismissing the boy by closing it pointedly in
his face. At the door he stopped and scanned me
carefuUy. ' Ehza's not in the least educated,' he
said, ' she'll s'rprise you when she speaks. I'll stay
AN INTERIOR IN BALCOMBE STREET 'à
and help you though ; you might think she was a
Chinaman or a Latin or something.' He was moving
to fetch her, but I told him I would rather speak to
one of the family than a servant. He brought me
into this room, pushed half a dozen books ofí a chair
and told me to sit down. * You'll have to wait an
awful time,* he said. ' Half an hour ? ' I asked. He
tried to recollect whether he had had lunch yet.
Oh, yes, of course, he'd had bread and treacle, he
remembered, because there was a fly on it and it had
only one wing.
" Well, then Phil and Clem would be here soon and
Martin after that, and Roger. I don't suppose it will
surprise you half as much as it did him that I picked
him up in a great hurry and kissed him a dozen
times."
Roger seemed to think the gift might have
made her bankrupt and took away the possi-
bihty.
" Clem made the fire," Linley said, ** then Martin
came in—what a dear feUow, Roger !—Phil made
me some tea, and Loi chattered to me. I've been
here for two hours. I told them I was a great
friend of yours. Do you remember the Virgil
lessons ? I told them you were coaching me."
'* So I am," Roger said. *' I'm teaching you how
to love, Linley."
" No," said Linley, " I know."
Roger was too happy to doubt as he often did
in graver mood. Especially as she disproved the
supposed bankruptcy very shyly.
It was winter time and the afternoons went to
sleep very early. When she saw the fire made
the only light in the room Linley stood up to go.
Her hat was on the great work-basket in the comer.
Roger brought it for her. It was the only thing
G
34 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
that had been thrown on the bro^\^l wicker since
it was out of use.
She stuck in the pins, using him for mirror.
" You are quite sure Marcia could not find my
hair untidy ? " she said.
He pushed a little brown run-a-way curl under
the brim.
"It's beautiful," he said.
She put on her fur. The rich brown and gold
■ lights of the sable, its smoothness and beauty
made his happiness a little shade less perfect.
But Linley was laughing.
" There was a scones-and-scandal aSair I should
have gone to," she said, " but Lol's eyes swept
it out of my mind. What would Marcia say to
think of me in a house peopled by boy-barbarians
and never a ghost of a chaperon ? "
" You wUl come again ? " he said anxiously.
Linley's headshake was at variance with her wiU.
She could not remember an afternoon that bad
held greater happiness. But she made the move¬
ment more decided and hoped Roger would be
able to persuade her otherwise.
" Why, the back gates adjoin ! " he said ; " you
wouldn't be so cruel."
" We can smile at each other out of our
windows," she said.
"You don't mean it, little girl ? "
" And send notes by Loi."
'* You will come again. Baby ? "
" Why isn't Clem a girl ? " she said, wrinkling
her brows. " I'll make Marcia ask you to the At
Homes, Roger ; won't that do ? "
" We could be so happy here," he said.
Her eyes went round the book-heaped room
with its dusty tables, tarnished, framed pictures and
AN INTERIOR IN BALCOMBE STREET 33
flowerless vases. The firelight was tender now
the dusk was come, the carpet that had offended
her, the litter of papers, the furniture that stood
not at artistic ease, all were softened into beauty.
There was the sofa, cushion-strewn, right in the
red,' leaping lights, no one talking society talk and
smiling society smiles to be entertained ; no one
there but Roger with his eyes made soft and wonder¬
ful with love for her.
At the minute it seemed a httle love shrine, the
one plage of utter peace and beauty in the world.
" Yes, I wül come," she said ; " of course I will
come, dearest. I can bring Freda with me."
Then he took her home.
CHAPTER V
IN BOYD'S road
WHEN they moved into Boyd's Road, Linley
took possession of a large, light, back room,
and made a wonderful studio of it.
Robert sent a man to shade the walls to terra¬
cotta the minute he heard her lament its pinkness ;
a cartload of warm-coloured rugs, quaint-shaped
pith-chairs and lounges, art vases and bits of brass
followed.
He said " Pooh " when she would have thanked
him. It was his way.
Marcia was one of those women who talk little
and yet hke companionship. She used to come and
lie on a low lounge in the window nearly every
morning, but she took not the slightest interest in
her sister's many canvases.
They were quite used to one another, these two.
Sometimes an hoxir would pass without the exchange
of a syllable, one woman staring idly at the Eastern
colours of a floor mat, or a back yard in Canning
Street, the other flghting away, brush and mahl
stick, with a canvas as long as herself.
Occasionally Linley's cheeks and eyes would take
a glow of indignation and she would harangue the
long, graceful, beautiful figure with surprising vigour
and frankness, wave her palette about in her energy
and make passes, with her stick, that meant vast
sisterly contempt.
36
IN BOYD'S ROAD
37
But Marcia generally closed her eyes at such
times, or half closed them to indicate boredom,
or read closely, or left the room with a gliding,
graceful step.
She was a woman of surpassing beauty ; her
height was noble, her bearing regal. Such wonder¬
ful eyes she had, dark, shadowy, mocking, insolent,
inscrutable; tenderness made them magic. But
they were never tender.
Her hair was dusky ; diamonds belonged to
it as stars to midnight. There was no trace
of colour in her cheeks, her hps had drained it
aU.
Linley was smaller, shghter, altogether less re¬
markable looking. Her hair was a brown cloud
about her forehead, her eyes clear brown, witching,
laughing, oddly sad at times. Brown and pink
mingled dehghtfuUy in her cheeks, excitement
deepened them to beauty. Both the sisters had
the temperament commonly termed artistic ; they
inherited it from their mother, who had been deh-
cate, beautiful and wonderfully useless, and in a
lesser degree from their father, who had left behind
him a name of repute as an artist in black and
white, and the sum of a hundred a year each to his
two daughters.
Marcia played dice with her life as soon as it
was left in her own hands. And lost irretriev¬
ably.
Linley only knew the outlines of the everyday
tragedy that had made such a strange, unexpected
woman of her bright girl-sister.
There was a yoimg man in it, exceptionally poor
and lovable. Marcia, ambitious and humble by
turns, first took his love then spumed it. He went
away, sufíered agonies for a year or so, then recovered
38 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
suddenly and married a little, sweet, grave-eyed
governess Marcia had despised.
He was one of the very happiest men in the
world to-day, and she had the always present know¬
ledge of it.
Also the knowledge that she had written to him
once, just before he was engaged again, inviting him
to return, and that with strange strength and wis¬
dom he had refused.
So she married too, instantly ; the very wealthiest
among aU her lovers, the very plainest eind most
insignificant, a widower, one Robert Barrett. It
was a httle hard on him.
Linley hved with them ; after six months of
domestic duet both Marda and Robert had en¬
treated her to do so. Freda, Robert's twelve-year-
old daughter, was recalled from boarding school and a
household of four was formed, each member living,
a hfe ^together to him or herself, and never dream¬
ing of banding together into a family. For a
few months the number was increased to five ;
if a fragment of hiunanity in torchon and muslin
may be termed a whole number, but croup reduced
it to four again and Marcia's eyes lost their moment¬
ary tenderness.
She constituted herself, or was constituted, a
leader of fashion. Robert supplied freely the
plumage, carriages and other necessaries for the post.
A certain kink in his nature that Marcia had not
suspected enabled him to prevent their relationship
from becoming " Mrs. Barrett and husband." He
was short in stature, readily eSaced in a crowd,
generous to a fault, and altogether what people
call " easy-going."
But when there was any necessity for authority,
any occasion to assert himself, he was able to
IN BOYD'S ROAD
39
exact obedience even from the imperial Marcia.
And a great point, no servant had ever found it
necessary to sneer at him for not being head of his
house.
Marcia despised him for several things,—for
being her husband when she had no love for him,
for not being able to add a cubit or two to his
stature, for being in a certain degree a Philistine
in matters she termed culture. But she also
respected him.
"They had been married five years when they
came to live in Boyd's Road, and Marcia still con¬
tinued to live her two characters daily—the listless,
selfish, spoiled beauty of the morning, the brilliant
society Woman of the evening. Linley had fallen
in love with Roger's love for her at a camp-picnic
that had lasted a fortnight. She had met him before
that at a few literary and musical At Homes, also
at several dances. The conquest of him had pleased
the artistic side of her nature, her incapability to
reward him grieved the awakening woman in her.
It was the long picnic by the blue waters and
green-blue hills of the Hawkesbury that had made
her think of love as anything but an abstract idea.
He was the only man there who had broad shoulders
and a patch on his boot ; the only one who laughed
at her little weaknesses yet treated her with tender
reverence ; the only one who by sheer insistence
carried her out of herself and bore her away to peep
at the white, strange, beautiful place of love that his
feet trod perpetually. Such sweetness of air, such
wondrous thnUing of song came from the place that
an eagerness sprang up in her to try her feet also
on the enchanted ground.
It was on a night of white moonlight and little
leaping river waves, of soft-singing gum-trees and
40 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
thin,, far-avay boat-songs, that she whispered to
him—asking her for the twentieth time with the
patient obstinacy that characterized him—he might
take her to the place.
Roger's happiness was almost complete. True,
he knew her feet were not yet strong enough for
that woaderful ground, but he could teach her to
wah: there He above every man in the world
could teach her, for surely, since in the beginning
of all things this place was made, no man had ever
loved with love hke this. He had been a year teach-
-nghcr when she came to hve in Boyd's Road. He
was very patient. Often when there was no moon¬
light and the music was asleep, or when a wind
swept away the fragrance of the air she would
stumbl 3 and grow vexed and impatient ; would even
pause to wonder was not the beauty of the place over¬
rated, and were not the hills of ambition, the straight,
pleasant ways of friendship and fellowship, and the
little valleys of independence more to be desired.
And then one note of the song, one breath of
the air, one moonlight touch on her heart, and she
would thank God in a passion of gladness that she
was among the walkers in the place.
Marcia told her she was a httle fool.
Havinf spoiled her own hfe she seemed to have
a desire to do the same for Linley's. Only she
called» it prevention of ruin.
As much as possible she ignored the subject and
Roger's existence. She refused to lend any coun¬
tenance to an engagement, and denied any rumour
persistently.
But this did not grieve Linley at all. She dis¬
liked the idea of a pubhc engagement excessively.
" Let us have our happiness quite apart from the
world's approval or disapproval," she said to Roger,
IN BOYD'S ROAD
41
" I should hate to be publicly branded hke a reserved
railway-carriage. If ever—I mean, whenever we
think of—being married, we will give people just a
month to congratulate or laugh at us. Tül then it
is our business, not theirs."
It occasioned Roger great soreness of spirit, but
he did not allow her to see it. He wanted to claim
her, mark her his before all that world she talked
of so contemptuously. But he felt he could not
urge with empty pockets. Once or twice he was
base enough to think it was because he was so poor
and struggling that she did not care to have the
engagement discussed among her friends. But it
was only once or twice.
" You wül never be able to be married, Linley,"
Marcia said, breaking through her reserve one
morning when the post had brought a letter that
sent a warm, exquisite flush all over her sister's
face. " Yoimg barristers are the most hopeless
products of the present age. And he has a whole
family of httle sisters and brothers depending on him,
I hear. You wül be poor always—miserably poor."
" And you wül be miserably rich," Linley said.
She flicked up a brushful of warm-coloured paint,
and loaded it on a girl's pale face in her picture.
Her eyes were joyous.
" You are a little fool, an utter httle fool, Linley.
Don't flatter yourself you are one of those heroic
women who can keep love ahve in a cottage. You
would be miserable without luxuries—we both
woifld ; it's in our blood. You fancy you could hve
with a stufíy httle front-room and dming-room after
having the run of half a dozen hke those downstairs,
and this to yourself." Marcia looked roimd the room
that Robert's money had made beautiful. " It's the
biggest mistake in life. Women hke you and me
42 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
are not born to be poor, we are not noble or self-
sacrificing enough. I recognized it long ago, and
look at me now." She hfted a silk fold of her
sweeping, primrose moming-gown, hfted it with a
hand white and unmarked as a snowdrift and
guttering with the jewels in two wonderful rings.
It was the way she took to illustrate her words.
But Linley only looked at the weariness of her
eyeUds and the curve of her hps.
" Yes, look at you now," she said, very gravely
and gently.
CHAPTER VI
CONCERNING THE JENKINSES' DOG
HE one luxury Clem and Phil ever allowed
themselves was an occasional day's boating
on the harbour. There was a man at Wooloomooloo
who used to let them have a battered old dinghy for
three shillings a day in consideration of the fact
that Qem had once saved a valuable httle boat for
him that was drifting away.
It generally took the boys two or three months to
save up enough to experience the wild pleasure of
being tossed about between the Heads in this boat,
or running into Manly or down to Middle Harbour
with a crazy sail that no one but they could have
worked.
As a means to the end they kept seven fowls in
the back yard and sold to the comer grocery shop
the few eggs that were laid.
One of the hens, a thin, shabby-looking bird so
much like a hve mop that they called it " the
Borogove," had a brood of seven downy Leghoms
that made Clem work wonderful sums in his
head.
For instance, if one Leghorn, being of special
breed, fetched the sum of fifteen shillings at the
poultry fancier's, would not seven hire a boat,
and take them and Loi and Martin, if he cared
to come, on a fortnight's camp up the Hawkes-
bury ?
43
44 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Being mindful of the good old proverb, they did
not count the little soft brown balls before the same
were hatched. But when three weeks saw them
still gaüy chirping, weU-feathered and confident on
their legs, then the sums were worked. There was
even a margin left to furnish secretly Roger's shabby
wardrobe with six new collars at ninepence each.
And then just as the precious things were enter¬
ing on the fourth week of their existence, the dog
from the Jenkinses, next door, came in at dead of
night and seven little lifeless bodies in the mud met
Clem's stricken gaze in the morning. The Borogove
was tmconcemedly digging holes with her feet and
seeking for early worms.
Half an hour had to contain their deepest venge¬
ance, threats and lamentations, then the house was
cleared and Loi left with strict injunctions to do
his best to get hold of the dog and keep it till they
came home at night.
He went out into the yard after the scantiest of
breakfasts, his hands were clenched, his lips closed,
his eyes full of wrath.
From the studio window-seat Marcia watched
him with idle interest as she had watched him most
mornings for a fortnight.
The movements of the little, light, bare head
down in that near back yard often made the time
surprisingly short for her.
One morning she laughed out, and Linley ran to
the window just in time to see her fourth angel
hanging a pair of ducks he had just washed in the
bath out on the line to dry. He had fixed them
by means of their wings, and stood regarding the
struggles of the fat, helpless bodies with a wet and
beaming face, until Eliza came out from the wash-
house her hands fuU of wrung shirts.
CONCERNING THE JENKINSES' DOG 45
" You witked boy, Loi, I'U tell Mider Clem on
yous," she said, releasing the squeaking victims.
" What a fat-head you are, Eliza 1 " he said, fly¬
ing after them ; " they'll get awfully muddy running
round to dry."
But EHza hung her shirts on the same line and
reiterated that he was a " wicked " boy, and she
had " a grade mindt to knorck 'is 'ed orf."
Before Linley had fairly got back to her easel
Marcia laughed again and she had to return. To
find Loi impegging the last shirt and smiling at
three others that lay in the mud. Then EHza
emerged from the wash-house with the sheets, and
seeing the mischief, hit out at the boy. But he
dodged, and squared up to her, and the watchers
were edified with the sight of a stand-up fight
between the two.
The morning of the chicken mortahty Marcia was
watching alone.
Loi stood in deep thought in the middle of the
coal heap, which, for some occult reason, was in the
middle of the yard.
After some little time he nodded his head to
himself in a grave way, descended slowly and went
into the kitchen, returning presently with a carv¬
ing-knife, a tin-opener and a chisel. He crossed
over to the fence, and sitting down on the grotmd
began to chop away a hole at the bottom of the
palings.
The wood was old and hard ; it took him until
after eleven to do, and by that time the butcher
came. Loi rose from his knees and went with him
to his cart ; though Marcia could not hear what he
Weis sa3ñng she could see by the persuasive expres¬
sion of his Httle face that he was wheedling some¬
thing out of the man of slaughter. It tinned out
46 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
to be a great piece of steak, and the little lad
smiled and nodded his thanks and retvrmed with
it in his hands to the fence.
" What can he be going to do now ? " Marcia
said in mystification.
He made a journey to the wash-house, returning
with a smcdl kerosene tin, at the lid of which he
sawed away for several minutes ; then he cut the
meat into two pieces, put one temptingly in the
hole in the palings, the other just this side of it.
And then he sat down by the fence and waited.
Marcia wearied and went to wander about the
house, and strike half a dozen chords on one piano
and make a succession of brilliant runs on the
other.
linley roughed in the whole of a background for
St. Simeon Styhtes, for whom she had just had an
" inspiration."
Ehza washed up, put the corned beef on to boil
to leather, turned the top clothes down over the
beds again, cobbled up the socks of Roger and
Clem and Phil, and darned Martin's with surprising
neatness and care ; the golden smile and laughing
eyes had lighted a hopeless flame of love within her
breast.
Roger went to court and got through with rather
a long brief.
Martin sat under his classical lecturer' and re¬
strained his incUnation to sleep for an hour by com¬
posing a banjo-song with a refrain about a whisky
neat and a whisky sweet and a whisky that is long.
Qem knocked a boy down in one of the school
passages for asking who was his tailor, and got
forty-five minutes for making a disturbance.
Phil worked eight quadratic equations, and calcu¬
lated in the intervals the cost of eatables required
CONCERNING THE JENKINSES' DOG 47
for a tramp along the coast to Port Hacking.
.\nd all the time Loi sat motionless by the fence,
his back against it, his small legs stretched out
before him, his eyes bent down and looking side¬
ways.
And all the time the next door dog slept in the
sunshine by the dust-bucket, or snapped at flies, or
barked at the tradespeople, or worried an old shoe
that he was pretending was a mutton-bone.
It began to rain, not heavily, but a light, steady
drizzle that made Marcia relinquish her proposed
visits, ahd sent her back to the window-seat with
re-awakened curiosity for the issue in the back yard
below.
Eliza called from an upstairs window,—
" Tum in. Loi, you witked boy, or I'll smack your
fache fodgers," she said.
Loi beckoned insistently, and she came down to
a conference in which *' dog " was whispered each
time out of consideration for the adj acent canine ears.
The result was she brought him out a sack with
which to keep dry, a cup of tea, a half-empty tin of
salmon and a great piece of bread, butter, and jam.
He made his lunch without stirring his eyes from
the hole.
Eliza had gone home and two o'clock came
before the dog's nose led him to the place.
Then he made a mad snap of delight at the first
piece of steak and ate it in a violent hurry on his
own side of the fence ; he could hardly credit his
good fortune nor his stupidity in not discovering it
earlier. •
Then he saw the second piece and almost closed
his eyes with excess of pleasure. Not only was it
larger than the first, redder, more jmcy, but the
fence that had often shown him tit-bits through
48 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
tantalizing cracks had a new, sweet little hole in
it, just big enough for the body of a thin fox-
terrier.
He walked through, an air of conscious dignity
in his abbreviated tail, walked through with his
eyes bent on the dehcious redness, walked through,
and found his head where there was neither beef¬
steak, nor chance of movement, nor Ught of day.
How Marcia laughed 1 There was really exceed¬
ing funniness in the way the dog banged round
the yard, spim helplessly round and barked muffledly.
The tin fitted roimd his head and stuck into lüs
neck as if his measurements had been previously
taken with the precision of a tailor. Linley ran
to the window to see and laugh ; the look of intense
satisfaction on the small boy's face, the blindly
rushing dog's body and tail, and the often-banged
tin gave food enough.
Then a round brown head bobbed up the other
side of the fence.
"(You lem my dorg go or I'll come and stiffen
you," shouted the boy's voice attached.
" Yah 1 " said Loi.
" I'll come and smash yer 'ed in," said the voice.
" Ugh 1 " said Loi.
A leg in ragged knickerbockers tossed itself over
the fence, the round head went higher up, a second
leg appeared.
Loi feU upon the dog. He seized it by its tail
and hind legs, gathered it, struggling madly, close
up to him and staggered across the yard with it.
Up in the studio they heard the banging and locking
of the kitchen door.
The legs, head and voice belonged to a thick-set
boy of twelve who cleaned knives in Balcombe
Street, dog at heel, but lived in Canning Street!
CONCERNING THE JENKINSES' DOG 49
he stood in the middle of the deserted yard and
shook his fist at the upstairs window where Lol's
smile was.
" Urh, y er cowid, come out and fight—lockin'
yerself in üke a girl—urh, yer miserruble little
wretch, I'll break yer 'ed for you—urh, yer cowid—
urh, yer baby ! "
Then up in the studio they saw a sight that
alarmed them. Loi was getting out of the window,
all his smile gone, his blue eyes dark with wrath.
He had locked downstairs against the enemy and
for the* safe protection of his prisoner, so there
was no question of going through a door ; but such
speech was not to be borne.
He slipped down an abutting pipe, his sand-shoes
touched the iron projecting bands once or twice,
his hands caught at a wild wistaria creeper, then
he was down.
Any other six-year-old would have been killed
on the spot.
He breathed on his hands for an instant, then
rushed wildly across the yard and closed with the
enemy.
He fought hke a little tiger.
When two or three minutes had gone and he
was still unconquered, the thick-set boy experienced
a feeling of astonishment and rained his blows harder.
But he had not the scientific knowledge Loi had
gleaned from Phil and Clem, and even his im¬
measurably superior strength could not worst the
little lad for several minutes.
But Linley was flying madly downstairs, and hat-
less over the tennis-court, through the vegetable
garden, and into the back lane. She burst open
Roger's back gate and fell upon the great stout lad,
dragging him away by the collar.
D
50 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Loi was almost vanquished. His face was scarlet,
his eyes blazing ; in his breast were aU the demons
of fight which close quarters rouse in the bom soldier.
But his strength was ebbing, his small fists losing
their steadiness, and the blood from his poor little
nose made a ghastly spectacle of him.
" Oh, you great coward, you horrible, disgusting
coward ! " cried Linley, shaking the twelve-year-old
boy till his teeth bit his hps and his tongue and the
sides of his mouth. He hung his big head and
shufiBed and looked sheepish. This was the lady
at the great house for whom his mother washed and
ironed. Did he not carry home blouses and crisp
muslins and cambrics every week to her ? And
did she not cmsh up the blouses and toss them
back in his basket if the stiñ collars and cuffs were
not faultlessly got up ? And did she not also give
him sixpences and shillings and all her old dresses
for his mother and sisters ? He wished he had let
yoimg Carruthers alone.
" Go home,—go away this instant," she said,
loosing him and stamping her bronze shppers ;
*' and if ever you lay a finger on this little boy again
I'll have you put straight in gaol."
He went away, crossed the yard hmriedly and
clambered up the fence.
Loi flew after him and puUed at his leg. " Gjme
on down," he gasped ; " I'm going to fight you."
But the boy freed his leg and disappeared over
the other side.
" Whatever did you go stopping us for ? " the
pale hps said to Linley.
But they were so very pale and the scarlet was
fading so rapidly from cheeks as well, that Linley
quietly picked him up in her arms and carried him
back with her to the house in Boyd's Road.
CHAPTER VII
LOL MAKES HIS ENTRANCE INTO POLITE SOCIETY
SUCH a time of it the little scamp had between
those two women !
Linley bore him off to her bedroom first. He was
such a dear httle boy and so really pretty and
presentable she wanted him to make a good appear¬
ance in her scornful sister's eyes.
For she told herself, though Marcia did not yet
know whose brother he had the honour of being,
it was pretty certain to come out sooner or later.
She washed his face, and bathed his nose in ice-
cold water till it ceased bleeding, brushed his short
curls, and even ran up a great rent in his sailor
jacket. The holes in his stockings and the dilapi¬
dated condition of his small sand-shoes she could
not alter.
Then she took him downstairs into the cool
Japanese sitting-room where afternoon tea was
waiting.
Marcia and Freda were here. Freda was a long,
lank, little girl with limp fair hair, blue eyes with
a sad, somewhat dull expression in them, and an
obstinate mouth. She disliked Marcia, but the
worship of Linley filled all her days.
Marcia was delighted with Loi. He had made a
duU day quite enjoyable for her. She kept him
close beside her, quite heedless of the proximity of
the muddy old sand-shoes to her pale-rose coloured
51
52 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
tea-gown. Linley thought she had not seen them,
but there were many things Marcia failed to see
when the seeing did not suit her. She pressed on
him the contents of the biscuit-barrel—vanüla
wafers they were, favourites of her own. Loi said
they tasted hke dust—mixed with sugar, of course,
—and could he have a chocolate cake like the little
girl had ? Freda hastened over with the cake-
basket from the bamboo-table, and he ate four, and
only refused the fifth because he had too much
pohteness to leave an empty basket.
He was rather quieter than usual, but was en¬
joying himself immensely. He thought it was the
best joke in the world that these very fine ladies
should have been so upset and distressed over a
little fight hke that.
But he was having such a splendid time of it he
did not tell them the experience was almost a weekly
one. Instead, he allowed them to make a little hero
of him, and put his most wistful expression into
his eyes, and his softest tones into his voice. He
was sitting on a great, quaint settee that had a
dragon's tail for a back, and cushions depicting
Japanese figures gone mad. His small legs stuck
stiffly out. He told them it was the funniest
chair he had ever seen.
*' Why, I could pa?Jit things as well as that ! "
he said, examining a lady rushing after a butterfly
bigger than herself.
He had his cake on a little hem-stitched d'oyley
on the cushion beside him, and thought privately
that in a big house like this they nepd not have
been so mean about plates.
He poured his tea in his saucer and blew upon
it to cool it, somewhat to Linley's vexation. Then
he drank it up with a funny little noise Eliza had
LOL'S ENTRANCE INTO SOCIETY 53
never checked. The second lot he poured into the
saucer he spilt on the cushion.
Real distress was on his face. He looked at
Marcia, whose gown and stateliness showed him she
was the head of the house.
" Are you in a scott ? " he said anxiously.
But Marcia laughed, to Llnley's relief as well as
his. The cushion was an exquisite one.
*' No," she said, " I'm not in a scott at all—at
least, I shall not be if you come here and apologize
nicely to me."
He looked relieved.
" But wait till I've cleaned it up a bit," he said.
" I shouldn't think it would wash. Ehza's hat that
got the treacle on wouldn't."
He felt for his handkerchief, but there being only
a pocket with a hole in it, began to mop it up with
his sleeve till Linley and Freda came to the rescue.
The sight of a mammoth spider clinging to the
piano-draperies put the apology out of his head.
He rushed across to it.
" Don't be frightened," he called excitedly. " I'll
settle him—keep stiU, all of you. Now, wait a bit,
wait a bit. I often kiU them for Eliza, she's
frightened of them. Once I kiUed a t'ranshla for
her. Just hold hard a second."
He was gently shaking the crêpe scarf all the
time he spoke, but the thing had wire in its toes
and clung.
At last, however, it fell, and he jumped on it
wildly with both feet, crunching his sand-shoe
heels into the matting.
" I never saw such a whopper 1 " he said.
He looked disgusted when he found cotton-wool
breaking through the crushed animal from which he
raised his foot.
54 THE LITTLE larrikin
" What an awfully silly thing ! " he said, and
went to look at a group of httle squat idols in
bronze and yellow stone.
But Marcia called him back to the settee.
" I want you to come here and talk to me," she
said.
He sat down instantly, his short legs sticking
straight out again. The extreme wreck of his sand¬
shoes struck him.
" If I had known I was coming I would have
put on Phil's shoes," he said. ' *' Eliza burnt my
boots when they were wet."
*' Who is Phü ? " asked Marcia.
" Oh, Philip, of course," he said. ** He keeps
silkworms. How many do you think he's got ?
Can't you guess ? Nearly four thousand ! You
can get a guinea an ounce for silk. I keep him in
leaves."
Freda's eyes laughed.
" Why, I beheve you're the very boy Joseph says
is always climbing up our fig-tree," she said.
Again he turned to Marcia.
" Do you mind ? " he said. " You see, the Smiths
have only mulberry-leaves. No one has fig-leaves
but you, and Phil wants yellow silk. I don't steal
the figs—at least, I only did once."
Marcia looked solemn.
" Suppose I came into your back yard and stole
your wistaria creeper for my silkworms," she
said.
He looked sorry for her want of knowledge.
" They wouldn't eat it," he said. ** Mulberry-
leaves make pink, fig yellow, lettuce-leaves green—
wistaria wouldn't be any use. Clem tried banana-
leaves once, but they died."
" Who is Clem ? " said Marcia.
LOL'S ENTRANCE INTO SOCIETY 55
Loi crossed his legs, and brushed some mud ofí
his shoe.
" He's very big," he said ; " half the chickens
were his that the dog killed."
He made a divergence and gave the history of
the Chickens, all they were expected to buy, and
their untimely death.
" But I've got the brute safe," he wound up,
" he's in the copper, Clem '11 shoot him when he
gets home. He shot the Jenkinses' cat once, and
aU the inside of its head came out."
" Oh-h-h ! " said Marcia ; " you can spa;re us
the details."
But the expression in Lol's eyes was recol¬
lective.
" It came in useful, that old cat," he said. " It
didn't die at first, and Martin put all its brains
in again and sewed it up, and then it nearly died
and he hyp—hyp—hyperized it or something, and
then it quite died, and he cut it all up into little
bits like he does frogs and things."
Freda was stopping her ears.
" Oh, the horrid, dirty, cruel boy 1 " she said.
Loi gave her a look of siu-prise.
" Why, that's nothing," he said. " Sometimes he
does much worse things—chops up dead men and
makes skeletons and things. If you died he'd want
to come and cut your heart out."
He spoke with quite a relish of his subject.
" He's going to be a doctor," Linley explained.
Then blushed when Marcia asked how she knew.
" It's very easy to guess," she said.
Marcia smüed the least httle bit and addressed
Herself to Loi again.
" Those boys are all your brothers, I suppose.
Which one do you Uke best. Loi ? "
56 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Comparisons of the big boys had not occurred
to Loi before ; he had accepted them just as they
came. But now the question was put by a lady
he tied his shoe-laces in double knots and reviewed
his brothers in the interval.
" Roger, I think," he said.
Marcia's face did not move a muscle.
" Why ? " she said.
" WeU," said the little boy, " he's a barrister,
you see, and if ever a bobbie did run you in or
anything, he could get you out."
Linley was amazed that Marcia laughed, but
then she told herself nothing her sister could do
would altogether surprise her. At present it
seemed her good will to ignore entirely the rela¬
tionship between this little odd boy and her
lover.
After two hours of pohte intercourse in the
company of ladies. Loi began to feel rather bored.
He slipped off the big settee and told Marcia
he should " have to be going now."
" Oh, why ? " said Freda, who was enjo3dng him
more than any one, though she hardly spoke a word.
" What time have you to be home ? "
" What time is it ? " Loi inquired cautiously.
" Five o'clock," Linley answered.
" Oh," said Loi, *' I must go at once then ; I have
to be tn at five for certain."
He moved to the door, then came back to shake
hands, seeing Marcia evidently expected it and was
looking at him.
" Good-bye," he said, submitting to Linley's Idss ;
" Good-bye," dodging Freda's ; " Good-bye, Marcia,"
holding out his hand to her.
" Oh-h-h ! " said Linley and Freda, quite horrified.
But Marcia actually laughed again.
LOL'S ENTRANCE INTO SOCIETY 57
" Let him alone," she said, and stooping, kissed
the top of his curls.
Half-way to the door he turned again and went
back to Marcia.
" Would you mind if I took that spider thing as
it's squashed ? " he asked very gently. " I could
have Jimmie Smith beautifully." Marcia kissed him
again as she picked it up for him.
" You'll come and see me again, won't you ? "
she said.
And " Of course," was his reassuring reply.
" And me ? " said Linley, inclined to be jealous.
" Um I " he said.
" And me ? " cried Freda.
He did not answer ; the bamboo-table stood on
the road to the door, and his eyes were on the
sohtary cake in the silver basket. " I suppose you'll
go threes in it when I've gone," he said, somewhat
sadly.
" Give it to him, Freda," said Marcia. And the
little girl sprang across the room to present it ;
she also put two pieces of pink iced cake from a
plate on the lower flap of the table into his hands.
But he looked away past the duU-faced httle
thing to the beautiful figure in the rose-colomed
gown of shining sük.
" Thank you, Marcia," he said, and went.
At dinner-time that night the sharp report of a
gun broke the silence hanging over the ghttering
table in Boyd's Road.
" The Jenkinses' dog," Marcia said with an
irrepressible little shudder, but it was Linley and
Freda who told Robert the story.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SMALL CHAPERON
Freda had been acquainted with the whole
family of Carruthers ever since she came to
hve in Boyd's Road. That is, if acquaintance may
be claimed when no word of speech has passed.
She had taken a small room at the back of the
house for her own special domain, and her father
had supplied chairs, tables, pictures and nicknacks
as required. Here she did her lessons for the next
day, trimmed her doUs' bonnets—^she was a lonely
httle thing and doUs were dear to her, even at
twelve—^made chocolate creams and Turkish delights
in a tiny saucepan, and read her favomite books.
Straight opposite, but lower down, was the dining-
room of the Carruthers.
Two months before the window-roller had broken
and the blind fallen down ; nobody had mended it,
of course—nothing of the kind was ever mended
in that house in Balcombe Street—^and the blind
had finally drifted into the yard and become the
saU of the heap of driftwood and tin and ropes Loi
called his yacht.
Freda consequently had a nightly panorama of
pictures that nearly always arranged themselves in
the same way. She knew exactly Martin's comer,
—he worked at the little table covered with books
and looked up to laugh or to break into a song
5S
THE SMALL CHAPERON 59
half a dozen times through the long evening. There
were times when he flung his text-book at the fly-
spotted ceiling, picked up his banjo, and, with chair
tilted back, took an interval appreciated by Loi
and Clem at least. Clem had the big table to himself.
Freda always knew whether his lessons were har d
or just passable ; she used to watch him fling him¬
self about and rumple up his rough light hair, lean
back in his chair, bite his pen, thump his forehead,
bring his elbows heavily down and glue his face
close to his book. She took almost as much interest
in the diminution of the pile of preparation books
as he did himself.
" Rufly," she had always called him to herself,
because of his old clothes and wild head,—sixpences
were too scarce for him to relieve himself of his
thick, quick-growing hair more often than was
absolutely necessary. She liked him best.
The thin boy, with reddish hair, had made himself
a table with a piece of board and a chair. He used
to sit on the floor and work steadily there in pre¬
ference to using the one Clem was shaking and
banging and groaning at. He seemed to have no
diiflculty with his lessons, but nearly always went
to bed with his eyes half-closed with headache.
Freda called him Wilfred, and Martin, Marmaduke,
after a novel of Marcia's she had just been reading.
Roger seldom came in ; occasionally he smoked
on the broken-springed horsehair sofa for half an
hour after dinner, and once or twice to save gas
he had brought some writing to the table.
But Clem's uncontrollable restlessness used quickly
to make him leave again.
Loi pervaded the place, but the boys seemed to
have grown used to him and took no more notice
than if he was a troublesome fly.
6o THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
He used to lie face downwards on the table when
Clem allowed it, on the floor at other times, and
read the threepenny paper-covered tales of adven¬
ture Phil occasionally bought. It was marvellous
the number of books he had devoured in this way.
At other times he would play lonely games of
draughts or cards on the floor.
At others again a spirit of perversity would enter
into him and he would bump the table, jar Martin's
elbow, upset Phil's table or sing at the top of his
shrill young voice till he had been cufíed and
knocked about enough to subdue him. Almost
always he feU to sleep at the end of the sofa with
his head hanging downward. As soon as Clem
perceived this, seldom before ten or eleven, he used
to pick him up and carry him off to bed, helping
him with good-natured roughness off with his clothes
and pulling the mosquito-nets down over him.
Sometimes Freda had the diversion of seeing a
quarrel, and used to watch books flying about and
chairs being knocked over, with her heart in her
mouth. Hot-tempered Phil had flung the ink-bottle
at Clem once, and the trace of it was on the wall
from ceiling to skirting-board. Qem had knocked
him down for it and knelt on his chest till Roger
interfered, bumped their heads together and restored
peace.
Since Lol's visit the little girl had had the privi¬
lege of knowing the right names of all the boys,
but she still called the shabbiest one " Rufíy " to
herself.
On his second visit the little larrikin imparted
a startling piece of information to her.
She had reproached him for not kissing her.
" Why won't you, Larrie dear ? " she said.
jle put on his httle old-man air. " Wait till I'm
THE SMALL CHAPERON 6i
grown up." he said, " then I shall go about kissing
every one."
'* Oh, ho 1 " said Marcia, *' what's this I hear ? "
** Oh, ho ! " echoed Linley ; " why, it's just what
you can't do. Loi. Now's your time to make hay ;
when you're grown up no one wiU let you kiss
them."
" Then what did you let our Roger kiss you for
in our drawing-room ? " he demanded. " He's grown
up.
Such a colour that flooded Linley's brow and
neck and ears Freda had never seen ; there were
almost tears in her eyes.
" How can you say such a thing ! " she said, not
daring to look at Marcia ; " it's very naughty indeed.
Loi, to talk hke that."
But Loi utterly refused to have his veracity
doubted.
" Why, Jimmie Smith saw you as well," he said ;
" if you hke I'll fetch him."
After that Freda had ferreted out the whole
matter and was more delighted than she could
express.
It added just the touch of romance her wor¬
shipped Linley needed, she told herself ; she had
often thought men who came to the house were
in love with her darhng, but this was the very first
time she had ever found Linley reciprocating
affection. ^
** Fancy her letting herself be kissed 1 " she said
to herself, and quite thrilled with excitement.
Linley, finding she knew so much, had confided
in her to a certain extent ; she knew there was
nothing in the world the httle lonely girl loved hke
a secret.
Freda went about feehng unutterably important
62 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
—even Marcia did not know as much as she did,
and as for her father, he had no idea at all.
She took to studying Roger eagerly on the rare
occasions he smoked in the dining-room. She was
a httle disappointed that he was not more strictly
handsome, and she could have wished he would
smile more and wrinkle up his brow less.
But long before she spoke to him she loved him
heartily for Linley's sake.
One afternoon an hour or two of great excitement
came to her.
Linley asked her suddenly if she would like to
come for a walk. " Just a breath of fresh air," she
said.
Marcia suggested they should have the phaeton
and drive. " You might go and call on that thorn
in my flesh, Mrs. MeUor for me," she said. But
Linley said she needed walking exercise ; she also
expressed dislike to Mrs. MeUor and disinclination
for sacrificial observances. *' We'll have a httle
walking party to ourselves, Freda and I," she said,
donning her sailor hat and a blue gossamer for
the protection of her complexion ; " that is, unless
you object, Freda," she added.
But Freda had flimg down her story-book and
gone for hat and gloves with alacrity ; a walk with
Linley was one of her greatest treats. " Shall we
go as* far as the water ? " she said, hurrying to
keep up.
But Linley was afraid that was almost too far.
" It's nearly three miles, Fred, dear," she said ; " I
don't like to take you such a long way."
" How would it be to go to the Belhngtons*,
then ? " said Freda. " They always give you straw¬
berries and things."
Linley declared she had an objection to Arthur
THE SMALL CHAPERON 63
Bellington, and he was sure to be lounging about
at home. " There's no getting rid of him," she said.
They had turned down Canning Street, and were
picking their way among dust boxes and babies, to
Freda's astonishment ; she was ignorant that it made
a side of the triangle, and had a great scorn and
shrinking from this kind of poverty,
" I don't think this is a very nice road, Linley,"
she said at last, when two younger brothers of
Jimmie Smith had almost run over her with a box-
cart on wheels, containing four babies,
" No* not far," Linley said abstractedly, and
walking on.
They turned up Balcombe Street, At the detached
house that wanted painting so badly they both
looked keenly out of their eye-comers,
Freda would have loved to stand and look over
the fence at this place where Marmaduke, 'Wilfred
and Ruffy, Roger and Loi made nightly pictures for
her. But she was shy of saying so to Linley,
Linley's courage faded at the thought of Freda's
sharp eyes, and she walked hastily on. They went
along the base of the triangle—Boyd's Road again.
Marcia was on the balcony and Ufted her eyebrows.
Then they took the first turning,
Freda was glad. Not for anything would she
have suggested to Linley it was Canning Street
again, Linley was glad, Freda seemed too much
occupied with holding her parasol stylishly to notice
it was the same street again.
They turned into Balcombe Street as a matter of
course,
Linley blushed a little,
*' How would it be, Freda dear," she said, " if
we just went in and asked if Loi is all right ? 1
haven't seen him for a day or two."
64 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" Oh, look out ! " cried Freda.
A goat came rushing down the road ; behind were
six boys driving it, before, six boys flung up their
arms and hooted and yelled to force it up the
street.
Loi was leading the downward rush; there was
a brilliant flush in his cheeks, he had lost his hat,
and his stockings were turned down over his boot-
tops. It was an odd httle characteristic of the boy
that he invariably made his legs bare when a fray
was imminent.
'* He seems all right," Freda said dubiously. She
was greatly disappointed that the chance to enter
the gate seemed gone.
" Oh, we may as well ask," Linley said with a
deeper blush ; she pushed open the crazy gate and
went up the path.
Roger came out at the sound of her footsteps.
" I was beginning to think you weren't coming,"
he said. His eyes were full of joyousness, and he
was smiling even enough for Freda's fastidious
notions of a lover.
They went inside. Linley gravely introduced the
small chaperon and Roger shook hands with her
warmly, then he fell to talking to Linley again and
reminding her she was twenty minutes late.
Freda was shocked at the poorness of the room ;
such a threadbare carpet, such dingy curtains and
the scornful sun picking holes in both. Such loads
of dull-looking books, such a great ugly work-
basket, such badly-arranged flowers, and such a
tea-tray I
And yet poor Roger had made the room ready
himself, and congratulated himself it was almost
presentable.
He had dusted the. books and the table and the
THE SMALL CHAPERON 65
piano with a damp tea-cloth, had spent two shillings
in cut flowers and flUed the vases with them with
infinite pains if no art, even purchased three little
cups because the battered service they used struck
him as unfit for Linley's dainty fingers.
But the tray was only covered with a coarse
tea-cloth, the silver teapot had turned nearly black
under EUza's rule, and there was too great a plenitude
of large cakes.
By the time Freda had finished observing all this
she found Roger and Linley both looking at her
somewhat apologetically.
It was very nice and right and proper, of course,
to have a chaperon, but, after all, she was the least
little bit in the way.
" I know," said Roger with sudden inspiration.
Then he stood up and took Freda's hand.
" I'm afraid this is very dull for you," he said
with great kindliness in his voice. " I must find
some one younger for you."
He led her down the hall and into the big, bare,
untidy dining-room he had not time to " do up,"
but thought a little girl hke Freda would never
notice.
Then he gave a call up the staircase, and the next
minute a great awkward figure filled the doorway,
and she was being introduced to RufEy.
B
CHAPTER IX
MUSIC AND AFTERNOON TEA
T the end of the upstairs passage there was a
room that in long past days had been a
servant's bedroom. It was fairly large as far as
ground space went, but the ceiling dipped down in
places to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of the
roof rmtil there were only two or three spots where
a full-grown man might stand upright.
Other houses out of Balcombe Street have servants'
rooms of similar architecture.
Here was a heap of iron laths in one comer,
testifpng to the remains of a bed. There was a
tangle of broken Austrian chairs—twenty at least—
in another, waiting for a mending time that would
never come. A weather-wom tent, rolled up vdth
ropes, lay against one wall, a pair of blue blankets,
a billy, a fr50ng-pan, and other camping parapher-
naha adjacent. A shelf held gruesome animal
remains in spirits, and some dusty bones Martin
had set store upon in the early days of his initiation
into medicine.
There was a wallaroo Clem had shot and stuñed ;
a kangaroo-rat with its bright, dark little eyes ; a
blue mountain parrot alive in a cage. From a nail
on the wall hung the skin of a snake that Clem had
once killed when out camping : it was twenty-five
feet in length, in the narratives with which Loi had
66
MUSIC AND AFTERNOON TEA 67
entertained his compeers, ten, perhaps, by the bald
statement of the tape-measure.
This was the music-room. You had only to go
outside to find a notice to that effect charcoaled on
the door. You had only to set foot in the passage
foiir nights out of five at about ten o'clock to know
the fact without any help of the eye.
This was the only place where Ruffy ever sang.
When the light gay notes of the banjo twanged out
and chirped and chirruped and slipped into little
sUvery çims, and swam into slower, sharper measure,
reached up to sweet, metallic shrillness, fell away
down to harsh, bass melodies, sometimes there came
irresistibly from the boy's throat a strange great
volume of sound whose richness delighted Martin.
His own voice was lighter, strong, well-carrying,
true and full of sweetness ; when Ruffy joined in
and the httle silver accompaniments ran between, the
melody of the room made their souls happy.
From a perch on the hillock of chairs Loi used to
look down to applaud or jeer. He had no soul for
the songs of love, and hurled balls of paper and
peUets of gravel at the musicians at the mere men¬
tion of a woman's name in a line that rhjnned.
But if it happened to be a time when the lyre
would attune itself only to woman and the praise of
her, and ejectment was threatened for disturbance,
then he would sit still in contemptuous endurance.
Of late Martin had taken to setting some of
Herrick's old songs to music, and Loi, tmversed in
the poet, imagined his brother loved madly a girl
named Julia ; were not half the sentimental songs
now about her hair or her lips or her cruelty ? His
practical, sentiment-scorning yoimg mind called
them " drivel songs."
Thero was " The Weeping Cherry," for instance,
68 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
with its light little runs of accompanying notes :—
'* 1 saw a cherry weep, and why ?
Why wept it ? But for shame :
Because my Julia's lip was by
And did cut-red the same.
But, pretty fondling, let not fall
A tear at all for that
Which rubies, corsils, scarlets all
For tincture, wonder at."
Half a dozen more with plaintive accompaniments
that to Lol's ear were utterly devoid of tune or
time—'* Dew sat on Julia's hair," " Breathe, Julia,
breathe, and I'll protest," ** Julia, if I chance to die,"
" When as in silks my Julia goes."
The twanging of the first note that ushered in a
song where Julia lurked was a signal for the chairs
to creak furiously, and for prodigious sighs and
groans to come floating down.
" Look here. Mart," he would say, his endurance
fl3dng away when Martin seemed unconquerably
disposed to set every feature and limb and article
of dress of Julia's slowly and separately to music—
" Look here. Mart, your voice is getting quite
cracked ; those things are too high for you. Why
don't you give us some nigger songs,' or there's
that
' She lashed him.
She bashed him.
She would not let him be.
She licked him.
She kicked him.
Until he couldn't see.'
That's something of a song if you like."
Then Martin would run his fingers through his
hair and tighten up the strings and look so awake
that delightful anticipations of the sweet Widow
Macarthy would fill Lol's breast.
MUSIC AND AFTERNOON TEA 69
And a prelude of the unmistakable " widowish "
music would assail the air and prepare the way for
the longed-for laughter, only to sink away into
melancholy chords that prefaced " To Julia, on play¬
ing Chop Cherry." Then the notes would grow gay
and laugh and be tender and merry, so lightly touched
by the fingers, that Lol's spirits would rise again ;
only to be dashed by some such verse as this—
•' I want no stars in heaven to guide me.
I need no moon, no sun to shine.
While I have you, sweetheart, beside me,
* While I know that you are mine."
At this point it almost invariably happened that the
tangle of chairs gave way and half a dozen crippled
ones came ratthng to the ground with Loi as an
incident.
He was always very badly hurt, even if no woimd
appeared to the naked eye. Sometimes it was his
back that felt " smashed in nine places," sometimes
all the skin was taken off his knees, he felt certain.
There were occasions when sympathy ran short that
he went as far as threatening tears on account of the
awful bumps that even Martin's surgical fingers
failed to find.
But experience taught them that negro minstrelsy
had greater heahng powers than arnica, and music-
hall comic songs could minister to a leg diseased
more efficaciously than a bandage of finest hnt.
They let him curl up on the blue blanket after
such mishaps and order the programme as he chose.
Ruffy made glorious choruses for the nigger songs
and the sea songs and the comic ones ; occasionally
the larrikin himself " chipped in " at the parts that
appealed to him, and his thin httle voice added a
flute to the orchestra. On the afternoon that Freda's
services were requisitioned as chaperon, there was
70 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
just such a variety entertainment going on in the
music-room. For it happened that vacation held
sway at the University, and even hospital-walking
was over by twelve o'clock. And the day had
lagged, and the length of hours before six o'clock
dinner became so disheartening that Ruffy had made
a desultory way to the " music-room " and had
picked out with one finger, on the banj o, and simg,
deep down in his throat,—
'* Oh, it's goin' down de ribber in an ole steam-boat.
With a doodle umpty doodle umpty dey ;
Dere came an' ole shark an' set us all afloat.
With a doodle umpty doodle umpty dey.
" Says I ' Mas'r Shark, oh, how d'y do ? '
Says "
But at this point Martin, irritated at the false
notes and the reckless disregard for time, had left his
studies in the dining-room and gone upstairs two
steps at a time to show just how the thing should go.
And Loi, Jimmie Smith being tied within doors
to look after the evergreen baby of the family, and
the others of the " push " being at school, and the
goat not available and no stray fowl visible, had
followed up after him, feeling that nothing in the
world but " She lashed him, she bcished him " could
relieve the monotony of existence.
It was growing pretty close to the point of the
fall of Chairs when Roger's voice called for Rufíy.
For Martin had not been in comic-song mood, and
when asked for " The Widow " had teasingly given
*' Queen of the Earth," taking sufficient liberty
with the text to work in the name of Julia half a
dozen times. After a while RuSy had dropped out
of the entertainment, no scope offering to exhibit
himself properly. He took a paper-book out of
his pocket—Tom Crin¿le's Log—and folded him-
MUSIC AND AFTERNOON TEA 71
self up to meet the exigencies of the roof, preferring
that part of the room most distant from his youngest
brother.
Loi fished out from the front of his sailor jacket
his lasso for wandering goats and fell to tying
strengthful knots in the places that looked weak.
Occasionally he cast a withering glance at Martin,
and balanced in his mind whether it was worth
the risk of being pitched out of the room to inform
him frankly he was a " mutton."
" Clem," called Roger's voice up the carpetless,
echoing staircase.
In the rapid process of joint extension Ruiïy's
head and the roof met, and loud was the report
thereof.
*' What a fellow you are ! " growled Loi ; " there
won't be a blessed bit of plaster left on the ceiling
soon. Bring's up a slice of bread and jam when
you come back ; I don't believe I had any limch."
Clem made his exit, doubhng himself up tiU he
left fuUy two feet of safety between his head and
the roof.
And Loi was so quiet and engrossed with his
lasso that Martin forgot him entirely, and now
leaned back in his chair and gave himself up to
thought, and now sang a tender line or two below
his breath.
He tried to make an accompaniment of deUcate
beU-like notes, and these were the lines he sang
again and again while he improved on it, in a
voice hardly above a whisper and with sadness
in the last couplet,—
I am holy while I stand
Circumcrossed by thy pure hand¿
But when that is gone again,
I, as others, am profane."
72 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
There was a curious softness in his eyes, all the
laughter curves had gone from his mouth ; it was
very grave, unhappy even.
" He'U be as mooney as Roger soon," said the
little old one to himself on his elevation. " Wonder
if it's that Miss Barton next door ; he'd hardly be
gone, though, on a girl that always sings with the
window open ; p'raps it's one of the doctor-girls
who cut up with him."
Clem interrupted the reveries of both by putting
his head in the door—very cautiously."
" Look here," he said, " there's a blessed kid in
the dining-room, and I'm full up of playing the polite
to her ; I shall bring her up here and you can take
a turn. Mart. She came with Linley, and, of course,
we'll have to stand by Roge and keep her out of the
drawing-room."
Martin brought his tilted chair to the level of its
four feet.
" Oh, hang it I " he said. "You can't bring any
one up here, old man—look at the place, it's enough
to give a properly constituted little girl a fit of
paralysis."
Clem looked round a little mefuUy.
" Well, the dining-room's almost as bad," he said.
" I don't think Eliza's touched it for a month.
She's gone home with toothache now, and there are
aU the dirty lunch-things on the table yet, and
books and papers aU over the shop ; what am I to
do? "
From the height of piled chairs came a little
cackling laugh.
" Well, you are goats," said the larrikin ; " as if
anything wasn't good enough ! It's no one but that
young Freda, of course ; a bit of a kid, isn't it, Clem,
with a lot of straight hair the colour of a rope, and
MUSIC AND AFTERNOON TEA 73
kid gloves and sashes and ribbons and things aU
over her ? Pooh, as if she mattered I " He fell
from the height in his usual graceful fashion. "I'll
go and fetch her up myself," he said, tossing back
the only chair that fell with him ; " she's an awfully
fat-headed kid, but she's great for chocolates."
Martin shrugged his shoulders and went back to
his banjo.
RuSy looked vaguely troubled, and hid away three
old boots that were lying about ; the httle girl's
daintiness was still before his eyes.
" Oughtn't we to give her something to eat ? " he
said. " It seems so beggarly to let her go without
anything."
Martin felt in his pocket, but his hand came out
empty.
" I thought I'd a sprat," he said, " and you could
have fetched some cake ; it went in tobacco, though.
There's nothing in the house, Clem, I'm afraid.
You might get some tea and bread and butter,
perhaps, only don't cut it in great hunches."
Loi came in again, a sticky brownness aroimd his
hps ; the httle girl behind was quite pale with shy¬
ness, but he was treating her with great graciousness.
"I'd have brought a chair up for you if I'd
thought," he said, letting his teeth meet hngeringly
on a nougat. " Tliis one isn't very bad, though.
Sit well on the edge, and you won't fall through."
But " Marmaduke " was ofíering his, which was
less dangerous in construction, and his smile was
so brihiant and golden when he shook hands with
her and informed her that this was the music-room
of the mansion, that for a moment Ruffy's place in
her heart was in danger.
Only for a moment, however, for when Ruñy
brought her a doubled-up coat to make the chair-
74 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
seat soft, and fastened a newspaper across the
window to keep out the glare of the afternoon
sun, and spoke to her in a gruff, kind voice that
took her nervousness away, his throne was firmly
fixed again.
Then he went away, and she heard his heavy
step going down the stairs with a feeling of dismay.
But Martin made her forget her shyness entirely.
He chatted to her, told her quaint little stories, and
laughed at them heartüy himself ; sang half a dozen
funny little songs—one or two in nigger dialect,
with a break-down dance in the middle of them ;
he took as much trouble to entertain this prim,
somewhat plain little girl, as he often did with
a drawing-room full of delightful and delighted
people.
And all the little girl's primness melted away bit
by bit. She laughed till the tears ran down her
cheeks, and she had to wipe them away with her
wee, fine handkerchief. She begged for one more,
and Just one more, and clapped her hands, and
rolled about in her chair with enjoyment.
The smell of cooking had obtruded itself several
times during the performance. Presently there
was a slow and heavy step outside, and a jingle-
jangle of crockery with shattered equilibrium.
Loi turned grateful eyes towards the door. He
had been sitting on his usual perch, conducting, as
it were, the entertainment, applauding afiably, and
munching chocolates the while. He was a little
annoyed that Martin would not give " She lashed
him, she bashed him," and one or two others of
particular choiceness ; he even refiected at length
on the fearful uhhappiness it must be to be a girl
and cut off from hearing so many of the things
that were free to boys. But when the rattle of
MUSIC AND AFTERNOON TEA 75
china came he forgot everything but how hungry
he was, and how unsatisfactory for appetite appease¬
ment were chocolates in small quantities.
Clem set his tray down on a rickety table, and
beamed on the company with a heated face and
kind eyes.
*' Come on," he said, " ever3dhing's ready.
Freda had better sit up to the table. You can have
yours on a chair. Loi."
He hfted the tray up again, and spread over
the table a big white cloth that swept the ground.
Then he set out knives and forks, salt in an egg-
cup, mustard, slices of buttered bread, a great
brown teapot with a broken spout, sugar in a
cup, milk—also in a cup.
" What's under the cover ? " Martin said, con¬
sumed with laughter for a moment at Ruñy's idea
of that delicate and aesthetic repast, afternoon tea.
Rufíy's face beamed more than ever.
" Sausages," he said, and hfted off the dull
electro-plate cover. " Wasn't it lucky the butcher
had just come ? "
They were a deep, golden brown, dehciously
crisp, ravishing in smell ; each one reposed on a
piece of buttered toast and the dish swam in rich,
brown gravy.
Martin laid down his banjo, and pulled his chair
weU up to the table ; Freda was already there, a firm
conviction in her mind that there was nothing in
the world quite as nice as sausages.
*' I've never been so hvmgry in my hie," said the
banjo-player ; '' you're a brick, Clem."
" A gentleman," said Loi.
" A dear," said Freda, and did not even blush,
she felt so gay and very much at home.
When Linley was ready for her httle chaperon,
76
THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Roger had to go in search of her, for the dining-
room was empty.
" They can't have got her in the servant's room,"
he said to himself, going up in haste.
But the laughter and gay voices that came
to meet him from that dreadful room reassured
him.
" One can only be happy," he muttered, as he
opened the door.
Then he too sniffed hungrily ; Eliza's lunch had
been imeatable.
" What's on ? " he said, approaching the festive
table.
Ruffy's heart smote him that there was nothing
left. Every one had eaten heartily, and even Freda
had managed three.
" Afternoon tea," he said. " We've been having
sausages. I'll cook you one if you wait a jiffy."
" I don't mind if you do, later," Roger said ;
*' they certainly smeU remarkably good. Freda,
I'll have to run away with you."
Freda went with him, slowly, reluctantly. Half¬
way downstairs she glanced up at him, shyly.
" Will Linley be coming again pretty soon ? "
she asked.
CHAPTER X
ROBERT HAS " VIEWS "
" Never you cheat yourself one moment. Love,
Give love, ask only love, and leave the rest."
"lONTH after this Robert had a headache.
That is not sa3Tng he had gone thirty days
by the calendar without one, for certain trouble with
his eyes, together with the Exchange and the alarm¬
ing depression in the city, had given them ta him
frequently of late.
But j ust about four weeks after his little daughter
had made the acquaintance of Rufíy and Martin, and
spent one of the most delightful, because novel,
afternoons of her life, he came home with one of
extra magnitude.
Marcia could never find much sympathy for a
headache ; it was one of the iUs of the flesh she
never sufíered from herself and therefore despised.
Besides, in Robert she considered it was somewhat
feminine.
At dinner she said she had heard sal-volatile was
good, and asked in what row he had booked the
seats for the evening.
When she was dressed—it was some amateur
theatricals for a charitable purpose to which she was
going with a large party—she said lavender-water
was also said to be excellent, and the carriage need
77
78
THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
not come tiU half-past eleven, as there was to be a
supper on the stage.
He put her into the brougham and shut the door
—more than that, " hoped she would enjoy herself."
Then he went up the steps again and into the house.
In feature Robert was what is generally called
" conunon-looking " ; that is, insignificant—quite
without pretensions to style or good looks.
His short stature had most to do with it, his
dull brown hair, leather-like complexion, and un¬
remarkable eyes merely added to the effect. To¬
night he wore a coat of dust-coloured china silk,
that had washed badly but fitted him very comfort¬
ably ; he had put his tie on crookedly, and his
hair was rough because his fingers kept threading
it to make head coolness. While Marcia was
recommending lavender-water he was telling him¬
self what an excellent ioU he made for her. There
was no mirror near, but he could see her dazzling,
surpassing beauty, and knew exactly what he him¬
self looked hke.
■When he went back up the steps there was no
one to notice how tired his eyes looked, nor how
the veins in his forehead stood out. It occurred to
him it would be nice to be a young man in love
with a httle ugly girl who loved him and had cool,
soft fingers.
He wandered through the drawing-room, but the
hghts dazzled and there was too much space and
elegance ; so he went out again, into the Japanese
sitting-room, where only two yellow-shaded candles
burned.
But a useless stool with a palm on it tripped him
up, and he got entangled in the draperies of a table.
Besides, he remembered Marcia had asked him not
to smoke there, she hated tobacco taints in tho
ROBERT HAS "VIEWS" 79
curtains ; and despite his headache he wanted tc
finish his after-dinner pipe.
He thought for a minute or two he would go to
bed, or he out on the cool grass in the garden.
But the desire to be with some one who would
talk to him urged itself dully and obstinately. He
found himself going into Freda's tiny sitting-room.
The httle girl was kneehng on the fioor with her
face pressed against the window-panes ; she had
turned the gas down till it was a mere flicker.
" Whai are you doing, Freddie ? " he said, sitting
down on one of her frail chairs.
She turned scarlet and dropped the Venetian.
" Only looking out of the window," she said
somewhat aggressively, " and that's my gold chair,
father ; .you'll break it if you sit on it."
He removed himself to a more substantial one,
" What have you been doing with yourself lately,
old woman ? " he asked, to make conversation ;
" you never talk to me now."
Freda fidgeted about.
" Only lessons and things," she said, and wondered
how long he was going to stay. Rufly was alone in
the dining-room, and the position of his head on his
arm made her tlñnk he was in trouble.
" I hope you are good and obedient to Marcia,
Freddie dear," he said.
She fidgeted again. One of the laths of the Vene¬
tian was up, and she thought he might see the window
below. " Oh, I'm good enough," she said care¬
lessly ; " and, one blessing, Marcia never teUs me to
do things."
There was the length of the table between them.
Freda did not attempt to lessen it, but something
forced him to do so.
" Won't you come and sit on my knee, Freda ? "
8o THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
he said, with a curious little thrill of pain in his
voice.
She came, slowly, wonderingly ; she had been so
much at boarding-school and was of so reserved a
nature herself that she knew little of this plain,
short man.
She sat down stiffly on the edge of his knee, and
never thought of flinging her arms roimd his neck
as he was craving she would do.
" Is—is there an3rthing you would like, Freddie ? "
he said at last ; and there was sadness in his voice
because this was the only road he ever foimd into
people's hearts, and it was almost hateful to him.
Freda became more animated ; her month's allow¬
ance had all gone, and she had conceived the idea
of making RuÔy a present of a handkerchief-sachet ;
she had already given him a pink silk knitted neck¬
tie.
" I am a httle short of pocket-money," she said,
settling a little more comfortably on his knee. " If
you could spare me five shillings, father, I should be
very glad."
He gave her ten and went away again.
A bar of light came from beneath the door of the
studio. He wondered if Linley was busy or if she
would mind if he sat with her for a httle time.
" May I come in ?" he said, putting his imbrushed
head into the doorway.
" Of course," said Linley, but her voice soimded
a httle far away.
She was writing an answer to Roger at her
davenport, scribbling hard away with a warm flush
on her cheeks and softness in her eyes. Just under
the blotting-paper lay a love-letter full of such a
passion of worship, tenderness, and exultation, that
no woman could have read it unstirred.
ROBERT HAS "VIEWS" 8i
Robert sat down in her prie-dieu chair and shut
his eyes.
" If I'm in the way send me ofí," he said.
" What nonsense ! " Linley said ; but he had
broken the mood of unreserve and passion that came
to her seldom, and she felt regretful.
Roger often said her love was only a reflection
of his and never warmed of itself.
" Do you mind if I finish ? " she said, and went on
to the end of the page with slightly checked enthu¬
siasm.
Robert watched her with dull, sad eyes.
" Writing to your sweetheart, little girl ? " he
said, with a strange wistfulness in his tone as she
folded up the sheets.
Linley's flush deepened, but the open mood was
upon her, and, after all, Robert was her brother-in-
law and a reaUy good feUow.
As she slipped the sheets in the envelope and
addressed it she was forming a decision of some
importance. He should know her secret to-night,
though she had kept it diligently for six whole
months. How pleased Roger worfld be I He had
urged it so frequently and been so unhappy at her
obstinacy 1 She would even let him come and ask
Robert for her in formal manner, as he had begged
so often ; she would not put him off any longer by
sa3dng, " Oh, they were not properly engaged yet,—
lots of things might happen,—what was the use of
bothering Robad yet ? " But she stfll promised
herself hnmunity from the " public engagement "
she dreaded.
" Sweetheart ! " she said, a little shyly ; " you
don't really think I have such a thing, Robert, do
you ? "
He shut his eyes and leaned back
F
82 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" I have a great respect for him," he said ; " he
seems a very good fellow from aU reports. But I
certainly do think he is a little tardy in asking my
blessing."
" Why—^what—who ? " Linley said, startled.
" Carruthers, of course," he returned.
It took her nearly five minutes to wonder suffi¬
ciently at him, laugh, be vexed, and call him a Sher¬
lock Holmes. Then a blue, throbbing vein on his
forehead caught her attention and recollection.
" Oh, you poor old fellow 1 " she said, and her
brown eyes were full of instantaneous tenderness,
" you poor, neglected old Bobus ! why, you can
hardly keep your eyes open ! "
" I don't think it's quite so bad as it was at
dinner," he said, lying. " Don't trouble, old
woman."
But Linley was dragging up a great, cushioned,
wicker-lounge that was the comfort of her soul when
she was miserable or ill. She moved him on to it.
" I just feel in the humour to fuss over some one,"
she said ; " don't stop me. Bob, or I'U have to ask
the housemaid to faint or sprain her ankle."
So he put his poor, hot head down on the cool
silk cushions, and allowed her to " fuss " to her
heart's content.
It was the happiest evening he had spent for a
year.
*' When I get headaches," she said, '* Freda's
hands turn into angels. I want to see if mine wiU."
She fetched ice up from the kitchen regions and
poured lavender-water over till the shallow Japanese
bowl she used was full of the iced, müky-looking
liqmd. She dropped it on his hair and his forehead
and his temples with a delicate scrap of muslin,
laid her cool fingers on the swollen veins, passed
ROBERT HAS "VIEWS" 83
them, wet and light, through his hair and just where
the blood was beating on the top. Sometimes she
fanned with a fringed. Island leaf, and every breath
lightened the load that had pressed above his eye¬
balls. She had shaded the lamp and stood it at the
end of the room, and the light was so faint and soft
and sweet he could open his eyes to it without her
seeing the tears her unexpected kindness had brought
to them.
By ten o'clock the veins lay quiet, and there was
only a duU pain left, almost pleasant by contrast.
He had been asleep and she had been fanning
him, wetting the muslin-cloth and weaving tender
dreams around Roger.
" TeU me about him," he said, when he woke,
refreshed ; " I hope you may be very happy, but
Heaven knows I shall miss you. When is it to be,
old woman ? "
She laughed softly.
" Not for years, you silly old Bobus ; he is
desperately poor as yet."
Some way it had happened Roger had never told
her just how his income was swallowed up. All he
had said was he was too poor to marry for some time,
and since it was so, was somewhat reconciled to her
evident shrinking from the great plunge. He had
spoken of " having to give the boys a lift," but never
of their entire dependence, so she inferred from
occasional patches on his boots, and the rare changes
seen in his suits, that he was making no way in
yet his struggle with the giant Law.
" That's bad," said Robert ; " I'm sorry for that,
little girl. Perhaps one could give him a help
some way, eh ? "
Linley flushed.
" No, one couldn't," she said, more sharply than
84 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
the occasion demanded. " I'm tired of the way
you're always having to help people, Robert."
Marcia's calm exorbitance for any one in whom she
took an interest made her qmte sore for Robert.
'* Besides you don't know Roger. He would have
no one's help."
Robert looked crushed and dared venture no more.
" Don't you mind being poor ? " he said, looking
at her with admiring wistfulness.
" We've no intention of bdng," she said. " Roger
is going to be the most famous Q.C. south of the
line, and my pictmes are going to sell for a thousand
each. I shouldn't like to be married yet."
" You're quite sure of yourself, httle Lin ? " he
said, somewhat anxiously. He coiild not reconcile
" not wanting to be married yet " with love.
" Oh, perfectly," Linley said, with great assurance.
Then she laughed. " But Marcia is pinning all her
faith on my instability. If you could hear her homi¬
lies, Bobus ! if you coxild listen to her trying to
show me the inky error of my way ! "
Robert sat up and dropped the bandage from his
head ; there was greater earnestness in his eyes than
she had ever seen in them.
" Old woman," he said, " don't change. Don't
hsten to what any one says on such a subject. You
and he are the only ones to know. Love is the
only good in aU the world—I know it as well as if I
had it straight from God's mouth. Life without it
is nothing but a more or less respectable hell. Don't
listen to Marcia in this, Linley."
" No," she said, rather startled by his manner,
" of course I shan't, Robert."
His eyes glowed.
" I wonder how she dare say it ! " he said. " Do
you think she doesn't know what she's lost ? Do
ROBERT HAS "VIEWS" 85
you think I wouldn't let her have it if it was in
my power ? Be sorry for her, Lin—even when I
die she can't have it."
" You'll make your head worse, Robert," Linley
faltered. The sight of the wound in his life made
her sick.
But she took no notice.
" I wonder how people dare come between lovers,"
he said ; " how they dare try to separate them just
because money is wanting, or position, or some
such triviahty. If Freda comes to me some day
and says she wants to many a blacksmith, before
Heaven, I'U let her, once I'm assured it's love
in both their hearts and not the imitation article.
Those whom the Lord has joined let no man put
asunder—joined doesn't mean marriage only, Lin¬
ley."
Linley moved about restlessly. She had over¬
turned a portfoho of water-colours she had done
up the Hawkesbury, and was picking them up again,
one by one. Each scene brought recollections
flooding, all intimately connected with Roger. " So
lie down, Robert," she said, t3dng the strings and
not looking at him.
He lay back among the cushions ; the fire and
light died out of his eyes, the old, dull, moody look
came back.
" Go to bed, Linley," he said ; " it's late ; I'll sit
up for Marcia."
He turned over and lay with his face to the wall.
So she went and left him.
But sleep did not come to her for a little time.
There was an unsatisfied, almost jealous feeling in
her heart because Roger's love was a grander,
stronger thing than her own.
CHAPTER XI
SUNDAY MORNING
HE next day was Sunday. Robert smoked all
the morning about the stables, and avoided
Linley's eyes : he felt a little ashamed that he had
let his feelings carry him away.
Freda went to church. She was a conservative
little thing, and stiU imposed certain of her boarding-
school restrictions upon herself as there was no one
to enforce them. She sat alone in the pew her
father had taken at her request, and spread out her
short skirts to fill up as much of the space as pos¬
sible. She joined in the responses, found the places
dutifully in her prayer-book, and thought how much
better the drop of her shilling soimded in the plate
than the fight clink of the little girl's threepenny
behind.
She walked home again slowly, with her little
parasol up, her bright patent-leather toes well turned
out, and a pleasant Pharisaical feeling in her breast
at the thought of her step-mother's novel, dressing-
room sofa, and dainty déshabille of torchon and
muslin.
When she reached the gate Linley was near it,
ostensibly gathering yellow roses from the bushes
there.
" Isn't church very late out this morning ? " she
said.
86
SUNDAY MORNING
87
Freda sighed a little.
" It's my new shoes," she said ; " they're frightful
across the toe."
Linley looked anxious.
*' Do they hurt very much ? " she asked.
Freda caught sight of a httle note in her hand.
** Oh no," she said, " I've walked in much worse.
They hurt most when I stand stiU, I think."
** And you're not tired, Freddie ? "
" Not a bit," said " Freddie," looking carefully
away from the note. " Indeed, I'm quite sorry to
come in, it's such a lovely morning."
Linley opened her hand and showed the note.
'* I'd be so glad, Freda, if you'd give it. I don't
like sending a servant, you see. Would you mind
much ? Loi or one of the boys would be sure to be
about ; you needn't go in. It wouldn't take you five
minutes, would it ? Do you mind, dear ? Be sure
you tell me if you do, and I'll manage some way.
Only Marcia's going out, and it's—^important."
Freda tried not to beam, but failed.
" Oh, I'll take it," she said. '* Do you want me
to wait for an answer ? "
Linley rephed in an apologetic affirmative.
*' He won't keep you waiting a minute, though,"
she said.
The note was transferred to the hand in its tight
grey glove. Freda's hands and feet threatened to be
large, Linley's were very small and dainty, conse¬
quently the little worshipper cramped her members
unhesitatingly.
She came back when she had gone two or three
steps.
" I don't look as if I'm limping, do I, Lin ? " she
said, with extreme anxiety.
Linley, who had followed her with eves that saw
88 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
not, said no, reassuringly and stoutly, so the note
journeyed on.
Such a surprise to Roger it would be. The love-
letter had been laid aside for another time ; this was
a note inviting him to come and make any claims he
had upon her that very afternoon to her " next friend,
Robert Barrett," she had written with a laugh in her
eyes.
" You will need all your fortitude, Roger," she
said. " Have I ever told you of the formidability
of Robert ? I'm afraid your evil section of an
hour is about to arrive. But, courage, Roger, square
your shoulders and duck your head. After aU,
hard words do not fracture brave hearts. And
Robert is only a man." It appointed half-past two
and the study for the interview. *' Marcia is going
to the Morrices' usual gathering of artists and
littérateurs. Didn't I hear Martin say he was asked ?
Perhaps he'U be allotted to hold her umbrella or her
teacup. She won't be able to stir for Carrutherses
soon. She goes at two. I'U be in the drawing-room
when your rings comes and buckle on your shield
for you."
Freda went up Balcombe Street in bhssful
happiness. How she had grown to love those boy-
pictures of hers, how she wished she could make
brothers of them all, Ruffy especially 1
Ruffy was digging the garden when she pushed
open the gate. He seemed to spend half his leisure
digging it, and yet no harvest ever showed, for he
had no money to buy seeds or plants, and no
friends to beg them from. But it was occupation
for his great frame ; no one but himself knew what
wild fits, what restlessness, what despair he had
worked off with that broken spade, buried away in
the brown fresh mould and stamped well down.
SUNDAY MORNING 89
" Are you digging ? " Freda's somewhat agitated
voice asked at his elbow.
It was so self-evident he laughed.
** I didn't hear you come in," he said.
" I coughed twice." Freda's voice was depre¬
cating.
" I suppose I was thinking," he said, and gloomi¬
ness came back to his eyes at the recollection of
the thoughts. He dug up two great spadesful,
turned them over and broke up the lumps.
" I've brought a note. Is Mr. Roger in ? " asked
the litfle girl.
Clem laughed again and flung down his spade.
" I never thought of asking what you'd come
for," he said. " I might have known it wasn't to see
me dig, mightn't I ? "
" I like watching," Freda said ; " I think you dig
beautifully, Rufly."
She had told him a month ago about the name
she had given him—making no allusion, however,
to the panorama with which he helped to supply
her—and he refused to aUow her to alter to
" Clem."
The soft speech and quiet, gentle ways of this
somewhat plain httle girl were a source of great
happiness to poor big Rufly just at this time. On
the rare occasions of her visits to the house Roger
monopolized Linley, but the little chaperon he and
Phil had aU to themselves and were both comforted
and amused by the old-fashioned way in which she
had begun to sister them.
As they went into the house Lol's head was
lying on the hnoleum of the haU-floor and his body
in the drawing-room doorway. Marcia had given
him a Noah's Ark that she had considered suited
to his tender years, and presents being infrequent
90 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
events with him he felt it his duty to play with it,
but he was doing so somewhat languidly.
What interest could he take in an inch-long
representation of a goat that never was on land
or sea when in the back lane a live one roamed
impursued ? In a paddock near there was a cow
that put down its head threateningly and pawed the
groimd if you worried it sufficiently ; this little
wooden one spotted with red and white was very
teime in comparison.
There was the coimterfeit presentment of a bird
that might have been meant for anything from an
ostrich to a barndoor hen ; it was a httle larger than
the elephant and a little smaller than the fox ; its
tail was twice the size of the tiger's and there was
a forked branch of a tree glued to its claws, partly
for rural effect and partly for balance.
" As though they fly round with that sort of
thing ! " Loi said, breaking it off disgustedly.
Then he sighed and thought of how, three houses
off, there was a great cockatoo that had elected
itself the deadly foe of every one in knickerbockers,
and had never been seen with its yellow crest other
than fiercely upright.
Sunday was almost an intolerable day to Loi,
the respectability of it embittered his very soul.
He had to wash twice at least during the day, and
to eat sitting with his legs imder the dining-room
table. He was expected to wear the most respect¬
able of his sailor suits, and however great the
excitement not to bare his little thin legs. He was
not allowed to run wild in the streets. ^¿Rufly
remembered how the small lost mother had refused
it, and took it upon himself to enforce seclusion, at
the end of the broom if necessary. He very seldom
went to church. Roger and Martin had too much
SUNDAY MORNING 91
genidne reverence for holy things to create early
weariness and distaste in the young soul of their
brother by insisting on weekly attendance.
Sometimes Phil took him for a swim in a water-
hole two miles away, and sometimes Ruffy let him
" come too," when he spent twopence and went
down by tram to the Quay to wander about among
the ships and wool stores. But oftenest there was
no twopence forthcoming, and consequently no
chance for Loi to travel as if '' under five." At
those times Ruffy walked the miles that lay between,
and uèed to come back tired and gloomy in the
extreme.
There was nothing therefore for Loi to do on the
seventh day but roam about the house and make
plans for all the morrows that lay between Sunday
and Sunday. He had far too wholesome a fear of
Roger to allow his own special " push " in the
vicinity of the back yard ; even Jimmie Smith was
only admitted by stealth over the fence for a brief
fight or consultation when Roger was working out
a stiff chess problem or lying asleep on the
sofa.
Eliza never came on Sundays, which made the
day still more of a wilderness.
It would have been ten shillings a week instead
of eight if she had come on the seventh day, so
Clem made the pudding and cooked the meat that
day, and together with Phü washed up after
dinner.
Roger was smoking in the drawing-room and
looking over a pile of bills when Freda arrived with
the note ; he had a faded University blcizer on, and
his feet were encased in evening pumps that had
lost nearly all their patent leather. There were lines
on his young face that were hardly due for ten more
92 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
years ; his attitude was one of sheer mental and
bodily fatigue.
But when he saw Freda's frock and parasol in
the doorway he started up eagerly ; his eyes looked
instantly beyond her for a large hat and a face of
sweet colouring.
" I've only brought a note," Freda, said -swift to
relieve expectation.
He shook hands with her and looked to her
pocket anxiously.
" Linley said I was to wait for an answer," she
said, her hand groping about in her handkerchief
receptacle ; " she said I—I "—pink mounted to her
brow—" I— " she pulled out a httle square of hem¬
stitched cambric and shook it—*' I " she began
to look about the floor, her face fuU of surprised
distress.
" You haven't lost it, have you ? " said poor
Roger, deepest disappointment taking the place of
the eagerness on his face ; Sunday was a day of
dulness and flatness to him, too, and this sudden
rainbow seemed dissolving ere it formed. " Feel'
again," he said ; " turn it inside out, Freda."
Freda turned it inside out and showed its woeful
emptiness. She was on the verge of tears.
" I had it at the top of the road, I felt for it," she
said. " Oh, I don't loiow how I could have dropped
it 1 Oh» I am sorry 1 Why, I remember feeling it, just
at the gate." She shook her handkerchief again and
searched the floor and hall in keen distress.
" Feel in yotir other pockets," Roger said anxiously.
He forgot the inferiority of the sex.
*' I only have this one," Freda returned mournfully.
" rU go up the road and look," volunteered Ruffy.
" Was it in an envelope ? You look about the gar¬
den, Roge."
93
Loi, standing near the door, had something to
say.
" I shouldn't be s'prised if it was in the fireplace,"
he said, with hands deep in his pocket, his eyes
thoughtful. " Lots of things get into that fireplace
that you wouldn't 'spect."
Roger passed impatiently over the speech and
went out into the garden ; he never attached any
value to the utterances of imder seven. But Ruffy,
having a more intimate acquaintance with the young
man, thought it worth while to raise the bent old
cardboard-screen.
Freda darted forward with a glad cry that brought
Roger hurrying back in time to receive the pale grey
twisted note from a month-old heap of ashes.
He was too glad to handle it to think of how it
got there, and went away to read it in privacy.
But Freda was speechless with surprise ; she
seemed to think necromancy had been at work.
" Why, I never crossed the room," she said. " I
wasn't anywhere near the fireplace. It's the
strangest thing I ever heard of."
" Spirits, of course," said Phil, whom the voices
had brought from the kitchen, '* and ' Deadwood
Dick.' "
But Rufíy was pommelling Loi, and eliciting
squeaks of pleasure and pain.
He called him an Artful Dodger and a premature
Fagin, but "Freda's literature was entirely confined
to young ladyish books, and she was still at sea.
" Why doesn't she have a pocket that it wouldn't
stick out of ? " demanded the pommelled one in
gasps. It really seemed too much to expect him to
withstand temptation on a duU, do-nothing day like
this.
Roger came back with his answering note to say
94 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
he would be with Robert at half-past two ; there was
a look of rehef in his eyes and his shoulders were
squarer. He felt twice the man he had done imder
Linley's restriction. He had a pin in his hand.
" I'll just fasten this note to your dress, Freda, if
you don't mind," he said.
But Freda was able to look indignant.
" I didn't lose it at all," she said.
He suggested that she should carry it in her
hand then. Ruffy thought her hat-crown would be
a good place. Phil advised sticking it in one of her
boots—" if there's room " ; this with a somewhat
scornful glance at them.
She put it in her pocket again, despite Roger's
anxious, following eyes.
Ruffy and Phil escorted her to the gate.
" What a pity you have to go," said Phil.
She sighed deeply, and lingered as if very httle
pressing would be needful to keep her.
" When are you coming round again ? " Ruffy
said, opening the gate for her with a politeness one
would not have given him credit for.
There was no hesitation about Freda's answer.
" This afternoon ? " she said eagerly ; " how
would that do ? Marcia's going out ; I've nothing
at all to do."
** I was thinking of going down to the Quay this
afternoon," Rufíy said.
But his lack of enthusiasm did not daxmt
her.
" Couldn't you go another time ? " she said
persuasively. " Oh, make him, Phil. Don't be
horrid, Ruffy ; I'd love to come."
He gave in a trifle unwillingly.
*' I didn't want to miss the Australia," he said ;
" she goes out to-morrow. But of course there
SUNDAY MORNING 95
might be time after. What time should you be
going ? "
*' About four," Freda answered, " or five."
" All right ; you may as well come," he said.
So she went home happy.
»
«
CHAPTER XJI
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
IT was afternoon, and Robert was in the library
He had put on the frock-coat he kept especi¬
ally for funerals and Government House garden-
parties. His hair was very smooth.
He took his seat in the massTve revolving chair at
the table and told himself his nervousness was sheer
fatuity.
Two or three times he looked at his watch, and
drew a breath of reUef to find the hands were some
little distance still from the half-past. Freda, not
being yet in her teens, it was an entirely unre¬
hearsed part he was about to play, and he was not
certain if he should be able to remember all his
cues.
Despite all he had said to Linley about love, and
despite his dishke to the heavy father of the foot-
hghts, after anxious considération he decided there
was mo other part he could play. He co;ild hardly
wring the hand of this penniless suitor of Linley's,
and teU him how delighted he was to hear he wanted
her. He felt the dignity of his young sister-in-law
demanded a certain degree of reluctance and harsh
speaking, and he was trying to prepare himself with
sentiments proper to the occasion.
In the first drawer at his right hand was a yellow¬
back of Marcia's that he had carefully himted for,
96
SUNDAY AFTERNOON 97
having remembered once reading in it an account
of an interview of the same kind as the one im¬
pending.
The case of the fictitious yoimg people was some¬
what similar, the lover was poor, the girl had been
accustomed to a home of luxury.
But instead of a nervous and warm-hearted
brother-in-law for guardian, there was a pompous
old father with fierce whiskers and a fiery temper.
Still, Robert felt it was a fair enough study to
work from, as the old gentleman really idol¬
ized his daughter, and truly wanted her to be
happy.
But he rejected much of the bombardment given,
—it was so fierce and unceasing, he felt a sympathy
aU the time with the lover, because his position
would not allow him to retort. And he shrank
sensitively from the thought of putting the questions
the same old man asked with a brutal disregard for
feeUngs : *' What income have you ? What do you
propose to keep my daughter on ? I suppose you
have the hardihood to expect that I am going to
help you ? "
" I'm afraid I shall have to ask his income,"
Robert muttered, staring unhappily at this part,
and trying to commit the first sentence or two to
memory—the last he passed by altogether.
'* Love in a cottage," sneered the old man ; " that's
what you're billing and cooing about, I suppose. I
wish the devil would fly away with every cottage in
the world ; they pervert the thoughts, and ruin the
fives of thousands of young men and women who
would otherwise five useful fives."
Robert looked a trifle shamefaced : he remembered
when he had had typhoid fever, and Marcia had
been a little gentler and tenderer to him, he had
o
98 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
often soothed feverish days and weary nights by
dreaming of being very poor (but a foot taller), and
living in a tiny cottage with Marcia whose heart was
aU his. The dream-cottage was dearer to him than
all the beautiful houses he owned. Before he had
decided more than this on his line of conduct the
door-bell rang.
He slipped the book back into the drawer, covered
it over with papers and turned the key. Then he
leaned back in his chair and began to read, upside
down, the first book at hand—one Freda had tossed
down. Its title was Little Beginnings ; or. How
Florry Helped.
But three or four minutes passed and no one was
ushered in to him. When the fifth began to tick
away he got up, opened the door and put his head
cautiously out. The drawing-room door was straight
opposite, and a teU-tale mirror on the far wall showed
a blue serge arm round a white muslin waist ; so he
hurried back to his chair and book.
He read a paragraph or two without making a
word of sense of it.
" ' I would rather stay and help my dear mother to
tidy the house than come out and play,' said httle
Florry Brown, one bright morning in spring to a
group of children who were waiting for her to join
them."
Before he began the next speech Linley was in
the room.
" Mr. Carruthers to see you, Robert," she said,
and there was the fight of mischief in her eyes ;
" don't be too hard on him. He's in the haU. May
he come in ? "
" Certainly," Robert said, and gave a swift, appre¬
hensive glance at the door. '* I am quite ready for
him."
SUNDAY AFTERNOON 99
So Roger came across the room and linley
withdrew.
" Be seated," said Robert stiffly, and motioning
to a vacant chair. He had restrained the impulse to
shake hands, and even tried not to think what an
earnest, manly young fellow he looked.
There was half a second's silence while Roger
took the chair.
" He's waiting for me to start," thought Robert,
and rushed into the breach.
" What is this absurd story ? " he said, carefully
putting *the paper-cutter in How Florry Helped.
" What have you to say for yourself ? " He hoped
he was not speaking agitatedly.
Roger answered simply and courteously that he
loved Linley, and had, with her approval, come to
him as her nearest male friend, to ask his sanction
for the engagement.
" It is a piece of impertinence for a man without
money to think of being married," quoted Robert,
feeling pleasurably surprised at the stem note in
his voice.
" You would not confine marriage to the few who
have been fortunate enough to have money left to
them, would you ? " said Roger quietly.
" No," Robert answered. " Certainly not, but
" he opened and closed Florry and racked
his brains vainly for a proper retort.
" Look here," he said, " love in a cottage is an
exploded theory. The idea of the possibility of it
has been the ruin of numbers of yoimg men and
girls who would otherwise have lived good, useful
fives."
Roger, imaware this was a quotation, told himself
that Linley had over-rated her brother-in-law's
common sense. But he answered patiently.
100 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" I am not asking Linley to marry me yet," he
said. " It wül be some time, I am afraid, before
my income is large enough for that, for my own ideas
reject the cottage notion. But since we love each
other and are content to wait, and since, as I wül
show you, my prospects are distinctly good, have
you any objection to raise to the engagement ? "
" Most certairüy—any number," Robert said,
wanning to his part. " I disapprove of long engage¬
ments. Liiüey can do much better for herself. Let
me hear no more of this."
He picked up Florry and began to read as if
he had dismissed the subject.
" I must ask you to hsten to me," Roger said, the
look of battle in his eyes that the crisis of a forensic
contest brought. Robert's maimer was more war¬
like and unpleasant than he dreamed. " I must
certainly request that you wül hsten to me, Mr.
Barrett. Linley is of age éind knows her own mind ;
she evidently does not desire to do better for herself
as you call it, or she would not have allowed me to
come to you. The long engagement is surely a
matter for our own consideration."
Robert was nearly at the end of his resources.
He could not think of another objection to
make.
" Look here," he said, as unpleasantly as he
could, " I'U have to think this over. Don't imagine
I'm going to be brow-beaten into giving my consent.
I'U think over what you've said and you can come
back in half an hour. You can wait in the drawing-
room."
Roger felt strongly inclined to remind him he was
not Linley's father, and that asking his consent was
a mere matter of formal courtesy.
But he thought better of it, bowed in süence, and
SUNDAY AFTERNOON loi
went out into the hall, and through to the drawing-
room again.
Linley sprang up from the sofa with laughing
eyes.
" Well," she said, " did you draw the dragon's
teeth or did you slay him ? "
" More nearly the latter," he answered, smiling
grimly.
" Isn't he a dear fellow ? Weren't you agreeably
surprised ? " she asked, knowing he had gone into
the room prepared for a tyrant of the first
water.
" N—no ; I can't say I was," he said ; " he
certainly laid about him pretty well for a man of
his size."
" Why," cried Linley, " he's the mildest man
ahve."
" I've met milder," Roger said, and smiled ruefully.
He gave her a verbatim account of the interview,
and her eyes grew wider and rounder at each of
Robert's speeches.
" What can you have done to him ? " she said
wonderingly. " There must be something very
wrong. Wait here while I go to him."
** I really think you had better not," Roger said
a Uttle anxiously ; he was quite impressed with the
manners of this domestic tyrant. " Give him his
half-hom to think it over ; he may be more reason¬
able when he's cooler."
Linley could not help laughing.
" I never heard anything so absurd," she said,
going to the door.
Robert was smoking comfortably in his loimge-
chair ; he looked very peaceable and insignificant.
" I wonder you can look me in the face," she
said, sitting down on the arm of the chair.
102 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
He brought his feet down and his body into
sitting position.
" My dear Linley," he said, " you don't under«
stand these things. Girls never do. Besides, I
haven't sent him away. I'm thinking it over^" He
filled up his pipe and felt for matches.
Linley gave a httle bubbling laugh.
" How long do you think your worshipful Czar-
ship will be setthng our fate ? " she said.
" He can come back in twenty more minutes," he
answered. " I am certainly not going to rush out
before and implore him to take you."
Linley laughed and laughed till the faintest
answering smile appeared in the vicinity of his
pipe.
*' Oh, you wily person, you MachiaveUi among
guardians ! " she said. " I certainly had no idea I
was sending Roger in to private theatricals."
" Look here, Lin," he said anxiously and throw¬
ing away pretences, " don't you go and tell him. I
really had to do it, old woman. It woiddn't have
looked well for you if I hadn't hung back a bit. I
didn't say very much. I haven't hurt his feelings,
have I ? "
*' Hurt his feelings ! You've ploughed and har¬
rowed them till the remains would defy identifi¬
cation," she said. " Really, he's smarting all over."
Robert looked quite distressed.
" Send him in at once, then," he said. *' I—I've
thought it over enough. Now don't you be a httle
sneak and give me away, Lin, or I'll shoot the next
young man on sight."
But she did, shamelessly.
Roger went back to the hbrary amused and
touched by the real kindhness of the man, but with
a face as grave as a judge. Robert met him half-
SUNDAY AFTERNOON 103
way across the floor with his hand outstretched.
*' I've been thinking it over," he said, with great
warmth in his handshake, voice and eyes. " After
all, Linley's happiness is the flrst consideration.
And riches are not everything. You have my
fullest consent and approval and most hearty wishes
for your happiness."
*' I thank you with all my heart," Roger said, and
looked as if he meant it.
Linley put her head in the door.
" Is the duel over ? " she said.
Robert's face was ashine with good-wUl.
** Shall we have a party and tell every one, Lin¬
ley ? " he said.
" Oh no,"* Linley said, " oh no, I don't want
that."
And Robert's face lost half its gladness.
I
CHAPTER XIII
CANVASES
" Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms 1 Rub
all out, try at it a second time I "
" ''T^HE Flight of Little Souls " stood on the
JL largest easel in the studio and in the best
light. It was a curiously unequal picture.
People looking at it for the first time felt gener¬
ally oddly inclined to laugh ; but there had been
one or two—women chiefly—who had moved away
from it with wet eyes. It showed a comer in a
cemetery with httle narrow graves.
By one a woman stood, a woman in a rich scarlet
dress and picture hat, a woman with reckless lips
and passionately grieving, affrighted eyes. The
short grave at her feet looked trodden almost flat,
grass and weeds grew thickly. Beyond was another
woman in poor black clothes with a miserable httle
bimdle of a baby in her arms. She was looking
beyond the grave she knelt by to the same spot
that held the other woman's eyes. Linley meant
her expression to be one of glad content, great
yearning and patience ; but something was wrong
with the mouth and she only looked sentimentad.
On another grave sat a wreck of a man with a
sottish face and small eyes that looked forward
and ghmmered with struggling light. His fingers
were buried in the red, fresh-tumed earth.
104
CANVASES
105
The three faces looked towards the centre of the
picture, and here Linley's brush had worked almost
without fault. There were some three or four httle
child-figures with wide, sweet eyes and floating hair.
They were holding hands, and their faces were
laughing, joyous, utterly happy, as they looked
upwards to the inevitable angel that with wide,
woolly wings was poised somewhat uncomfortably
between two clouds.
The whole charm of the picture lay in the chil¬
dren—the little figures in their clinging night¬
gowns, the small, bare, rosy feet just escaping the
dull ground, the wide, wondering eyes, the httle
rosebud mouths broken open with sweet laughter,
the little stretching hands, the brown and gold
glory of loosened curls.
It was the same with all the canvases in the
room. linley could paint children ; she caught
them on her canvas somehow with a flash and
quick flutter of brushes, and they laughed out at
you, or were thoughtful with young, sweet gravity,
looked angel-hke, mischievous, penitent, loving—
true children, truly painted.
And some of her httle sketches had a certain
grace of their own, a sunset bit, a clump of dafíodüs,
a sea-wet beach and evening sea in water-colours.
But the great ambitious canvases were laughable.
" Porph5rria's Lover " had its face turned wall-
ward as a rule. The man had maniacal-looking
eyes and the girl had yellow hair, but they sat side
by side on the sofa with the stiflaiess of a young
couple within four feet of the camera. Only the
lover's head was drooped on Porphyria's shoulder
in a way that was half sentimental and half sugges¬
tive of stiS neck.
St. Simeon Stylites in black and white looked
io6 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
like one of Hop's cartoons of Sir Henry Parkes.
Yet what labour the girl had bestowed upon him,
what futile tears she had wept because he " wouldn't
come right ! "
That square canvas on the window wall—^how
thin she had grown over it, how desperately she
had worked and thought for it 1 A great sea roUed
at the foot of a hül ; down the slope a woman in
flowing robes was hurrying, a child in her arms.
But so entirely had the picture fallen short of the
conception, that Linley had made sarcastic footnotes
herself to answer to the tiny letters dotted about.
A., said the explanation, was Ino, fleeing from
Mehcerta, after the murder of Learchus by Athamas.
B. was the sea in which she would presently throw
herself. C. was the expression of fear in her eyes,
called up by the fit of madne^. D. was the look
of secure unconsciousness on the child's face.
Roger laughed out at the notes, not that they
were uimecessary, however. He was in Linley's
studio for the first time, and was being introduced
to the pictures.
Robert had invited him ; he said he should be glad
if he would have afternoon tea in the studio with
Linley and Freda every Sunday. He would have
added dinner two or three times a week and per¬
petually open doors, only Marcia objected, and he
felt she ought to be mistress in her own house.
But Roger was grateful exceedingly for the after¬
noon tea, and bowed cheerfully to the commanding
presence in the Paris gown he met on the staircase
when going up. He felt too happy at being able
to visit Linley in her own home to be frozen by the
almost imperceptible bend of the dark-crowned
head.
Linley's cheeks were pink with the excitement of
CANVASES
107
at last showing Roger her work. She had a brown
velveteen dress on that matched her eyes and lent
exceeding softness and delicacy to her skin. Her
hair was a little rough and curly. Roger told
himself he had never seen her look so beautiful.
She showed him ever3rthing with almost child-like
eagerness. She had done this in New Zealand,
that was a girl's head she had sketched up the
mountains, the eyes were abominably done,—had
he ever seen that little bit of Manly ? Of course he
remembered that tree up the Hawkesbury ?
*' I like this," Roger said.
It was a child hiding behind a great vase, grasp¬
ing its little petticoats tightly for efíacement, and
peeping out with fun-lit eyes for its seekers.
" Pooh ! " said Linley, not giving it a glance.
She turned Porphyria from the wall.
" I wonder can you see what I meant in this,
Roger," she said anxiously. " I know it's a failure,
but can you see any points of redemption ? "
Frankly Roger could not, unless it was the sofa.
He smiled at the attitude ; besides, the Porphyria
of his thoughts had a smiling httle rosy head ; this
was merely pink, white and simpering.
** I never think of that man as mad, you know,
Linley," he said, a trifle apologetically.
Linley's hope had been he would find the lover's
eyes good.
" Don't put me off, Roger," she said impatiently.
" That's no answer. Has the thing any good
parts ? "
Roger looked again, looked hard ; nowhere could
he find them. He was afraid it would be useless
to mention the sofa.
" I'm afraid not, dear," he said. " I think you've
got a wrong idea of the thing."
io8 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Linley's palette-knife made two swift slits ; one
severed the lover's head, one cut through Porphyria's
httle gay slipper with the mud wet on it. She had
meant to do it for some time, unless some one found
those eyes good enough to save it. But the doing
was none the less vexatious. Roger caught her
hand.
" You're not vexed, Linley ? Oughtn't I to have
said it, dear ? "
The palette-knife had some ochre on it. She had
to take her hand away to wipe off the stain.
" Of coturse I'm not vexed," she said.
He looked troubled, and somewhat at sea.
" It seems a pity to have destroyed it, httle girl."
*' Not since it's hopelessly bad," she said, a little
shortly.
" There was the sofa," he began.
But she drew his attention to the daffodils.
" Perhaps you hke flowers," she said.
He foimd one face in half a dozen rough sketches
—Loi as a choir boy in a cathedral comer, Loi as
a chemb. Loi in the *' Guardian Angel " as " that
child
" Dear and great Angel, would'st thou only leave
That child when thou hast done with him, for me I "
Loi grown younger, sweeter—almost a baby again,
all th# sharp look gone—^just the small face Roger
remembered asleep, evening after evening, on his
mother's arm. Painted to lines from Protus this
time,—
" One loves a baby-face with violets there,
Violets instead of laurels in the hair.
As those were adl the little locks could bear."
" Why not paint the little beggar as he is, for
a change ? " he said. " Playing marbles, or up to
CANVASES
log
some mischief ? He's far more of the larrikin type
than the angel, you know, Linley."
Linley objected that the more mischievous Loi
felt, the more angelic he looked.
** Every one would say it was imnatural," she
said.
She showed him " The Flight of Little Souls "
last of all. It was her great reserve, and there
was anxiety clearly written on her face for his
opinion.
Roger knew no art jargon at all. Fore-shortening,
flat-tints, half-tones, were all so many words to
him. But he had eyes, intelligence and education,
that made him a fair critic, if an " outsider."
He looked at the great canvas with troubled
eyes, and the vexed curves at Linley's mouth
deepened.
" You don't Uke it ? " she said. " You needn't
be afraid to say so. I've got past the point of
bleeding at every adverse word. Just say what
you think."
Her speech was a little hurried. She had not
got past smarting-point yet.
He went back a step or two for better effect,
drawing her with him, his arm around her waist.
But she stood uncompromisingly erect, staring at
her work—she did not even notice his arm was
there. He felt he could have judged better if she
had leaned against him a little, or even rested her
hand on his sleeve.
" Do say something," she said.
He fo\md himself wondering whether there could
ever be circumstances under which he could forget
her personality.
" I wish you were not quite so ambitious, httle
girl," he said slowly.
no THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
She would have stood still more erect if it had
been possible.
" That's not saying anything," she said, " It's
only to gain time. Roger Carruthers, if ever I
suspect you of humoming me there'll be civil war
between us, so beware."
The words were nothing, it was the want of
warmth and sympathy in the tone and eyes that
hurt him. He was always being hurt lately, it
seemed, and was always telling himself it was sheer
morbidness that let him feel things as he did. But
where this brown-haired careless young thing was
concerned he was more sensitive than any woman.
" I've too much respect for your head," he an¬
swered ; *' never fear that. I think you've attemp¬
ted too much, that's all. Couldn't you have left the
woman out—and the man ? And aren't angels a
bit played out, Linley ? "
Linley looked at him with parted lips.
" Why, there would be nothing left in the picture
but the children ! " she said, aghast at his Phihs-
tinism.
" Well," he said, " I'm sure they're good enough
by themselves. Couldn't you paint aU the rest out
and leave the httle figures as they are ? They're
really very good, Linley, very good indeed. I don't
think I ever saw anything better. I suppose the
others' could be painted out, eh ? "
If he had suggested that she should with a knife
remove her mouth, nose and ears as her eyes would
show to better effect, Linley could not have been
more horrified and indignant. As he continued the
indignation changed to scorn. But when she re¬
membered this was her lover whom she loved she
swept the scorn hastily away and substituted a
species of pity.
CANVASES
III
" Of course he's too busy to go in for Art, poor
boy," she said to herself ; " it's unreasonable of
me.
" We'll talk of it another time," she answered, with
a woman's one-sidedness as to just cause for civil
war. " I am so thirsty Roger ; how many cups can
you drink ? The beU at the fireplace, please."
He pressed it half abstractedly and returned to the
picture, but Lrnley was clearing knick-knackeries off
a table in the cosy comer.
" I can't expect our tastes to be all the same,"
she said to herself ; "of course we must be content
to take difíerent paths in many things."
And so came the woimding of love. He went to
help her move the things, watching her anxiously,
tenderly the while.
" Mind that photo," she said. He was laying
down one of an author of a year's London celebrity
with the same carelessness which he extended to a
smiling midshipman and a frowning artist with long
hair.
" Genuine autograph ? oh no 1 Would it were.
I only cut the leaf out of Human Intricacies—his
last, you know. Lay him down tenderly, please,
on his back ; he's the very latest of my gods, you
must know. Don't you think he has a very fine
face ? "
Roger couldn't see it.
" Too funereal for my taste," he said ; " looks as
if his ink had got into his eyes and trickled round
his face. Make a good enough mute."
Linley picked up the slighted one.
" You wretched, boy ! " she said. " Why, he has
the face of the Archangel Michael, only he's dark.
Look at his brow, Roger."
Roger laughed.
112 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" Forehead, Linley, as you love me. Isn't he a
bit hke your little-girl ideal man ? When you were
seventeen, you know, and had ideals ? "
Linley smiled.
" I believe he is a little. He was as dark as
midnight, you know, and had very big eyes, proud
yet sad."
" I know the kind," Roger said ; " nearer seven
feet than six, soldierly carriage, bell-topper and frock-
coat, heavy moustache, slight whiskers, and short
pointed beard."
" Not the beard, I think," she returned thought¬
fully, " and I'm sure not the whiskers,"—she
touched the clean-shaven boyish face beside her
a httle tenderly. " The moustache certainly, droop¬
ing, though, not waxed."
" And the bell-topper ? "
" Ye-e-es—at least, I suppose so. Not that he
ever wore a hat when I materialized him, but if he
had it certainly coxild not have been a straw. I
don't know, though, that he mightn't have worn a
soft felt with the brim tmned up, artist-wise."
" And this fellow Thurston's like him ? "
** Somewhat."
" And coming to Australia to study us through an
eyeglass for his next book ? On the way, isn't he ?
On my soul, Linley, I'U have to marry you out of
hand. I daren't risk your being imattached while
he's at large."
She rubbed her cheek against the sleeve of his
coat with a little loving laugh.
*' I'd certainly advise you to," she said.
He was happy again instantly, for the movement
was spontaneous and her eyes full of softness.
"When are you going to begin to love me,
Linley ?" he said tenderly.
CANVASES
113
She moved closer to him, she slipped her hand
round his neck ; there was shame in her heart for
her impatient thoughts of a few minutes back. But
she did not speak, only leaned there with her head
on his shoulder while he kissed the little brown
curls and wavy roughness. Love had dominion in
her heart again ; she thrust out art and ambition
with hasty hand, and swept the chamber clean for
royalty.
An hour or two slipped away, white and beautiful,
meet foj; a place in the wreath where they put the
perfect hours whose freshness fades not.
Then Roger told something that made a little
canker-worm for him at times.
" I know it's wrong," he said, *' I know I ought
to be ashamed of myself. But, on my Ufe, my
darling, I can't help it. I am jealous of your
work."
It certainly was a surprise to Linley. She had
liked to think of him as pleased with it, interested
in it—but jealous !
Argument came to her.
" Why, I would never dream of being jealous of
your work, Roger," she said, " and you are very
wrapped up in that."
" It's different," he said, " quite different, Linley.
I'm wrapped up in it because it is the only means to
you. Every brief and bit of success brings me a
step nearer. I go on'working with you before my
eyes the whole time. But you "
" I ? " she said softly.
" Oh," he said, " you paint and paint and paint
away and Uve in a world of your own, tül I don't
beUeve you remember always I exist. At any rate,
I am only a factor in .your Ufe, while you are the
whole sum of mine. Your paint-brush is my rival,
u
114 the little, larrikin
Linley, and I can't help my j ealousy. Can you deny
that when you are busy you sometimes don't give
me a thought for hours and hours ? "
But Linley was spared an answer by the entrance
of Freda and a maid with the long delayed tea-tray,
and after they had all had two cups of tea each and
several pieces of cake, and Freda had wrapped up
the prettiest piece for Loi, Roger had himself well in
hand again.
For the rest of the afternoon he talked art and
looked at all the pictures again, and made jokes
with Freda, and asked her when Balcombe Street
was going to see her again.
At half-past five he stood up to go, and Linley
and Freda escorted him down the wide staircase
and through the deserted hall.
Most of the way Freda was bidding him not to
forget to give to Ruffy the copy of Little Lord
Fauntleroy, which she was lending to him.
" It's the sweetest book," she said ; " I'm sure he'U
love it."
But she shook hands and retired before they
reached the front door.
*' That naughty little kitten wiU be getting to the
cream-jug," she said.
She went back to the studio, and shut the door
very fast.
** I wonder wiU he give her one kiss or two," she
said. " I wonder will she kiss him. I wonder will
she go very red."
" Tell me you love me," Roger said, aU his heart in
his eyes at the last moment. He had wanted her to
say so imasked, but there was not time to wait now.
" I love you better than all the world, better a
thousand times," she whispered.
And meant it—then.
CHAPTER XIV
WASHING UP IN BALCOMBE STREET
0(5k here," Phil said, '* it's nearly three ;
that water wül be stone cold."
He had called this remark from the verandah
with more or less remonstrance in his voice half a
dozen times. In the intervals he returned to A
First Fleet Family. Rufíy was lying on.the patch
of ragged grass at the side of the house.
He had the blues too badly even to dig.
A month;^ago the results of the Senior Examination
at the University had been pubhshed ; he had
worked for it all the year and his name had been
conspicuously absent.
Roger had sighed and tossed the list down, after
searching it : it seemed the last straw to have to
keep the great lad at school another year, and yet
what chance of a position did he stand without any
kind of qualification ?
" You must have loafed abominably, Clem," he
said with natural irritation.
The failure had in it almost the bitterness of
death for poor Clem. How he had worked 1 Night
after night he had sat grinding away at his books
when all the house was asleep. Quite twice a week
a brightening dawn was in the sky before he flung
oimself on his bed and snatched a few hours* sleep
115
ii6 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
before school. The truth was he had over-worked
himself, over-shot the mark.
He was a great, growing lad, so great that no one
felt it necessary to look after him and see that he
had the nourishment such a frame required. His
long tramps overtaxed his strength, his midnight
vigils slowed his brain. Small wonder he was
plucked.
He never gave a word of excuse to Roger when
accused of " loafing " ; instead, he reproached him¬
self fiercely and wondered why he had not worked
harder.
He attached far more importance to it and thought
of it far longer than any one in the house.
" You'll have to go with fewer clothes, that's all,"
Roger had said shortly. " You had better have
another try for the certificate—I'll raise funds for
another year, but after that, Clem, you'll have to
shift for yourself. I can't keep it up ; there'll be
school fees for Loi soon."
And he thought the boy sullen because he had
turned away without a word and begun to dig in
the garden.
This afternoon there was the Scime old brooding
thought in Clem's mind as he lay flat on his back,
kicking monotonously at the ground with his burst
boots, and looking moodily at the blue, smiling
sky.
This quarter's five guineas was already paid,
so he was taking advantage of it, but afterwards,
he resolved, nothing on earth should make him still
a burden on Roger.
" You great idle lout 1 " he muttered fiercely, and
rolled over on his side.
Another remonstrance came from the verandah.
" We shall have yoxmg Freda here, and all the
WASHING UP IN BALCOMBE STREET 117
dishes about—do come on, Clem." Phil had closed
his book and put it manfully into his pocket.
Rufíy gathered himself up.
" Come on," he said.
Less than five minutes after, Freda, in a new pale-
pink frock and hat with fringed silk trimmings,
knocked at the door. Loi and Jimmie Smith
answered it ; they were holding high revel with
water-melon and a tin of sardines in the drawing-
room, for it was Sunday afternoon, and Roger had
been carefuUy watched into a gate in Boyd's Road.
" He was such an awful toff I'm sure he'll stay an
hour," Loi said through the back fence to the ever-
hovering Jimmie. And as Martin was out and the
other boys washing up, they estabUshed themselves
in the drawing-room with the only things the pantry
pelded.
" Where's Ruffy ? " Freda said, putting down her
little frilled parasol, and stooping to kiss the little
larrikin.
But he moved away behind Jimmie.
" You're not my girl," he said. " Marcia is. You
can kiss him, though, if you want to." He gave
Jimmie a push forward.
But Freda could not take aU little larrikins to her
heart.
" Where's Ruffy ? " she repeated.
Jimmie Smith thus shghted returned to the water¬
melon, and Loi was distrustful of his probity,
vmwatched.
*' Down here—come along," he said.
He took her down the hall as far as the
lobby.
" That's the kitchen," he said, pointing to a half-
closed door.
Then he posted back to Jimmie and the melon.
ii8 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
There was a great clatter of dishes and a splashing
sound of water.
When Rufíy washed up, he hked to pile every
dirty article helter-skelter in the bowl, throw in
a piece of soap, and empty a kettle of boiling water
over everything. Then he worked the dishcloth
vigorously about on the end of a spoon, stirred it
into theC'x^ups, rubbed it over the plates, banged
the silver and knives briskly about for a moment,
and then turned everything out on the tray to drip.
He seldom broke more than two articles at one
operation.
Phil possessed more capacity for detail and had
a method of his own. He always washed tumblers
before grease-caked plates, and he had a tidy habit
of scraping the bits ofí the dishes instead of allowing
them to float in the water as Ruffy did. He hked
to put the silver and knives into a separate bowl,
pour over them boiling water, and let them stand
and soak. He invariably upbraided the cutlery
manufacturers when the knife-handles came off or
waxed yeUow.
*' Shoot the bits into that pie-dish ; they make, the
water so abominably greasy," he said, for Ruffy
was starting on his own royal plan. " Here, you dry
to-day and I'll wash."
" May I come in ? " said Freda's timid voice, the
other side of the door.
Phü pulled it open.
" You / " he said.
Ruffy flung down his tea-cloth.
" What on earth did you come out here for ? "
he demanded.
" Loi brought me. Oh, don't be vexed," she said
entreatingly. " Let me help you wash up. Oh, do ;
I'd love to."
WASHING UP IN BALCOMBE STREET 119
But they both laughed her to scorn.
" In that dress ? " Phil cried.
*' With those gloves ? " said Rufíy.
" I could tie an apron on," she said, looking
deprecatingly at its daintiness.
" I see us letting you," remarked Rufíy. " Go and
sit in the drawing-room and keep clean ; we won't
be long."
" Oh, she may as well sit there," Phil objected,
indicating a big broken-springed armchair near the
fireplace; " we shouldn't splash her much."
But a sense of the eternal fitness of things was
just being bom in his brother's soul. He strode
into the dining-room, pulled off the red table¬
cloth there, and, returning, draped it over the old
chair.
" You can stay now if you like," he said diflB-
dently. He tossed the towel to Phil, " I'U wash,"
he said ; " I get through quicker than you,"
Freda examined the kitchen with interest, and
requested to be told the use of several of the con¬
trivances she saw about. One over the gas, for
instance—a piece of hoop-iron, bent hook-wise and
suspended from the ceiling by a string, Rufíy
explained the handiness of it and the ease with
which cocoa could be boiled in a biUy hung from
it when the fire was out.
" But wouldn't it be easier with one of those little
gas stoves ? " she said wonderingly, " There's a
place on them to set a saucepan down,"
She blushed painfully when Ruffy answered with
a laugh that there was no tax on hoop-iron ; she
seemed to be always making these, to her, distress¬
ing blunders.
" This is nothing hke as ingenious as Martin's
gas upstairs," Phil said, " He's a great fellow for
120 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
reading in bed, and the gas is at the other end of
the room—wash both sides of the plates, Clem,
there's mustard aU over this one."
" Wipe it ofí with the towel then ; it's wet."
" It makes it in such a mess."
" Give's hold, then ; what an old maid you are ! **
Phü dried it and added it to the clean stack on the
dresser. " So what d'ye think he did ? Fixed a
string round the gas tap with a couple of httle puUe}^,
and fastened it to his bed-head. All he's got to do
now when he's done reading is to give it a little
j erk. ' '
Freda thought the idea a brilliant one. The
opaque look of the tumblers, however, was troubling
her feminine soul.
" Do let me polish them," she said. " If you give
me a clean towel I'll make them look lovely."
Phil turned out the dresser-drawers and the table-
drawers m search of one ; they were filled full of old
rags, dirty cloths and rubbish. He ran upstairs amd
brought her down a clean bedroom towel from the
linen press and she fell to work eagerly. The talk
took a Socialistic turn ; Clem in his gloomy frame
of mind railed at wealth with the vigour of an Anar¬
chist.
" Don't you like rich people, Ruffy ? " said the
little girl, pausing in her pohshing. She wished she
had not put on her new frock and hat, and drooped
her towel over the former to make it less obtrusive.
Ruffy gave a low growl.
" I'd like to shoot the whole boiling of them," he
said.
Freda looked startled.
" What have they been doing ? " she asked.
" Don't be such a surly beggar," said Phil ; " you
might remember other people have corns, too."
WASHING UP IN BALCOMBE STREET 121
Ruffy rubbed a plate as hard as if his design was
to take the pattern ofí.
" She's only a child," he said ; *' I'm not talking
about children. It's no more her fault that she's
beastly rich than it's ours that we're beastly
poor,"
" Have your silkworms begun to spin yet ? "
asked Phil, changing the conversation with the bowl
of water he had forcibly taken from Rufíy. " I hope
you don't forget to feed them hke most girls. I've
got thirty-nine cocoons already."
Freda ânswered that she had only forgotten twice
and wouldn't again ; she had three spinning but no
silk worth mentioning. Then she looked anxiously
at Ruñy.
He needed no greater encouragement than a
listener. He had come to the saucepans now and
talked wildly as he scraped. His ideas were as
sweeping and extravagant as those of a Domain
orator out of work.
" There oughtn't to be such a thing as charity,"
he said ; " it is the wretchedest thing in the world.
There oughtn't to be a Boyd's Road and a Canning
Street ; it all ought to be Balcombe Street."
Freda looked round the kitchen doubtfully.
" Of course I don't mean this particular house and
howling wüdemess," he said ; " but the others are
aU decent enough places and the people are respect¬
ably comfortable. All the world ought to be respect¬
ably comfortable."
He waxed fiercer and fiercer.
" Why should half the race work like horses and
die hke unsatisfied dogs, so that the other half
can have carriages and culchaw ? " he said. " I
don't ask for luxuries, but every one ought to have
enough."
/
122 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
He was standing brandishing a frying-pan about
in his excitement, his great imdeveloped man's
figure clad in shabby trousers frayed at the hem,
and showing a piece of sock, and an old coat his
broad back had burst at the seams. His grey
flannel shirt displayed itself below his shrinking
coat-cuff, his collar was ragged and atrociously
ironed. Below it was the pink-silk knitted necktie
that he always wore on Sundays, and carefully
wrapped in tissue aU the rest of the week.
'* Look here," he said, and flung out one great
long arm ; " look at the size of that—look at me.
I'm a big, strong fellow, aren't I ? There's any
amount of work to be got out of me. But no one
will have it. I can't even get ten shillings a week
for it ; I can't even get eight.?'
It was the first reference he had made to the
heart-sickening tramps he had taken daily during the
last hohdays in search of work. But for the promise
he had made to his mother on her death-bed that
he would be guided by Roger tül he was eighteen,
he would have gone to sea long since, or even
worked on the roads.
*' It's the pettiness of this kind of poverty that
sticks in your throat so," he continued. He kept
spreading his wet dish-cloth out on a chair-back to
dry and then picking it up again in his agitation.
" At school there's football—I'd go hungry for a
week if it was any good just to play once a month.
But I have to say I don't play, because I can't
aSord the subscription to join, nor a jersey and
stockings. It's the same with cricket, everything.
When the fellows get up a subscription for a present
^r prizes I feel hke ramming my fist down their
throats because I have to say no."
Phil had felt this wretchedness equally, but in
WASHING UP IN BALCOMBE STREET 123
his composition there was an odd little vein of
philosophy.
" It's no.good grumbling," he said. *' You talk
of getting a chance. I mean to make one for myself
some day."
His warm eyes glowed.
But Clem flung restlessly up and down the
narrow space.
" I want it now," he said. " What's the good of
things to you when you're old and past enjoyment ?
Shall I want to go camping all over the place when
I'm forty, as desperately as I do now ? I want to
enjoy my hie while I'm yoimg. Smithers goes to
New Zealand, the Islands, anywhere he chooses
for his hohda3rs. We tramp three miles to the .
Quay to see a sail and some rigging, and three
miles' back because we haven't got a blessed tram-
ticket between us. Dickson asked me up to his
place for a week. D'ye think I'd make his mother
and sisters uncomfortable by stalking round in
clothes Uke these ! "
" Wouldn't Mr. Roger give you some money if
you asked ? " Freda said timidly.
" Roger ! " cried Rufíy. " Roger ! hear her,
Phil I Why, it's worse for him than the lot of us.
We're so many vampires sucking his blood—Martin
and I, Phil and Loi, the house and Ehza are all
tied round his neck. And the poor beggar d5dng
to be married all the time."
" Then why doesn't Mr. Martin help ? " Freda
demanded, fiUed with sorrow and admiration for
Roger.
*' Poor wretch, he's doing his best," Rufîy re¬
turned. " No galley-slave works harder. But he
has to pass his exam, before he can earn anything.
It's no good throwing up the only way in which he
124 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
can earn anything just when there's only a year left.
His turn 'U come."
Phil mopped the wet table all over with the dish¬
cloth Ruñy had dropped, and reared the battered
bowl up on end.
" Q)me on, I'm sick of this place," he said.
Freda stood up, not unthankfully, and Ruffy went
to wash his hands at the sink.
" Go and clear Loi out of the drawing-room, Phil,"
he said. '* I beheve he's got that young vagabond
Smith there."
Phil went. Freda took the opportunity to un¬
wrap a little parcel she had brought.
** It's only a Httle present for you, Ruffy. I made
it myself," she said deprecatingly. It was a little
red plush handkerchief-sachet, lined with pale green
silk. There was the [monogram C.C. badly em¬
broidered in one comer.
But Clem's soft, tmhappy eyes filled with quick
tears, the hard, bitter look faded instantly from his
boyish face.
Nothing could have done him so much good just
then ; its softness seemed to soothe his sore spirit,
its richness and beautiful colour in some way com¬
pensated for the lack of " carriages and culchaw."
The thought of some one other than Ehza sewing for
him was curious happiness.
When he had thanked her, gruffly, because of
something in his throat, he took it upstairs to his
room and laid it away in many papers in his old tin
trunk. He would not have taken a twenty-pound
note for it, despite his extremity.
It was a detail, of course, that he only had about
three handkerchiefs, two of which were generally in
the wash, and the third in his pocket.
CHAPTER XV
ALL IN A GARDEN FAIR
" A PINEAPPLE ice or a passion fruit ? " said
Xx Martin.
Marcia Morrice leaned back and looked exquisitely
thoughtful.
" Have the seeds been left in ? " she said.
He went to the table under the black pittosferum
on the lawn and brought a large pale-coloured ice
where the pink and yellow and orange seeds clung.
" I can easily take them out," he said.
Then as she demurred slightly at the trouble, he
added, " Let me," with as much earnestness as if
he had asked to be allowed to champion her cause
in some great issue.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and the Morrices'
great garden was as fuU as ever of Sydney's clever
ones.
When Mrs. Morrice first started these gatherings
of hers she determined that genius should be the
only sesame to them.
But Sydney's sterility led her to extend the con¬
cession to talent, and later to substitute the more
elastic word " brains " in the stipulation.
Then the supply exceeded the demand ; the harbour
city has as much of this to the square mile as any
in the world.
With women she frequently allowed beauty to
125
126 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
give card of entry, witting sorrowfully of the
relentless nature of compensation, and the exigent
holiday mood of her men.
In all the city there was no more popular house,
—or garden, to be exact. Long ago the number
of eager visitors had overflowed the limits of the
four walls and spread itself in knots and groups
and couples over the lawn, the paths, the stretch of
beautiful wild bush, fenced in but religiously kept
from the gardener's hands. Except when it was
wet or impossibly hot, the drawing-room and the
library, the great cool dining-room and httle odd
sitting-rooms, the hall and wide verandahs were
deserted.
Every one loved that garden with its face of flowers
turned to the sea, and its breath of salt, sharp air
and roses.
" There's room for all, and each may bring a
friend," it said, spreading out its paths and wide,
soft lawns in welcome, hfting its greenery to show
nooks of shade and quiet, spreading its treasures
of colour and sweetness out with laughing, reckless
prodigality.
It was a garden whose paths were trodden by the
feet of the children of light. Poets walked in it, the
muse in their hearts if unrecognized by the world ;
artists with pictures, not yet painted, burning in
their brain, men and women struggling to hang up
a weather-proof sign or two on the little beaten
track of Australian literatiure ; musicians making
unconscious chords of the waves that crashed below
on the beach.
The tea-tables stood under the trees where the
s^m fell through the least ; tea and cool drinks were
there, cakes, sandwiches and ices—nothing more
elaborate.
ALL IN A GARDEN FAIR 127
The men managed it, ums and all, for Mrs.
Morrice would not give her minister a handle against
her by keeping her servants running aU the long,
sweet afternoons ; she said he owed her a vote of
thanks, however, for keeping some forty or fifty
people, few of them of the church, churchy, from
more harmfully using the Sabbath afternoons.
These afternoons were at once the greatest happi¬
ness and misery of Martin's life.
A fellow medical student had taken him to the
place six jw^eeks ago, and Mrs. Morrice had welcomed
him so cordially, and made the time so pleasant for
him, that he had gone again the next Sunday with
great eagerness.
And the fates chose that he should be allotted to
find a cucumber sandwich for his hostess's sister-in-
law, Marcia Morrice. The name caught his atten¬
tion first, being the same as that of Linley's beautiful
sister ; the two Marcias were cousins, and the stately
little Roman name was a favourite one in the family.
Then the delicate purity of her face held his
glance, the sweet young eyes, the gentleness of her
smiling hps.
*' I never could educate myself up to caviare," she
said ; " if you could find me a cucumber one, Mr.
Carruthers ' '
While he sought diligently among the table-dishes
for it he told himself her voice was the sweetest in
the world.
By the time he had found green seed-centred
circles between the bread-and-butter layers, red
was on his brow. For there came rushing to him
the folhes and wrong-doings of his student life,
and he felt he was going back to talk and eat sand¬
wiches with an an '.
To-day, six wei later, he was picking out
I2S THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
passion-fruit seeds for her with all the pain of love
in his yoxmg eyes.
On the path where the sea-view was widest, and
great blood-coloured roses ran up riotously to strange
heights just to peep at it, Linley was walking with
Mr. Thurston. She could hardly remember enjoy¬
ing herself more. The London author was a tall,
spare man, somewhat saUow of face. Roger's inky
simile was not amiss, but there was a certain fire
of hie in the eyes and about the hps the p)ortrait had
not shown, and that took away any sinister effect.
The eyehds, somewhat heavy when drooped, gave
a faintly insolent look, but the raising of them
showed determination, thought, hmnom:—softness
occasionahy ; they had a compelling look. The air
of distinction he undoubtedly possessed owed itself
about equally to his eyes, inches, and the superfine
quahty of his tall hat.
He was graduaUy enrolling himself among the few
men who thought they fotmd beauty in linley's face.
On the talk veering roirnd to art he smiled, almost
benignly, when she confessed she painted.
His mind conjured up frying-pans, plaques, fiat-
irons with more gilt and ribbon than perspec¬
tive.
" And what is the last thing you have done ? "
he said.
Linley did not notice the encouraging tone of his
voice.
She answered seriously, wistfulness in her eyes.
" ' Porph5nia's Lover ' was the last, but it had a
stiff-necked look ; a medical student told me once
it made his fingers itch to set the collar-bone. So
I destroyed it. But I have hopes for a bit of
Endymion."
Faint interest showed itself in his eyes, he glanced
ALL IN A GARDEN FAIR X20
•/
at her brow, mouth, hands, for something he must
have missed.
" End5müon ? " he said.
She was looking sea-wards. Somewhat sadly,
because her eyes could see what her brush would
not allow her to show others.
" When he came to the green concave of the sea,"
she said ; ** the old man sitting calm and peace¬
fully—you remember ? "
The interest deepened in his eyes ; he had often
made a brain-picture of it himself.
He brought gladness into her face by finding the
very fines that had filled her brush
'* * Upon a weeded rock this old man sat.
And his white hair was awful, and a mat
Of weeds were cold beneath his cold, thin feet.'
Is it there ? " he said. " And have you depicted
the god-fike youth ? I should think the blue cloak
would be a little tremendous to manage."
The wistful look came back.
" I shall never finish it," she said. " I never do.
Nearly always I sit down and have a cry half-way,
then get up and start a new one."
They walked to the end of the rose-trees and up
a narrow path among red guavas, but the fowl-yards
and cabbage-ground seemed imminent, so they went
back into cultivated parts again.
All the time he was deliberating whether woman's
art and the talk of it might in this exceptional
instance be bearable at close quarters if he called.
He felt no misgivings about permission to do so.
They went to the tea-tables and shared a rustic
seat with a thin-faced artist who had had very little
dinner, and was den3dng himself more than one cup
of tea and two cakes lest it should be guessed.
1
130 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Linley ate an ice, Mr. Thurston drank a tumbler
of soda-water.
He went for a second one from the farthest table,
and on his way back was again pleased to find
picturesqueness in the girl in the big-sleeved frock
of daffodil mushn.
" I really think I will call," he said to himself,
and ate a water-biscuit thoughtfully. When he did
crave the permission Linley thought nothing could
be more perfect than the old-world polish of his
manner.
" Let me introduce you to my sister," she said, and
rose to find Marcia, with more soberness in her face
than heart. In the shade of the tennis-court
summer-house they saw Martin guarding a parasol
of white chiffon, a heUotrope glove and a palm-leaf
tied with hehotrope ribbon. He was strangely pale.
" Have you seen Marcia anywhere ? " Linley said,
with a glance at these dulces exuviœ.
His eyes looked straight to a certain spot.
*' She is there, near the acacias," he said, " talking
to Mrs. Morrice."
The girl laughed.
" The other Marcia, I mean."
He found her too, though less readUy ; she was
the centre of a group not far away.
They went across the springy buffalo grass to the
circle that was just breaking up.
Marcia gave the invitation with a graciousness and
dignity that the author was surprised to find out of
London.
She asked him for dinner the next night, then at
his request extended the invitation with a " come
early," so that he might see the pictures by painting
hght.
" I may hve to regret this," he said to his cigar.
ALL IN A GARDEN FAIR 131
when good-byes were over and he was going back.
Driving home the colour ran into Linley's face.
This was Roger's afternoon, and two hours after
the time she had promised to " slip away " to
Balcombe Street.
He had waited for her, eagerly, anxiously, in the
httle, shabby, dusty room, and she had forgotten
utterly.
CHAPTER XVI
AN EVERYDAY DINNER
Eliza had made two curls on her forehead with
a hot slate-pencil. If Martin had looked he
would have found the pink in her sallow cheeks was
due to cochineal. But he did not look.
*' Tan Loi tome wid me to a hddle pitnit, Mider
Martin ? " she said, bumping his writing-table
violently in her determination not to do so for
once.
Martin looked up impatiently.
*' What is it you want now ? " he said.
This was the first day of one section of his last
exam., and he was reading hard for the morrow,
despite a maddeningly throbbing head.
" A liddle pitnit—Loi," she said, and moved half
a yard away—" Print of Walet birday, on Tooday."
" Well, you needn't spUl my ink if it is," Martin
said, vexedly applying blotting-paper to a coloured
plate of the human form divine. " And I don't
know if he may come, Eliza ; there seems to be a
pretty rough lot down your way."
" Oh, they don't mean noding," said Ehza
" They only make a bid of noid sometimed. Gaw
on, Mider Martin, you mide ad well, the hddle tove
wants to tome bad."
" Oh, go on. Mart, what d'ye want to stop a
feUow for ? " Loi said, emerging from behind Ehza.
132
AN EVERYDAY DINNER 133
" The girls in Canning Street are awful nice
girls."
" Oh, if it's only a pack of girls," Martin said,
drew a fresh book towards him,
Eliza flushed a httle round the cochineal circles.
" My brutter mide be toming too," she said.
" No cousins, Eliza ? "
Somehow Ehza could never bear to tell lies to
Martin.
*' Well, tere mide be a couden or two," she said
tmwillmgly.
Martin laughed.
" I suppose he'll have to go," he said ; " only
remember you're responsible for him, Eliza ; he's
only a httle chap. You'd better go and get on with
yoiir work now."
Loi disappeared, chuckhng that the point had
been so easy to gain ; he congratulated himself on
seeking Martin's permission rather than Roger's.
But Eliza hngered.
The flush had gone ; except for the pink circles
the poor face was pale in its saUowness. She
looked at Martin, sad tenderness hghting the dul-
ness of her eyes.
" My troat's geddin' awful bad again, Mider
Martin," she said, something like a sob in her
chest.
Martin looked up a httle wearily ; he seemed to be
perpetuahy prescribing for Ehza. She came to him
for headache remedies, neuralgia, earache, chilblains,
and cut fingers galore.
" Why don't you come down to the hospital as I
told you ? " he said. " I'll get one of the doctors to
do it for you in five seconds.'!
Ehza shook her head. —
" I'd rader you did it, Mider Martin—touldn't
134 the little larrikin
you ? I wouldn't be fridened a bid." She looked
at him wistfuUy.
" What nonsense ! " he said. " I wouldn't think
of it ; of course you must go to some one fully
qualified."
He opened his books, fitted a new nib in his pen
and looked at her impatiently.
Eliza sighed. Then she brought her left hand
into view.
" I've tut my findgar again, Mider Martin," she
said.
Martin almost groaned.
'* It's the third time this week," he cried. " Look
here, Eliza, you'U really have to leam to tie them
up yourself."
" I'm sud a clmndy thing," she said, producing the
badly bleeding member from her handkerchief, and
offering him a strip of rag and some string.
Martin boimd it up as quickly as he could.
" One would think you cut them just for the plea¬
sure of seeing your blood," he said, making a neat
job of it.
Eliza looked down ; he was not quite right. He
tied the knot and cut oS the ends of cotton.
" If ever you have a husband, Eliza," he said,
" you'U cost him a fortrme in doctor's fees."
But Eliza puUed her hand away, and burst into
strange tears.
" I don't wand a hutbant ; I wouldn't have a
hutbant," she sobbed and took herself hastily oñ
out of the room.
" Poor beggar 1 " Martin said. And feU to work
thinking she had wept because she felt her ugliness
would never find her one.
He worked on tiU dinner-time, walking on the
verandah while Eliza set the table. Clem came
AN EVERYDAY DINNER 135
home, his boots burst and white with dust, gloom
in his eyes. He had utterly refused to start on a
new school quarter and was tramping the city daUy
for work.
Then Phil came ; his thinness and want of
development roused Martin's medical conscience.
" You'll have to go slow a bit, Pip," he said.
" Urn—after the exam," the lad returned. He sat
down to wait while Ehza dished the boiled mutton,
and was asleep in five minutes.
When Roger put in an appearance Martin had
carved the scraggy joint and Clem served out the
half-cooked potatoes. Phil, with eyes like saucers,
was flooding the teapot with water, and there was
no attempt at speech.
Roger's share had the cover on ; more care than
that the masculine mind is incapable of.
He took it, swimming in hquor, fat encrusted.
Clem pushed the potatoes to him, Phil poured out
his tea. He ate with a face gloomier even than
Rufly's.
Loi came in and mixed himself a plate of potatoes
and sugar—he ate sugar to almost everjihing—but
the prevailing depression affected even him, and he
spoke no word.
In the midst of the second coxirse—^bread and
peach jam—Phil gave a short laugh.
" We're a bright lot, ain't we ? " he said. " Talk
about the convivial board I For goodness' sake while
we eat and drink let's be merry. We're knocking
the chirpiness out of even Loi." His warm-coloru:ed,
heavy eyes tried to laugh with his hps.
Clem was eating voraciously yet at his mutton.
" Life's the beasthest swindle," he said.
Loi signified agreement with his mouth full of
potato.
136 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" The back lane's nobody's," be said ; *' anytbing's
everybody's there that gets it, and that old Mother
Higgins aiways says any fowl me and Jimmie Smith
happens to catch is hers. Just because she has a
p'liceman to tea sometimes."
" Any luck, Clem ? " Roger said, buttering him¬
self a slice of bread. " Pass over that jam, Pip."
Clem hacked savagely at the loaf.
" Luck 1 " he said. " Did I ever have any in my
life ? Luck !—there were fifty-seven other fellows
after that ten-bob clerkship, and thirty-five and four
men after the five shillings and grub. And most of
them had references and imderstood typewriting and
that blessed shorthand."
" Pass the sugar," said Loi. " Why didn't you
fight 'em for it, Clem ? You could have stiffened the
whole lot."
" You tried Mosely ? " asked Roger ; " he told me
he thought he could get one of you a billet in his
place."
Clem drank half a cup of tea at a gulp.
" He had to give it to his nephew," he returned
bitterly ; ** every one has nephews or cousins or
sons to shove in first."
" There were two or three ads. for canvassers
this morning," :îaid Phil. " Salary as well as
commission."
" Canvassers ! " Clem laughed hoarsely. " Hear
him, ye gods. Canvassers have to wear pohshed
boots, Phil, and hats with tmbroken rims, let alone
an engaging smile. I tried it last week on commis¬
sion only ; they're not so particular then. I hawked
a fool of a fountain-pen about for two days, got
sworn at and kicked out of half the offices in town,
took an order for one, and received fourpence as my
commission. Out of it I had to expend a peimy on
AN EVERYDAY DINNER 137
a bun, for it's hungry work. And had the satisfac¬
tion of finding my boots burst in a fresh place."
Roger got up and filled his pipe.
" I'm stone broke myself," he said. ** I've walked
into town for a week just to keep myself going in
tobacco. And there's that confounded butcher's
bill yet. Can't you get the places stitched, Clem ?
I can spare you a sprat. There never was such a
fellow for bursting his boots."
Clem's eyes glowed, softened, glowed again. He
gulped something down in his throat.
" Look here, Roge," he said. " On my soul I've
stood it as long as I can. Let me oñ that promise ;
the httle Mum'U understand, old chap. I can t
sponge on you any longer. I want to be free to
tramp it to the diggings or the deuce if I like.
Hang respectable employments 1 "
Martin watched Roger's smoke curling ; his head
was swinging too much to think of his own pipe
just yet. Phil packed up the dishes, for Ehza had
asked leave to put oñ the washing-up till the
morning. Loi sat on the sideboard and swung his
legs unhappily. These scenes were frequent, but
there was a certain desperation and strength in
Clem's manner to-night that was new.
*' I wouldn't mind so much if I could start you
with a few pounds," Roger said heavily, after a time.
He walked up and down the pattemless hnoleum
his young face held the cares of a man of forty.
But this was the very first time he had gone so
far, and Clem's spirits rose ; hitherto he had always
received an abrupt and decided refusal.
He knocked over his chair in his eagerness to
get out of it.
" If you'U lend me ten bob and give me a pair
of boots it's more than enough," he said. He took
138 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
a step in the direction of the door as if he would
depart on his travels forthwith,
" Sit down, and don't be a young fool," Roger
said with the initabihty of anxiety. " You can't
start to-night at all events."
Clem tossed one great leg over a comer of the
table : to sit on a chair was beyond him just now.
" Why, I might tum| up in a few months with a
pocket full of nuggets," he cried, his chest swelling
with the exultation of the thought.
" A pocket full of fiddlesticks," said Roger.
He smoked for five minutes without speaking.
The table groaned and creaked under Clem's rest¬
lessness, Phil packed and unpacked the plates quite
pale with the suspense, and Loi from the sideboard
watched Roger with sharp and smileless eyes.
Far up above through the dark Venetians Freda
followed the scene and wondered if there was a
quarrel.
" What do you say, Martin ? " Roger said at last.
Martin got out his pipe, switched the clustering
flies from the jam-stained edge of a plate and bade
Loi stop kicking.
" I wish he'd got through his exam.," he said.
Clem stirred impatiently.
" You might as well wish I'd got the chair of
classics while you're about it," he sedd. " What's
the good of Latin verses or aorists to a gold-digger
or a drover ? "
Martin smoked silently, then made another plunge
at the flies.
" It's a clod hfe," he said. " Couldn't you keep
going here tül I'm fairly through, old chap ? I
could give you a hand in a year or even less."
" No, I'm hanged if I will 1 " the boy cried in a
burst of anger.
AN EVERYDAY DINNER 139
He dropped from the table and flung out a great
arm that had long since outgrown its coat-sleeve.
The young passionate face, the determination of
the mouth, the very size and ungainliness of the
boy vanquished the two arbitrators of his fate.
Roger smoked to the end of his pipe, worked vain
subtraction stuns with his income, discounted the
chances of extra work, and felt all the width and
bitterness of the sea that lay between himself and
Linley—all with his eyes bent on the flreplace
rocking-chair gone out of use.
Martin, too, smoked without speech till his pipe
was cold. In the intervals between the misery of
thinking that he could oSer no help, anxiety for his
next examination and sheer bodily fatigue, the deh-
cate, sweet face of Marcia Morrice came before his
eyes to mock him with the thought of the time that
must pass before he dare speak of the love that was
in his heart. It was a very real and grievous thing,
this flrst love, to the boy. Every day he tormented
himself like this ; remembered she was a woman,
" therefore to be won," only to remember also that
other men might win her. Sometimes he fancied
she looked at him kindly, at others weeks would
pass and he would not get a chance to speak more
than six words to her.
The girl herself was absolutely without suspicion
that he cared for her ; he was just as bright and
nonsensical as he had ever seemed when he was
with her. She liked to lose the gravity that
characterized her in laughing at his jokes and fun.
But she had too many other things in her beautiful
young hie to remember him an hour after he had
gone.
" You can try it for six months," Roger said.
There came the noise of falling chairs, the break-
140 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
ing of a cup and the rattling of a gasalier. Clem
had turned a wild, excited somersault, and having
outgrown his skill in them, his legs and arms and
head seemed all over the room at once.
He came up with a purple face and eyes where
glad tears had rushed,
" There's that five pounds of the grocer's," Roger
said ; '* it'll pay him out for his rancid butter to
have to wait a bit longer. Do you think that will
do for a time ? Have you thought of any plan
at aU ? "
Clem's voice was husky.
" On Smithers' uncle's station they'll give me
grub for work. And at shearing time I'd get taken
on with the others. There's always a chance, too,
of getting on to the diggings from there with some
of the men passing. And the ticket's only two
pounds, Roge—say three with boots and a shirt
or two. I shouldn't want the rest."
" You'll have it then," Roger said shortly. " Five
pounds between you and the world's httle enough.
Only you can always write, Clem ; don't forget that,
old chap, or be afraid. There are always briefs or
something turning up ; I shouldn'f feel it."
Clem knocked his chair over again.
"I'm going to pack up," he said, and plunged
across the room. " I shall make a b-bub-beastly
ass of myself in a minute."
CHAPTER XVII
A LARRIKIN COAT
The next day when Marcia was wondering how
she should kill the morning, she heard Lol's
little, light springy step coming up the stairs and
down the corridor to the private, photo-strewn room
that she did not call her boudoir.
The little larrikin's route from Balcombe Street to
Boyd's Road lay always over two back fences—he
despised gates—across the tennis-court and through
the big, well-appointed kitchen. Here he generally
broke the joumef to remark wistfully, " What a very
nice smeU there was 1 " and to add, " You're a lady.
Cook," when that good-natured personage spread
him a little feast at the comer of the table. Nothing
ever came amiss to him ; he would eat the broken
jellies and half-finished creams from the dining-room
table, and pick with fingers and teeth the fowl or
duck-bones, from which politeness and a knife and
fork made it impossible for civilization to obtain all
the dehcate meat.
If there was nothing so toothsome as this about,
he would join the laundress afíably with her pot of
strong tea, or the butler with his bottle of beer.
Then, when he had exhausted till the gossip and
humour of the lower regions, he would set off
upstairs as he had done this morning.
" Are you there, Marcia ? " he said, opening the
141
142 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
door and popping in the top of his curls. He never
knocked by any chance,
Marcia looked a Uttle brighter. •
" Well, my larrikin," she said, " what have you
to say for yourself this morning ? And what's
in your parcel ? Nothing like the Jenkinses* dog, I
do hope."
" Don't be silly," Loi said. " Wouldn't it kick if
it was ? "
He set the great, clumsy, brown-paper parcel down
on the floor near her, and went back to close the
door with his foot. Then he came up to her
side.
But she was reading again, sitting perfectly
straight and with her most stately manner on ; she
did not seem conscious there was such a thing as
a little larrikin in her beautiful room.
Loi nibbed his nose thoughtfully, wrinkled his
smaU brow, and stood on one leg for the space of
a minute and a half.
" I'm blessed if I know what I've done this time,"
he said at last.
Marcia turned the leaf and read industriously.
He gave her sleeve a little pulL
" Look," he said, " I've shut the door aU right."
Still she read on.
S
He rubbed his nose harder than ever.
" Is it about the man I drew on your hall wall
with Freda's pink chalk ? Why, it's more than
a week ago ; as well you can easily get it painted
over."
Another leaf was turned.
" Is it 'cause I haven't been over for a bit ? I
can't come every day, you know, Marcia. Jimmie
Smith has to look after their baby now ; his sister's
got measles or something, and I have to stop with
A LARRIKIN COAT 143
him down at his place." The small face was full of
anxiety. " I'll come over more this week, though."
" No, that is not it. Loi," Marcia said, with un¬
smiling eyes.
" Then I haven't done anything," he said, " any¬
thing. Don't be scotty, Marcia. Look here, I've
an awful lot to get you to do."
Marcia put the book down.
*' I've been waiting for you to apologize for
speaking to me like you did. Loi," she said. " You
must remember I'm neither Eliza nor Jimmie Smith."
" Oh," said Loi, looking relieved, " I apologize.
Now let's get to this." He knelt down to his parcel
and began to undo the pins of it. Just as he took
the last one out, he paused a minute and looked up.
" What did I say ?" he askedi ¡curiously.
Marcia looked ^at him with great graveness.
" You told me not to be silly," she said. *' Don't
you think you were a very rude little boy to speak
to a lady like that ? "
He stood up and brushed his knees, as if he had
been kneeling in the dust instead of on a velvet-
pile carpet. His brow was qmte clear again.
" I was afraid I must have said, ' Shut your mug,*
or * chump,' " he said. " Why, ' silly's ' no worse
than ' goat,' and every one says * goat.' You should
hear EUza. I've never said ' chump,' or * fat-head,'
or ' sqmnt-eye,' to you, have I, Marcia ? "
" WeU, n-n-no," said Marcia, " I really don't think
you have. Loi."
" That's right," he said encouragingly, " I'm glad
of that. Never you let me ; jump on me at once
if I do. I shouldn't like to get into the habit with
you. Now what do you thiilk of this ? "
t''' He stooped down to his parcel, raised from it and
shook out its contents—certainly the imost incon-
144 the little larrikin
gruous thing that had ever been in that exquisite
room before.
" What do you think of that, Mrs. Marcia ? " he
said, holding it up, his face beaming with pride.
** Is that stylish enough for you ? "
That was a man's coat. Such a coat 1
It was of a claret-coloiured, smooth kind of cloth,
cut with swallow-tails and sük-faced revers. The
fronts of it were studded with innumerable small
dress buttons, there was a heavy row of the same
adornments on each cuff, and a row on each lappet.
'* What on earth " began Marcia.
" It's Eliza's young man's brother's," Loi explained
with pride. *' Her yoimg man has one too, only
it's blue, and I hke red best. All his push have
them ; you should just see them going ofí to a picnic
or anything. They don't wear them when they
have fights or ordmeuy things, of course, only for
special occasions."
Marcia touched the thing wonderingly, fearfully.
" You mean to tell me a man, a plain, sensible
man wears that thing 1 " she said slowly.
Loi gave a httle chuckling laugh,
" Eliza doesn't think he's plain," he said, " and he
really is handsomer than the fellow that's mashed on
Jimmie Smith's sister. But he's got an awfully red
moustache."
" But whatever made you bring it to show me ? "
Marcia said.
Loi began to fold it up again, tenderly, reverently.
" I thought you'd want it as a pattern, of course,"
he said.
*' A wnat ? " asked Marcia.
" A pattern," said Loi, " for mine, you know—
didn't I tell you ? Well I am a fat-head." He
shook the coat out of its folds again and held it up
A LARRIKIN COAT 145
áanglingly. *' Notice the way the buttons go, par¬
ticularly," he said ; " do you see ? Well, I wanted to
know if you'd make me one hke it, Marcia. Ehza's
asked me to the picnic too. Do you think you
could get it done in time ? Perhaps Linley'd help
you if you couldn't. Only don't go and let Freda ;
she wouldn't understand how the buttons went."
Marcia leaned back and gazed at him.
" Have you such a thing as a conscience anywhere
about you. Loi ? " she said.
He ^was eyeing the cut of the lappets admir¬
ingly.
" Is it to measure with ? " he said, '* wouldn't it
do if you made it the size of this sailor one ? Only
don't go and cut the sleeves too small, will you ?
It's awful not to be able to knock your arms about."
" When is it your larrikinship would want it ? "
Marcia said. " Should you require me to sit up
to-night to finish it? Because there is a rather
particular ball I should hke to go to."
" Oh, no," said Loi, " I don't want you to stop
away from the ball. Don't be so sil—stup—what
am I to say if you won't let me say sUly, Marcia ?
Stupid's worse, / think. Prince of Wales's birthday's
the day, so you've got fi ve days. Do you think you
can get it done ? I'd hke to have it the night before
to try on if it wouldn't hurry you too much."
" Oh, no," Marcia said meekly, '* it wouldn't hurry
me at ah if I may have as long as that. Is there
anything else you will want ? Anything in caps ?
or embroidered stockings ? Perhaps you'd hke
buckles on your sandshoes ? "
" I never thought of caps," Loi said vexedly ; " I
forgot to ask Eliza what they wear with the coats.
And I reahy never noticed myself. But I can let
you know. Oh, and they have buttons down the
K
146 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
trousers' legs too, sewn on thickly. You won't for¬
get, will you ?"
*' I won't forget," Maxcia said.
She took a measurement or two of him with a
length of white ribbon and piimed the places care¬
fully.
Loi made up his parcel again after being assured
that she would remember the pattern exactly with¬
out it being left as guide.
" Well, I'll have to be going now," he said.
" Eliza'U be getting anxious about me. I promised
to help her wash up as well."
When he had said good-bye, and reached the
door, he came back a few paces. .
" I'll come over every morning and see 1k>*v you're
getting on," he said kindly.
Marcia thanked him gratefully.
" I shall get a tailor to make the plain part of the
suit if you don't object," she said ; " then it wUl be
sure to be done to date. But I will put all the buttons
on myself."
Loi considered the matter thoughtfully.
" I believe it mil be better," he said, *' only make
him understand about the shape, won't you, and
how the back goes ? Yes, I'm sure it will be better ;
it'll give you such lots of time. I was a bit afraid
yoimg Freda would go trying to sew those buttons
on."
He went downstairs much more slowly than he
had come up ; every step he took he felt more and
*uore surprised at himself.
'i" I really am a bit of a fat-head," he muttered,
sitting down for a minute or two's meditation on the
bottom step. " There's nothing about her to be
frightened of, and ciny one could see she was pleased
'cause I asked her to do the coat. Women always
A LARRIKIN COAT 147
like sewing things for you ; look at Freda now. But
somehow she kept me ofí asking that It's very
funny."
His journey across this morning had had an
object apart from the request for a ** real larrikin
coat." He had intended to ask Marcia for some
money for Clem ; a large, beautiful smn that would
keep him comfortably at home instead of tramping
off no one knew where.
" Why, there'll be no one to go for a swim with,
or anything," had been his last waking thought the
night before. The ethics of the thing had seemed
very simple then : Marcia had lots of money, Clem
had none, therefore Marcia must give Clem some.
But this morning there seemed something new bom
in his young soul that prevented him making the
request. Perhaps it was something in Marcia's
manner ; while taking her kindness and her strange
indulgence with him as a matter of course, he
was able to recognize her dignity and graciousness.
And the new thing he had leamt that morning
without teaching or remark was that the poor might
not ask money of the rich.
" But I might give that selfish little Freda a
hint," he muttered, getting up at length. " That
was another pair of new boots she had on on Sun¬
day."
" Freda," he shouted.
Freda's long, lank hair drooped over the banisters
above his head.
" What's the matter. Loi ? " she asked.
" Come on down," he said.
" I'm doing my French," she answered. " I'd love
to, of course, Larrie dear. Is it anything impor¬
tant ? "
Now, Freda I " called a voice from a near room.
148 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Loi stuck one hand in his pocket and picked up
the parcel with the other.
" Oh, if you don't want to know," he said and
moved down the hall.
Freda hung over perilously—sin had promised
not to go down.
" Don't be mean, Larrie," she entreated. " Oh,
Larrie, don't go ; is it about—Rufíy or any one ? "
" Of course it is," he said.
Freda's heart beat fast ; she would hear the
explanation of last night's pictures.
" Loi," she said—her voice was very wheedling—
" you like chocolates, don't you. Loi ? "
Loi did not budge an inch.
" Are they that squashy kind you make yourself ? "
he said.
" Oh, no," said Freda, " lovely ones—in a box—
caramels and walnuts and almonds and ginger—
you know."
" Um ! " said Loi.
He tucked the coat-parcel under his arm, and
saimtered through the hall to the foot of the stairs.
" Is there a good lot ? " he said.
*' I've o^y eaten three," Freda answered.
He ascended the staircase.
" WeU ? " he said.
" You must go in and ask Miss Whitticombe if
T can stay out for ten minutes. You'U have to
beg, I expect, because my French was awful
Speak nicely, Larrie ; she's very fond of little
boys."
" Well, you be getting the chocolates," he said,
brushing a little dust off his coat, ** and lay hoi d
of this parcel, Freda, while I go. Be very careful
of it, now."
Miss Whitticombe was putting down her pen to
A LARRIKIN COAT
go after her errant pupil. She was frowning a
little, for Freda had put " L'enfant était dix ans vieux,"
and similar atrocities.
Then there came up to her side a little, slight
lad of six, with wide, sweet eyes, and the most
lovable head of short, soft curls.
** If you please. Miss Whitticombe, may Freda
stay out for just five minutes ? " he said. Such a
sweet little voice it was.
Miss Whitticombe's frown disappeared.
" \Yhy, you dear little boy," she said, " who are
you ? Where did you come from ? "
It was only a week since she had entered upon
the task of teaching Freda idiomatic French.
Loi rubbed childishly against her.
" I am a little friend of Marcia's," he said.
Miss Whitticombe hfted him up on her knee and
kissed him several times. He remained perfectly
submissive.
" Freda has been a careless little girl," she said
" I really don't think I ought to let her go."
" But you wül ? " he said softly.
She smiled.
*' Why do you think I wül ? "
" You look so kind and pretty," Loi said.
Miss Whitticombe was forty, and her debt to
nature small. She kissed the little lad, her cheeks
quite pink with pleasure and surprise. It was ten
years since her last compliment.
" She may go for ten minutes," she said, " if you
will give me one little kiss."
Loi thought of the chocolates. He wished he
had made Freda show him the size of the box.
" Next time I come I will give you two kisses,"
he said, shpping off her knee, and moving half a
yard away.
150 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" Oh, well, I shall only let Freda stay five minutes,
if you won't kiss me," she said.
" Oh, five will be plenty," he returned cheerfully.
" Good-bye, Miss What's-your-comb. Thank you
very much."
Freda drew him into her bedroom.
•' Well ? " she said.
" Give me the chocs.," he said. ** I wouldn't
have done it under two boxes if I'd known she
was going to hug me like that."
He put three of the largest creams in his mouth
and spoke simultaneously.
" Clem's going away. I don't expect you'll ever
see him again. Everybody murders everybody at
the gold-fields."
Freda went quite pale.
" Ruffy 1 " she said, *' going away I Oh, not really.
Loi."
" I wish I could find a ginger one," he said, sort¬
ing over the sweets, and biting bits off to look for
a green layer. " Oh yes, he's going, and if they
don't get murdered they always die of simstroke, or
starvation, or drink, or something."
" You are a heartless little monkey," Freda said,
administering a slight shake to recall him to •the
seriousness of the aäair. " Put those stupid things
down and teU me about it properly. When is he
going ? Oh, he might have told me. What's he
going for ? Is he going to sea ? He's not really
going to the diggings ? Oh, Loi, don't be such a
horrid boy—what is he going for ? "
And Loi turned round and svuveyed her from
head to foot—httle bright frock, silk stockings and
shining shoes, the bangles on her wrists, the brooch
at her neck.
" Some people grab all the money," he said. " If
A LARRIKIN COAT 151
selfish girls and women didn't dress up so there
might be some money left for other people."
*' But what is he going for ? " cried Freda, uncom¬
prehending his train of thought.
Loi banged the hd on the box and dropped it down
the front of his sailor blouse.
" That's his business," he said.
He picked up his brown parcel once more and
went down a stair or two.
*' I shouldn't have let you know, only I expected
you'd be wanting to make him a present before he
went."
A gleam of comfort stole into the poor little girl's
face. There would be some consolation certainly
in making him a keepsake or two—a book-marker
or a penwiper, another knitted necktie ; perhaps
he would be using a razor soon, and she could make
him a shaving-tidy.
" Only," said Loi, looking back over his shoulder,
" for goodness' sake, Freda, don't give him such
íooüng things as you did before. Why can't you
think of sensible things ? Boots or shirts now, or
a good, strong pair of trousers."
«
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SETTING OUT OF RUFFY
There were two trains drawn up at the same
outside platform ; the one in front was short
—only an engine, in fact, and one large, luxurious
car. But the second one was very long, as befitted
the far journey it was to make and the overflowing life
it had to carry. Every window bubbled over with
heads—httle children's, eager and excited ; women's,
sad, anxious, happy, vain ; men's, no whit different
from usual. Mountains of luggage rushed along
with hot-faced incidental porters ; little platform
groups come to wish farewells, laughed to keep from
crying, or looked solemn to keep from palpable
gladness. Sometimes the shriek of a steam-valve
drowned the babble of tongues, sometimes in the
babble and clatter great hissings and bumpings were
unheard. Few spoke anything but trivialities ;
those who had httle to say talked much, and those
who had much were silent.
Clem's tnmk was in the luggage-van ; he had
hankered greatly after a blue blanket swag, but
Roger and Martin had dissuaded him.
"I'm going to * hump bluey,' " he had said dis¬
gustedly ; " I don't want to saddle myself with a fool
of a box."
But the things he had wanted to take, and the
152
THE SETTING OUT OF RUFFY 133
size and shape of them, made him agree finally to
put up with the tnmk ; at any rate, as far as the sheep
station Boolagabbüi, whither he was bound.
He was sitting in a second-class carriage, since
third there are none on Australian lines, his head
weU thrust out of the window. He was having quite
a royal send ofí.
Martin was on the platform ; he had his arm on the
window and had just been communicating a rough-
and-ready remedy for snake-bite. Phil was there ;
he was making jokes and laughing boisterously
because there was a lump in his throat. Loi was
everywhere, now seeing if the engine was a " Yankee "
one, now in the carriage with Clem, trying the
seats, now off to the van to be certain the box
had not been put out again. Eliza kept as unobtru¬
sively near Martin as she could. She was attired
in a brown skirt, a green body with tabs of plush
and a sleeveless zouave of blue serge that had
crept halfway up her back by reason of its small-
ness. Her hat was of black velveteen, wide and
unique in shape ; an ostrich feather drooped a httle
over the back of it. She had a cock-feather boa
round her neck, but its cheapness and Lol's pickings
gave it a moulted efíect. Her shoes were white
canvas ones, and she wore gloves of white washable
Suéde. She had just given Clem for parting gifts a
dozen bananas, three custard roUs, and a bottle of
scent. Freda was there, of course. Her little sallow
face was sorrowful ; every minute the tears in her
blue eyes brimmed over. ^
Clem had been exceedingly touched and pleased
with her presents. A half-crown box of chocolates,
a bag of grapes, Ltiile Women to read on the way,
a bunch of roses, a pocket-pincushion, and a white
silk necktie she gave him at the train. And the
154 THE little LARRIKIN
night before she had sent him a pair of slippers
bought at a fancy-work shop, and crewelled with
blue silk daisies ; this being the very nearest her
conventional little soul dared go to one of the
" sensible " presents Loi had suggested. But she
bad gone to her father and asked earnestly for some
money ; she had conceived the idea of putting a five-
pound note in the toe of one of the slippers and a
note imploring Clem to accept it. " I want it so
very, very badly, father," she had said. " I haven't
asked you for money for a long time. Oh, please
do let me have five pounds."
But Robert had been very short with her, to her
great surprise.
'* I shall give you no such thing, Freda," he
answered irritably ; " you are a very extravagant
little thing; you seem to think I am made of
money."
Freda certainly had an idea that way.
" Five pounds is nothing to you," she said. ** Oh.
do, father."
" Go away at once," he said, and there was anger
in his voice. ** I haven't five shillings to give you.
Go away."
Freda thought somewhat hardly of him for it ;
when she had gone away empty-handed for the
first time, she remembered the anxious, irritable
expression of his face. " I do hope he isn't going
to be a miser and hoard his money like the man in
my book," she thought to herself, as she pondered
how she could best lay out the fifteen shillings,
which was all that remained to her.
** You will write, won't you, Ruffy ? " she said.
It was the seventh time she had put the ques¬
tion.
" Got your ticket all right ? " said Phn.
THE SETTING OUT OF RUFFY 155
" Don't go to tieep and ged tarried on, Mider
Clem," said Eliza.
" Oh ! " cried Freda ; " good gracious I Just look
who's coming."
A porter with several picnic hampers and a case
of champagne was on a level with them ; some
distance behind, came a party of ladies and gentle¬
men at whom every one was looking.
There was the Governor and two elegant titled
ladies, a Minister or two, a Member or two ; Marcia
Barrett walking with a very young English lord who
had been pleased to fancy himself in love with
Linley, Marcia Morrice being piloted protectingly
by the captain of a man o' war, Linley behind with
Mr. Thurston.
They were making a httle excursion to show the
visitors the beauties of the BuUi Pass and neighbour¬
hood. It was for them the comfortable vice-regal
car was waiting.
Loi let Marcia pass, her beautiful dress and her
regal manner overawed him for the second, especially
when Phil whispered that the man with the light
grey coat was the Governor. Freda need not have
shrunk behind Eliza ; her stepmother's gaze had just
swept the whole second-class division and seen
nothing whatever.
Martin need not have turned sheet-white, and
moved away in the crowd. The other Marcia was
too much taken up with her companion to see any
one else. But Linley was nobody much in Lol's
eyes. When she gave him a httle, half-nervous
smüe, and said, " Well, Loi," and passed, he went
after her.
" Aren't you going to stop and see Clem off ? " he
»aid ; " you are a nice one."
Linley looked the least httle bit annoyed.
IS6 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" I can't to-day, Loi," she said hastily. " There,
run away—some other day, dear,"
But he planted himself in front of her.
" Well, you are a silly I " he said. " Some othet
day 1 Why, he might never come back any more.
Very likely he's going to the diggings. Come on
and say good-bye, quickly."
He pulled at her dress.
Mr. Thurston looked amused.
" So much determination and so small a youth ! "
he said. " What is it he wants. Miss Middleton ? "
Linley's colour had increased.
** Oh ! only to say good-bye to a brother of his,
and I said it a couple of nights ago. Had we not
better hurry ? Every one else is in."
" He's Roger's brother too," said Loi, keeping
close to her side. *' You needn't be so stuck up."
But Phil came to the rescue. He took a step or
two after them, and put his hand on Lol's shoulder.
With a delicacy Linley would not have given him
credit for, he made no sign of recognition to her.
" Come away, you httle beggar," he said.
It made Linley ashamed of her momentary false
pride. She held out her hand.
" Well, Phü," she said, *' I suppose you are
seeing Clem off ; there is no time, or I would come
and have a last word too."
The boy took ofí his shabby hat with the grace oí
a gentleman.
" Thank you," he said. " I will teU him you said
good-bye. Miss Middleton."
Mr. Thiirston had been asking a question of the
guard ; he turned to Linley.
" You have time to say good-bye to the whole
train, if you like," he said. " We have fully eight
minutes before we start."
THE SETTING OUT OF RUFF Y 157
** Oh ! " Linley said, not looking madly over-
|oyed ; she stood still half a moment.
*' Hurry up," Loi cried. " What a time you do
take, Linley ! if it was Roger going you'd hurry
along fast enough."
" WUl you teU my sister, Mr. Thmston ? " Linley
said. " She will think I have fallen in between the
wheels. I will join you again in a minute or two.
Now, Phü."
She went back again to Clem's carriage, a long,
thin boy one side of her, and a little thin one the
other. "Clem was genuinely glad to see her.
" It's awfully good of you to leave aU those toñs
and come and shake hands with a fellow," he said,
and wrung her hand with energy—the time was
getting short.
Through the crowd came a taU figure, half a head
above most of it.
Roger had found a guinea for a recent probate
waiting for him at his chambers, and had posted off
forthwith with it to Clem's train. He forced it on
the boy.
"It's a fee I'd quite forgotten was owing," he
said *' Put it in yom: pocket and hold your tongue,
boy ; you'll want it soon enough. And wait a
minute."
He dived back to the bookstall and bought half
a dozen illustrated papers. When he came back
with them, Linley was there.
The coloTir of pleasure came into his face Hke a
girl's.
" You sweet little girl," he whispered, " you dear
îittle girl. Have you been here long ? I never
dreamed you would bother to come. Oh, you blessed
httle girl, how I have been longing for a bit of
you I "
158 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
LInley's eyes fell before the gladness in his.
" I—there's no merit about it, Roger ; I was going
to a picnic and met them here."
" I say," said Clem, " no poaching, old man ; you
can have her at any time ; it was me she left that
tofí of hers for."
" Left whom ? " said Roger, looking round.
"An awful toft of an English lord-duke," Clem
answered. " He looked as if he was a bit shook on
you, Linley. You'd better look out for yourself,
Roge. Can't you see him anywhere ? A fearful
masher he is ; his suit's so big it doesn't fit him any¬
where, and the checks of it are large enough to fall
through ; his cuffs stick out half a yard, and there's
only a bit of his bead visible for coUar."
Roger looked, and saw some one a Uttle after this
pattern at the vice-regal carriage higher up.
" I must go," Linley said. " I'm sure it's eight
minutes. I have to go up to the first train, Roger."
She shook hands with Clem again as she spoke.
" Good-bye—good-bye, every one."
" Nothing's the matter, is it, Linley ? " Roger
said anxiously. " Nothing's been vexing you, has
it, darling ?" He missed something in her manner ;
he was always missing it lately.
" Of course not," Linley said impatiently. " What
a foolish boy you are, Roger 1 There, I must go,
every one's waiting for me. Good-bye—write to me
soon—good-bye."
" Is that 'Thurston ? " Roger said, staring hard
at the English novelist coming forward slowly to
meet her.
" It is," Linley answered, her tone a httle mutinous
because of his own.
He walked with her to the carriage full of dis¬
tinguished people awaiting her. Then the tall silk
THE SETTING OUT OF RUFFY 159
hats of the men there made him suddenly conscious
of his own sun-browned straw, and he said good¬
bye again abruptly, swung ro'ond on his heel and
went back to Clem.
CHAPTER XIX
THE END OF A STORY
The larrikin coat was finished to the last button
on the evening of the eighth, and borne across
to Balcombe Street by the butler.
Loi had promised to nm in and show himself
without fail in the morning, before the picnic set
off.
But the morning grew into afternoon, and the
afternoon into evening, the evening deepened into
night, the night paled into a new dawn, and still
he had not been.
Marcia felt distinctly hurt ; she had been three
whole mornings putting on the buttons and giving
finishing touches here and there ; it was months,
almost years, since she had done so much sewing.
'* I won't have him over so often," she said to
herself ; " I'm getting absurdly fond of him."
When she heard his step hurrying up the stair¬
case the morning after the Prince of Wales's birth¬
day she moved across the room and locked the
door.
Loi rattled impatiently.
" What's the matter with the blessed thing ? " she
heard him say.
Then he knocked with the toe of his shoe.
"Turn the handle your side, Marcia," he said;
" something's gone cronk here."
160
THE END OF A STORY
IÖI
" I am busy," Marcia said. *' Go away ; I do not
want to see you this morning."
" What ! " he said.
There was an unbeheving tone in his voice.
" Go away," Marcia repeated. *' I do not wish to
see you this morning."
There came a little laugh.
" It's not Freda," Loi said, " it's me, Marcia. Be
quick."
Marcia smiled a little, since the door was between
them..
" I know perfectly well who it is," she said. " It
is Loi, and I do not wish to see him. Now go away
and do not disturb me ; nothing will make me open
the door, and I shall not answer you again."
*' But, Marcia,"—the voice outside took an excited
note—" look here, Marcia, it's awfully important—
you'll have to let me in."
There was no reply.
He rattled and pushed, even gave a very little
kick.
" Marcia," he called, " are you hstening ? Oh,
Marcia, it's the importantest thing I've ever told
you."
Still perfect silence within.
He stooped down and put his eye to the keyhole,
but the position of the key blocked the view. So
he put his lips to it and spoke beseechingly.
" I'U come over and see you eveiy single day.
Please, Marcia, open it ; dear Marcia, do open it."
But Marcia had decided she must teach Loi she
was a woman of her word, and if he came in she
knew she would be vanquished speedily by some of
his wiles. Stül she felt a httle curious about the
*' importantest thing," and the eagerly spoken and
unusual *' dear " affected her a little.
is
i6a THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" He didn't try long," she said to herself, dis¬
appointed, though she would not have owned it,
when the handle ceased rattling, and little, slow
steps went down the passage and died away.
*' He couldn't have wanted to come very badly,
and he'U soon forget all about it."
She picked up her book and began to read again ;
it was Diana of the Crossways, and the lover of
her youth had said that sweet and most wonderful
of woman creations was hke herself.
There was a sound of low, hard breathing near
to her ; she raised her eyes, startled. To her
horror she saw hght gold curls on a level with the
bottom of her window. How she crossed the room
she never knew ; aU she remembered was the drop
of twenty-five feet to the ground.
It was a very pale little face so close to her own,
an almost desperate little face ; his hands were
clinging to the sill, his legs, loosened a second ago
from the rose-creeper, were beginning to tremble as
they hung.
But she put out two steady hands and caught
him by the arm-pits.
" Put your arms round my neck," she said,
stooping it out to him.
He obeyed with the promptness of a soldier,
though a little in terror at relinquishing the support
of the sill.
Then her hands clasped him closer and she drew
him up, slowly, safely.
When she dropped him in a limp heap on the
sofa, aU her nerves grew soft ; she sank down
beside him, trembling.
Neither of them spoke for nearly five minutes ;
the strain had spent the Uttle lad, and with nervous
tension he clung to her as he had clung to no one
THE END OF A STORY 163
since his mother died, Marcia held him as if she
woiild never let him go ; her face worked, her eyes
were wonderful, half a dozen great tears came
hurrying down because Loi was not her very own
and the little boy who died.
But he recovered speedily and seemed ashamed
of himself. He struggled out of her arms.
" You were a nice one," he said. His voice was a
little unsteady.
" Loi I " Marcia said ; the intensity of her tone
impressed even him. When she snatched him to
her again and held him close and kissed him passion¬
ately and made his face wet with her tears, his arms
went tightly round her neck and he kissed back
again and even cried a little.
But again he was the first to recover himself ; he
struggled away from her once more and took a
decided stand on the floor.
" Look here," he said, " it's no good being foolish.
I must have been away an awful time. Martin
wants you."
" Martin 1 " said Marcia. She dried her eyes,
ashamed of herself. She poured out a glass of water
and drank it all. " Martin," she repeated, in a more
ordinary tone ; " that's the medical-student brother,
isn't it ? What can he want me for ? "
" He's iU," Loi said, " awfully ill. I think he's
going mad. That's why me and Eliza didn't go for
the picnic. All the time he keeps on talking about
you and asking for you, so I thought I'd better fetch
you over. I nearly fetched you yesterday."
*' Asking for me 1 " Marcia said in astonishment.
" It must be Linley, of course ; he wouldn't ask
for me. Loi dear. I'll get Linley to go when she
comes home."
" Don't I say it's you ? " said Loi. " He must
164 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
want you or he wouldn't be talking about you all
the time, woiild he ? "
He went closer to her and spoke almost in a
whisper.
" He's even been crying for you, Marcia—^half the
night. Of covuse it's only because he's so awfully ill."
Marcia looked very tmdecided. It seemed an im¬
possible story that this brother should call for her.
Still it was hard to refuse the httle lad.
" Be quick and get your hat," he said ; '* you
needn't dress up. It's a very httle way, specially if
you come through the back yard."
So Marcia, softened, moved, tender, put on her
garden-hat where pink roses ran riot, and gathering
up the skirt of her white, beautiful muslin, followed
Loi to Balcombe Street his own way.
" Who is looking after the boy ? " she said, as
they went past the cubby houses and rubbish heaps
and kerosene tins and water-works and ships in
the Carruthers's back yard. " There is no woman in
your house, is there ? "
" No," said Loi. *' Only Ehza. Roger sat up
with him aU night, but of course he's had to go to
chambers now. The doctor's been, and said what
we have to do, and Phil's looking after him this
morning."
They went through the kitchen, where Eliza was
stirring at something over the fire and giving un¬
musical sobs from time to time.
Such a miserable look she gave Marcia. There
was hopelessness in it, admiration that was almost
awe for her beauty, and swollen-eyed resentment,
" Mider Martin mudn't be woked," she said,
turning away her eyes. "I'll box your card. Loi.
you witked boy, fedchin' vititors when he't god to
be tept twiet."
THE END OF A STORY 105
" You shut up," said Loi.
He led the way up the carpetless staircase and
down the carpetless passage to a little room at the
end of it. A little bare-walled room with a tossed
bed, a book-laden table, a door hung with coats and
trousers, a chair crowded with the basins and jugs
and bottles illness accumulates, a shelf with bottles
of strange things in spirits, a skuU acting as paper¬
weight, a banjo hanging on the wall.
The boy lay in an uneasy attitude, a dull fever-
flush on his face, his lips parched and moving, his
eyes shut.
Marcia crossed the room with noiseless step, and
stood by the pillow ; then instinctively her hand
went out to the poor brow where the veins throbbed
perceptibly ; she smoothed back the hair with gentle
fingers—the rough hght curls and waves, how like
they were to Loi's !
" How long has he been like this ? what does
the doctor say? " she said » very low to PhU, who
stood with anxious eyes at the foot of the bed.
But at the whisper the heavy eyes flew open, and
into them sprang a look of wildest brilliancy.
" Marcia," he said, " Marcia, Marcia, Marcia 1 "
He tried to sit up, he put out his hands to touch
her dress, scarlet leapt into the place of the duU red.
She stooped over him and laid him down, gave
him one hand to hold, put the other on his burning
forehead to soothe him.
" There," she said—*' there, hush ; try to go to
sleep, Martin."
He held her hand up so that he could see it, he
turned it round and touched with one finger the
white dehcacy of the pahn.
Then he dropped it, and moved his head restlessly.
" I'm going ofí my head again," he muttered.
i66 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" The Lord knows what I'll let out next." His eyes
went to Phil, standing near. " I'm getting better,"
he said ; " clear out, Pip, don't come back for an
hour."
" Hush," Marcia said again. " Go to sleep quietly,
Martin, and I wül stay here with you."
*' Do you hear, Pip ? " he cried. " Clear out this
minute ! "
Phil moved out of sight, and he let his eyes go
back to the face whose features his fever-blinded
eyes altered to those that were burnt on his brain.
" You poor Martin," Marcia said, " you poor boy 1
Can't you go to sleep, Martin ? try, for my sake."
She humoured him in his vision. But he only
stared at her duUy, and revolved in his own mind
the oddity of being delirious and knowing it.
She made her handkerchief wet and laid it on his
forehead, shut out the hght that came to make his
eyes ache, let in the early summer air, smoothed the
counterpane, spoke to him sometimes, softly, sooth¬
ingly. And he lay with his eyes on her face ail the
time, and was surprised that he was rational enough
to wish he could die while the vision was so clear.
All the morning slipped away, Marcia stiU there.
Sometimes the boy slept, the fever qmetened by the
touch of her hand ; sometimes he woke and fell to
raving, clasped and clung to her hand, pressed his
hps to it, made it wet with his tears.
He spoke the name incessantly, just the name—
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. Now in a duU monotone,
now beseechingly, begging and praying her to come
to him, now with the sharpness and sobbing breaths
of despair. All the room, aU the passage, rang with
the name.
Then again that dehrium would pass and his
fingers fling themselves free of the clothes and find
THE END OF A STORY 167
banjo-strings on the raised pattern of the counter¬
pane.
He sang snatches of song, and the tears burned
in Phil's eyes when he tried to make " Way down
in Alabama " fit in with the tune of " Jerusalem and
Madagascar." AU the fragments he gave were comic
ones, except " When as in silks my Julia goes," and
then he laughed and asked Loi if Julia wasn't a
lovely young person, a " sweet little innocent thing."
He sang one verse of an exquisite love song with
which he had delighted every one at the Morrices'
lately, and finished it in a flat, throat voice with
'* She licked him.
She kicked him.
Until he couldn't see.
Oh, McCarthy wasn't hearty ; now she's got a difEerent
party.
And she may have licked McCarthy, but I'm hanged
if she'll ück me."
But about two he feU into a heavy sleep, and
Marcia whispered to Phil that she must go.
" Loi can watch," she said. *' I want you to come
and talk to me, PhU."
The lad foUowed her down the stairs and into the
httle drawing-room with miserable eyes ; the sight of
light-hearted, merry Martin in this condition was
heart-breaking to him.
Eliza came in with the cup of tea and biscuits he
had told her to bring ; she glowered with red, swoUen
eyes at Marcia, made an inarticulate noise deep
down in her throat and withdrew. A weU-trained
domestic might have listened at the door, but such
a thought did not occur to poor Eliza.
„ " TeU me aU about it," Marcia said, and broke a
biscuit in half. " How long has he been iU ? what
does the doctor say ? have you any idea of the
cause ? "
i68 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Phil's voice was a little unsteady. His brother
had been undergoing his last exam, and had kept
up tiU it was over ; the doctor thought he had had a
kind of low fever on him for some time ; the worry
of the exam, and other worries had totally broken
him down. For the last two or three days he had
been eating almost nothing and had walked about
nearly all the night.
" Had he an5rthing on his mind—^had he had any
shock lately ? " Marcia asked, still puzzled. She
would have as soon expected Loi to be a candidate
for brain-fever as Martin of the light heart.
" Nothing any of us know of," Phil said. " I
think there must have been something, though—he's
been so queer lately. And there's another thing—
he stopped for a moment and looked hard at her
as if trying to decide if she was a woman to be
trusted ; then the new, sweet womanliness of her
face reassured him.
" The first night he was bad I sat up with him,"
he went on. " He had been to sleep for a time and
seemed a lot better, then he woke up and nothing
would do but I should get him a newspaper—one out
of his coat-pocket. I had to give it him to keep him
quiet, and he read it for a second or two and the
next minute was raving again."
'* Have you the paper ? " Marcia said. " Didn't
you keep it ? there might be some clue."
Phü produced it from his pocket and opened it
out, deepest trouble in his eyes.
*' I'm afraid it's one of these two things that
knocked him over," he said. "This was the only
part he had : there's the result of a race—^perhaps
he'd been gambling a bit—and there's a mine at
Coorong gone smash. He mighi have had an
interest in it somehow."
THE END OF A STORY 169
But Marda's feminine eye glanced also through the
" Social " he had not wasted his time upon. And
there she found a hght that illuminated everything.
There was a long paragraph describing a wed¬
ding ; it expatiated on the church decorations, the
bridesmaids' frocks, the magnificence of the cake, the
showers of rice and rose-leaves.
And the bride was Marcia Mortice. Both she
and Linley had been present at the wedding, which
had taken place some ten days previously. The
engagement for some time had been public property
in their fashionable circle, but by a strange fate no
echo of it had reached Martin. Even Roger knew
of it, but so entirely had Martin kept his secret, he
was not aware that the two were acquainted.
Marcia's eyes were soft with tears when she laid
down the rustling sheets and understood how this
highly decorative paragraph had been the boy's
first intimation that her cousin was not free. She
turned to Phil.
" I will help you to nurse Mm," she said. " I wül
come every day : he must have very great care."
Then she gathered up her skirts and went away
through the back yard again, and up to her beautiful
home.
Robert meeting her was filled with wonder at the
new beauty of her face. And that was the end of
Martin's first love-story.
CHAPTER XX
LOL PUTS ON THE BRAKE
'* But when that Is gone again
I, as others, am profane."
He mended more rapidly than might have been
expected, thanks to the excellent nursing he
received from the combined eSorts of Marcia, Roger,
Phü and Eliza.
In three weeks he was about again, long and
gaunt, his clothes ill-fitting, his cheeks sunken, all
the light gone out of his eyes.
The results of the examination came out. He had
done excellently, taken honours in Chuical Surgery
and a couple of other things.
He set about trying to find a country practice
where no premium was required ; there was an
excellent one at Wooldiwindi that Roger had wanted
him to have, but a hundred pounds was needed, so
it was out of the question. Some one thought the
pos^ of ship's doctor could be obtained for him
when a certain boat came in. Martin waited on in
Sydney on the chance. He did not seem to care
in the slightest degree where he went. All the
interest and enthusiasm he had once had for his
profession had died away ; aU his fund of gaiety,
aU his nonsensical ways had gone.
Da}^ passed sometimes and his face showed no
vestige of a smile ; when one did come to break
170
LOL PUTS ON THE BRAKE 171
through the new lines about his mouth it bore no
semblance to the old happy one.
Roger troubled greatly, urged him to go out more ;
he even went ofí himself and hunted up a merry
grig of a fellow, once a boon-companion of Martin's,
to beg him to try to exorcise the demon of depres¬
sion that had hold upon the boy. (
Then there came a change, even more distressing
than the apathy that had possessed him.
He began to go out too much ; he came down to
breakfast with an unmistakable '* morning head¬
ache " once or twice a week.
His volatile spirits would no longer let him keep
to the happy middle coiirse of Ufe ; either he was
plunged in a fit of profoimdest gloom or strung up
to a high pitch of excitement and acting almost Uke
a mad feUow.
At first Roger took no notice and thought it was
a nat\iral reaction that would soon pass.
But when Martin drifted into a wild set, and began
to make his coming-home times the smaU hours of
the morning, and when his health began to sufíer
and his chances of success to be endangered, Roger
spoke to him sharply and seriously.
And the boy was in no mood to brook advice
or interference. He answered shortly, roughly, that
he was capable of looking after himself, that he
should be out of the house altogether in another
week or two, and if his conduct did not please Roger
it must just do the other thing.
And Roger, burdened with worries enough of his
own, was overbearing, impatient, harsh : he coidd
not find S3anpathy for any one rushing with open
eyes to ruin.
A sharp quarrel between the brothers was the
result. Martin went on with his preparations for
172 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
departure with a sullenness utterly foreign to his
nature, and Roger, finding any other course impos¬
sible, was obliged to shut his eyes to the things he
disliked to see, and go on as if nothing had hap¬
pened. ^
It was Loi who pulled the boy up on his down¬
hill course.
A slate on the roof had shpped away of late and
loosened others in the same row, tiU gaps were made
that the rain soon foimd out. At first there came
only damp patches on the ceiling of Clem's bedroom,
but presently in one place the plaster grew suffi¬
ciently porous for it to drip down on to the bed
beneath, which happened to be the httle one of Loi.
No one had any money for the mending, and
there being many other damp places in the room,
there was nothing for it but to move the bed
into another room—Martin's.
Loi was deUghted with the change. Phil was
alwa}^ asleep before his head fairly touched the
pillow, but Martin used to read or write, or walk
about and keep the candle burning in a pleasantly
companionable way. The httle lad loved to wake
and be able to bhnk sleepily up at a circle of hght
on the ceding, or, after a bad dream, to see, instead
of blank empty darkness, the long reassuring figure
pacing the room or sitting with bent head aV the
taWe.
Of late, too, he had had the inexpressible happiness
of getting posted up in the questionable pastimes
of admired adults.
Among the articles of the httle larrikin's behef—
bred, doubtless, of long and close association with
Canning Street—was a very firm one that no one
coidd be a *' man and a gentleman " without get¬
ting drunk on frequent occasions.
LOL PUTS ON THE BRAKE 173
It never occurred to him even to question whether
Roger and Martin did so—he never doubted it for
an instant ; in fact, he would have felt a scorn for
them if he had thought they refrained. It seemed
to him a thing imdoubtedly to be included in the
education of every one worthy of the name of man ;
a thing that distinguished the grown man from the
ungrown, in the same way that long dresses and
tumed-up hair marked the adult woman from the
girl. He would have considered he insulted his
brothers by supposing they were like the pale,
meek *yo"J^S "^^.n who lived next door, wore a
blue ribbon in his button-hole, and taught in Sun¬
day School.
Several nights, therefore, lately, when Martin had
come a httle stumblingly into the room, and the
sound had wakened the little larrikin. Loi had turned
over and watched with one eye, feeling an added
manliness at occupying the same apartment.
One particular evening everything was so exactly
as he considered it should be, that he could not
resist opening both eyes and giving indications
that he was awake. But after that, watch as he
might, there never came another opportunity.
It was about two o'clock in the morning, and the
silence and deathliness, such early hours demand,
hung over the house.
Up in Clem's room Phil was fast asleep, but
Roger's room was empty, for he had gone to try
what a week on circuit would bring him.
Voices out in the yard, just below his window
wakened Loi. He burrowed under the clothes,
and scorned himself as a coward for having wished
for a minute Martin's candle was alight.
But when a laugh rose up to him, and another
and another, and came in through the open window..
174 THE little LARRIKIN
he shook off the clinging skin of sleep, sat up and
rubbed his eyes well open. It was the sound of
Martin's voice that made him slip out of bed, cross
to the window, and look out.
Four men were down below, seated in various
attitudes on the coal-heap. They were aU in fuU
evening dress, with their blue 'Varsity caps well
on the backs of their heads, and their mackintoshes,
or overcoats, well open.
Loi remembered there had been a smoking-concert,
and gave a little chuckling laugh. He quite under¬
stood this was proper etiquette—seeing each other
safely home ; but he could not help wondering
what would become of the last man.
The cold of the starlit air made itself felt. He
wrapped himself up in Martin's big bath-towel,
and stood on one chilled leg after the other, watch¬
ing interestedly.
He was a little disappointed that they were not
" more so " ; they aU seemed to have kept a toler¬
able control of their legs, and their speech was far
more connected and ordinary than Loi quite ap¬
proved of..
One of them was teUing a joke against Martin,
who sat grasping his stick with both hands and
occasionally applauding himself. It had to do with
some poUceman who, it seemed, had been standing
outside the concert-haU in expectation of being
needed.
The man who told it had no idiosyncrasy of
speech at cdl, the evening had merely made him fond
of the sound of his own voice, and added an ex¬
quisite edge to his sense of humour ; he leaned
across the heap of coal and told it to the man who
had not been there but only been picked up along
the way. Told how Martin had gone close up to
LOL PUTS ON THE BRAKE 175
an embodiment of the law, examined him with
exceeding care and gravity from head to foot, then
in a laconic way remarked, " Hum, 'pears to be a
policeman," and walked slowly and sorrowfully
away.
The bmsts of laughter and applause the recital
of such wit evoked encouraged the teller to give
another instance of the humour of Martin when
" merry."
How that he, passing a suburban shop that was
as respectably sound asleep and silent as became a
drapery establishment in the middle of the night,
had lifted his knotted stick and run it up and down
the iron corrugations of the shutters, making noise
enough to have wakened to instant and horrified
life the Seven Brothers of Ephesus. And how that
the harmless tradesman, scared out of his soul, had
flung up a window, put his head out and asked in
the name of Heaven what it was. And how Martin
had answered sweetly and gently from the pavement,
" Only a pansy blossom."
Lol's little snigger of enio5Tnent at the brilliant
sally was not heard amid the noise of the merriment
it brought forth below.
But when Martin, with two cigars in his mouth,
told how two of his friends had once, when home¬
ward ploughing their difiBcult way, taken ofí their
boots at every shadow they came to and laboriously
waded across, then the childish laughter-shout of
intense enjoyment made the four pairs of eyes look
up to the dark, quiet house, and discover tie httle
white figure at the window.
It broke up the gathering. Martin escorted the
three down to the back gate, and after a time, spent
in sajdng farewell, parted with them and came back
jerkily alone. The kitchen door was never locked.
«
176 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Occasionally Phil jammed a chair under the pro¬
jecting wood of a lower panel, but more often it was
left aj ar in serene security of the knowledge that no
burglar would waste his time in such a barren place.
He made a troublous way through the lobby,
for Ehza had left pitfalls in the shape of buckets
and brooms ; then a slow and very careful one up
the staircase and down the passage to the room.
But at the door his legs failed him entirely, and the
handle was not on the top panel, though he groped
there for it dihgently. So he sighed and gave up
further search, sat down on the oilcloth, and propped
himself up against the wall.
Loi had the candle alight and was awaiting him
in eager anticipation. When he foimd the heavy
steps came no further he hopped across the room,
opened the door and was not in the smallest degree
surprised at what he saw.
He pulled at the mackintosh.
'* Come on," he said encouragingly, " I'll give you
a leg in."
Martin tried hard to recover himself.
" Go to bed, you lil beggar, 't'wonce," he said.
But Loi, breathing hard with the exertion, was
doing his best to pull him to his feet.
" Now,—so ho—come along," he said ; " hang on
to me." "i
He spoke to him humouringly, indulgently, as he
might have done to a baby.
But Martin said a short word that begins with
one of the early letters of the alphabet, then checked
himself with a great efíort, made a greater one stUl,
and dragged himself up to his feet again after
several back-shdings.
The httle boy put an eager small shoulder ready
to help across the width of floor-space.
LOL PUTS ON THE BRAKE 177
But Martin would not touch it though it kept
beside him all the way ; he stumbled across the floor
and fell heavily and thankfully across his bed.
Sleep and conscience struggled hard : he hfted his
heavy eyes and repeated the command for Loi to
" go to. bed 'twonce, and in 'nother room."
But Loi stood his ground manfuUy, patted him
soothingly, took the blanket from his own little
bed and covered him up, dressed as he was.
Sleep conquered for a minute or two, then gave
way to conscience again. For a dragging movement
made his eyes open very slowly once more, and
there at the foot of the bed was the figure in its
little white night-shirt tugging at his boots.
Again he issued the command, and again Loi
refused to obey it.
" Just you go to sleep, old fellow ; don't you
mind anything," he said in the tone one uses to a
fractious child. His httle face was scarlet with the
pulling, but nothing Martin could say in that help¬
less state could make him desist. He got both the
big, heavy things off and dropped them on the floor,
then covered his feet well over with the part of
the counterpane that hung down, seeing the blan¬
ket was but a short one.
" Now cut to sleep, old chap," he said with great
kindness.
" If you don't go out th' room " began Martin.
Then conscience died and he obeyed and " cut."
When he awoke late the next morning with
leaden head and a parched throat, the httle larrikin,
fuUy dressed, was playing knucklebones on the
floor.
Martin watched him, the red of shame on his
brow. Such a dear, grave, Httle face it was, with
its babyish mouth and clear, child-sweet eyes. It
M
178 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
was horrible to remember the clearness had seen
last night's ignominy.
Against the dingy waU his mother's portrait hung.
His gaze, hastening from Loi, went to it, then fell
away. He could not bear just now the tenderness
of the eyes nor the sweet, strong patience of the
mouth.
When Loi saw Martin was at last awake, he rose
from his feet and sauntered to the bedside.
" Clear out of this," Martin said ; " I want to get
up ; I've overslept." Shame made his speech
hard.
But Loi, his hands well in his pockets, winked
at him knowingly.
*' Got a head on you, haven't you ? " he said.
" Would you like some pickles ? I'll go and see
if Eliza has any, if you like. Jimmie Smith's
brother says they're first-rate for it."
Dull red rose up into the elder brother's face.
He got off the bed and put him out of the room
by the collar of his blouse.
" I'll take his bed down to-day," he muttered as
he undressed to dress.
But later, the cool water on his head, and the
clean, sharp morning air rushing into the room, he
spoke again.
" No I won't," he said.
He stepped across the room and took the photo¬
graph into his hands. The mother-eyes smiled up
trustfully into his own. He put his hps down and
kissed the dusty glass.
" It's the last time, httle mother," he said.
Then he put on an old coat and went down to
find breakfast for himself.
CHAPTER XXI
A BALL AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE
B'EFORE the end of the same month the " sinner
that repented " had packed a couple of modest
portmanteaux, wrung Roger's hand amicably once
more, rumpled up affectionately Lol's httle curls, and
gone away to one of the tableland towns to try to
build up a famous name for himself.
And he had gone willingly, and with ambition in
his soul once more, for the practice was the one at
Wooldiwindi that he had coveted, and which, to his
extreme surprise and good fortune, he was able,
aiter all, to get without the premium that had at
first been asked.
Marcia went in to see him and say good-bye the
last evening, on her way to a ball at Government
House.
" Turn down Balcorabe Street—^the eighth house
on the left," she said to the coachman.
" What are you thinking of ? " said Linley.
Marcia disposed of her train carefiilly, looked to see
that Robert on the front seat had her great fan,
then turned to the girl seated beside her.
" I'm going to see a boy who has been iU," she
said.
" Who is it ? " Robert asked. Marcia as an angel
of mercy was a new character, and he felt so sick at
179
i8o THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
heart just now with trouble and dread, that any
sign of tenderness in her encouraged him.
" A boy called Martin," said Marcia ; " he has
been ill some time, but is better now."
Linley gave her arm an affectionate little pressure.
Then the horses stopped.
" Shall I come in with you ? " Robert said, peering
In his cxnious fashion at the house as he helped her
out. Linley, too, gathered up her skirts, and pre¬
pared to follow. V,
" I want neither of you," Marcia returned. " I am
going quite alone. Please get in again, and wait
patiently. I shall not be more than five min¬
utes."
But she was longer. The time was well spent,
however, for she had given the boy just the stimulus
and encouragement he needed, and satisfied herself
that there was small fear of him *' back-sliding."
She had looked so beautiful, and so anxious about
him, and had been so gentle, and womanly, and kind
to him, that, strangely softened, he had shown her
the old faded likeness, now in his pocket-book, and
told in a low tone of the promise he had made.
More, he took from his breast-pocket a scrap of
heliotrope ribbon, and a handkerchief with a fanciful
" M " in the comer, a small tan glove, and one or
two other httle stolen things.
** I'd better not keep them," he said, and handed
them over to her. " Put them away in one of your
places, wiU you ? I can't bum them."
So she was able to say good-bye, and go away
content.
Linley grumbled a httle at the five minutes that
had contained fifteen. But Robert did not say a
word, for he infinitely preferred the dark of the
carriage for his eyes, and the cool hoUand lining for
A BALL AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE i8i
his head, to the glare and noise of a Government
House ball.
'* People will be wondering where we are," Lin-
ley said. *' How was he ? "
" Is he a little chap ? " said Robert. " There is
that steam-engine on the top of the wardrobe,
Marcia. I don't think anything but the fimnel's
gone ; it helped me through mumps, I remember,
when I was a lad."
Marcia leaned her head well back.
" He is twenty-one," she said. *' Also, he is
better and is going away."
It was only a httle after nine when they reached
their destination : the carriage block kept them some
time before they were able to drive in through the
wide gates, where the guard stood, and up the long
sweep of drive. There was a curious balminess in
the air, the English softness and freshness of June
that lurks often in Australian autumns. Dew lay
heavily on the wide stretch of grassed land, the
wet scent was pleasant to the senses. The term
" grassed land " is used advisedly, park has a bet¬
ter sound but is proscribed.
For once it happened when a governor's wife went
home, friends were a little surprised at her raptur¬
ous enjoyment of her own broad lands once more.
" But surely Government House had a park ? "
they said.
" A park, a park ! " she cried. " There is nothing
in the world, I do assure you, but a great grass
paddock."
The lamps of innumerable vehicles twinkled far
down the drive that skirted the " paddock " and led
to the distant stables.
Such a variety of vehicles ! Numbers of brou¬
ghams, certainly, handsome, irreproachable things
i82 the little larrikin
from down the fashionable suburbs. Gsstly things
at which Mayfair would not have blushed, but cast
covetous eyes on the grand horses and well-developed
coach and footmen.
But just behind a buggy, perhaps, an ordinary
jump-seat buggy, without a cover, and having for a
Jehu a patient brother or cousin. Then a comfort¬
able sociable and driver in plain clothes ; a pony
phaeton, an open victoria, another immaculate
brougham, another buggy, a small drag, and cabs,
cabs, cabs stretching ever5rwhere.
Along the side-path came guests walking to the
ball either from preference or ill-fitted purses. Girls
in dainty finery, much-muffled matrons, pater¬
familias in swallow-tail of past-day cut, embryo
doctors and lawyers, glad to air their new dress-
clothes without expense. Cab-fares would have
made the evening impossible to these.
When the ball is over they wiU don their wraps
and shp away past the string of gorgeous footmen
in the hall and porch, and hasten down the drive to
catch their modest boat, or bus, or train.
When Marcia and Linley came out of the dressing-
room, the big, briUiantly-hghted hall was full of
httle knots of people, not yet gone into the double
drawing-room, that, fading a better. Government
House uses perforce for a baU-room.
Anxious mothers with many daughters and blank
cards rallied here a httle time before the inward
move—the female element is always predominant at
these balls. Men waited patiently about for their
women-folk to appear from the dressing-room, or
improved the shining time by avoiding the eyes
of the plain girls, and maldng sure of dances be¬
fore the pretty ones were whirled away into the
vortex.
A BALL AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE 183
There was a little stir of men when Marcia
appeared. She was looking royally beautiful to¬
night ; not another woman in aU that assemblage
could be named in the same breath. Before she was
half-way across the hall she had formed a little
court, and Robert, not unthankful for the respite,
moved on, and idly propped up the wall near the
door, through which he would presently take her
on his arm for the announcing.
There were three men watching for Linley's
appearance, and the love of her filled each of their
hearts. Perhaps it was the secret knowledge of
this that lent her to-night unwonted beauty. She
was wearing a frock of pale rose-leaf silk, soft and
shimmery ; the making of it was simple, and there
was no train, for she had a passion for dancing and
would not be encumbered ; pale-tinted shoes and
gloves, and a gauzy fan finished the costume.
And the pink was matched in her cheeks, dehcately
soft and sweet, there was the beauty of gladness
and tenderness in her eyes, her hair was in a soft
brown cloud about her forehead.
Roger had been waiting impatiently for her near
the wide staircase. Two or three months ago,
Linley had insisted he should write his name in the
great book in the haU, and become *' a respectable
member of society, as befitted his honourable pro¬
fession." This was the first time he had received
a large gold-lettered card asking for the honour of
his company. All the scene was strange to him, and
would have been interesting, if only Linley had
hastened more ; he had been watching for her three-
quarters of an hour.
Before she was quite out of the doorway, his face
cleared and he bore down upon her, a tall, goodly
enough figure, with his grave, somewhat worn young
(
I84 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
face, grey eyes, keen and frank, and hair that would
curl despite both brush and barber.
But from the opposite side of the hall and a
shorter distance away came Thurston.
He did not hurry, hke Roger, but his legs were
long, too, and the space covered being smaller, it
was edmost a dead heat between them.
The third man could make no movement ; he was
the young Lord Annesley, and was discharging the
duties of aide-de-camp in the unavoidable absence
of the legitimate one. But he gave a somewhat
impatient glance sideways from time to time, and
bowed and smiled almost sulkily to the passing
crowd that the Private Secretary named as fast as
he coxild.
" The first is mine," said Roger.
" May I see your card ? " said Thurston.
It was a dead heat again.
Thurston's hand was out. Roger's stretched past
masterfully.
But the card himg from Linley's arm, and the
sük cord was tangled in the padlock of her bracelet.
When she had imfastened it, she gave a little swift
glance at Roger, and handed it to Thurston.
" But not the first," she said ; "I shall not dance
it, I think."
He took one and prayed for another with the
grace of a courtier ; Linley demurred and bade him
notice the shortness of the programme, then laughed
and yielded an extra. He went away feeling he
could have gained a third but for the presence at
her elbow of the clean-shaved young man with
wrathful eyes.
Linley held out her card to her lover.
The bopsh look of pleasure and hohday-making
had quite gone from his face. There was no answer-
A BALL AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE 185
ing smile in his eyes as he took the programme.
*' That was not hke you," he said quietly. " I
thought you were above little coquetries, Linley."
But anger sprang into Linley's eyes at the accu¬
sation.
'* How can you say such a thing ? " she said.
" You might have known what I did it for. Think
what a number you always take ; I didn't want
him to see, that is all."
" But you're engaged to me, Linley," Roger said.
" What on earth does it matter to us what any fel¬
low thinks of the number I take ? You have
nothing to account to him for. Besides, I think I
am very moderate, I never take more than four or
five—Mosely and Miss Atkinson and lots of engaged
people have eight or nine."
Linley made an impatient movement.
" You know I don't hke that sort of thing," she
said ; " we see plenty of each other without mak¬
ing a parade of ourselves. I detest the kind of
couple who dance every other dance together. Have
you finished with my card ? "
He had put four R's, emphasizing his right by
making them large and black. ** And of course I
shall take you into supper."
" That be one of the four," Linley said. She
did not know how she should make the programme
meet demands, for there was Annesley yet to come,
and she had seen several men with whom she wanted
to dance and talk. " Here is Marcia moving in ;
I must go, Roger."
He foUowed half a minute after her.
" Be nice to me to-night, little girl," he said in a
low tone.
Linley was ashamed of herself.
*' Of course, you foolish boy, what else could I
i86 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
be ? When we are inside stay with me, and I'll
point out notabilities and find you other girls to
dance with."
But " Hang other girls 1 " Roger said. " What
do you think I came for ? When it's not our dance
I'll get in a comer and watch you. I can look after
your fan and fiowers, too. Or else I'll have a smoke
outside or do execution in the supper-room."
Linley laughed and sighed a little at the same
time.
** You're a handful," she said, moving away after
Marcia. " What I am going to do with you I don't
know. But I shall insist on introducing you.
There's the prettiest girl in Sydney here to-night."
" I have already had the pleasure," Roger said,
and bowed low.
Linley laughed back over her shoulder.
" That was worthy of Mr. Thurston," she said,
and was swept away before she saw his eyes darken
again.
Inside the room every one was filling or not filling
their programmes just as the case might be. A
great many men knew no one, a great many girls
were in the same position ; but of course there could
be no introducing beyond those immediately known
to the aides-de-camp or friends to friends. Middle-
aged and old men predominated, those in high
places.. The young men were chiefly ofl&cers from
the men-o'-war in the harbour, or subalterns from
the barracks, and sometimes the brothers or fiancés
of society girls, a few clerks who had somehow
obtained cards of entry, and a few rising young men
who thought it looked weU to put in an appearance.
The average dancing-man in a position to be asked,
and numbering years less than thirty, was con¬
spicuous by his absence, for these entertainments are
A BALL AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE 187
not infrequently voted " slow " by those not in the
immediate '* set."
Presently the crowd divided into two lines and an
aide-de-camp came to see a clear space was left
down the middle of the floor.
And then slowly between the ranks came a little
procession—His Excellency the Governor and his
wife, his son, his young daughters and their fashion¬
able governess.
Down the room they came, smiling graciously
from side to side, now shaking hands with one
acquaintance in the crowd, now exchanging a word
or two with another.
The first Governor who had done this had
endangered his popularity for a httle time. Always
before he had stood at the baU-room door with " Her
Excellency " and shaken hands affably, or at least
distributed stereotyped smiles and bows. But the
guests were used to the " Royal procession " now,
and also to the presence of the httle girls of " Their
ExceUencies," which at first they had resented the
least httle bit.
" For," said careful mothers who beheved in
nurseries, " though they might let their children
patronize their own tenants' bahs in the old country,
they would not permit them to be on view if they
were giving a big baU in London. Perhaps they
regard their colonial guests on the same level as
their tenantry."
The yoimg lord was shouldering a slow way to
Linley. He had to book as he came a countess
from the next colony for the lancers, one of the
vice-regal httle misses for a waltz, and the sub¬
stantial old wife of a member for the second
square.
" You kept me a dance ? " he said eagerly at
i88 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Linley's elbow. It was because his eyes hid nothing
that Roger looked at him so sharply.
He was a pleasant-looking young fellow, short,
fresh-coloured ; his eyes were blue, his hair was
almost too short to determine the colour. The
scarlet, gold-slashed coat he wore gave him rather
a pictorial look, as if he had been done somewhat
crudely in oils for an advertisement. He was not
more than twenty.
** I want about three or four," he said. " You'll
let me, won't you ? " Since he had been in the
colonies he had been refused nothing he had asked
for, except by Linley. Perhaps that is why he had
been imagining himself in love with her for the space
of two weeks. Linley smiled upon him. He was
such a frank young egoist.
" Two," she said, " is too many by one. But still
you may have them."
He scribbled down one of his many names in two
places, then requested a third.
*' Look here," he said ; " it's a beastly shame when
I'm goin' home in a fortnaight. If you don't care
for the dancin' we can sit out and talk, don't you
see ? If you'll say yes I won't dance with another
girl—only old ladies and fat women."
But even this inducement failed.
" I only have one other left," Linley said, " and
I'm keeping that in the hope Mr. O'Manney wiU ask
for it."
" You're jokin'," said Annesley. *' Why, the
fellow's forty."
He thought it must be universally agreed that
twenty was the golden age.
Linley looked demure.
" He's had twice as long as you to leam how to
make himself agreeable," she said.
A BALL AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE 189
" Or to forget," said my lord, smiling. '* If he's
the only one I'm goin' to take it."
And he actually wrote Annesley across the third
space and bowed himself away.
'* So that's your httle lord," said Roger.
He spoke dully, wearily almost. The brilliance
of the scene and the ease and evident enjoyment
with which Linley fell into all the gaiety gave him
a new pang.
Last night he had put her tenderly into the httle
sweet cottage of his thoughts, seen the firehght, the
curtained windows, the soft happiness of her eyes,
the peace of everything after the noise and jars of
the day.
And to-night he was ashamed of it. In the
interval between his second and third dance with
her, he tried as an experiment to raise it up again.
But the poor httle waUs crumbled down, he could
see no leaping fire, no room with the world shut out.
Nothing but Linley in her costly finery being whirled
here and there in the arms of other men. Then his
heart grew cold as he told himself he was wronging
her ; this was what she was fitted for, this sunshine
and hght-heartedness of society. What right had
he to condemn her, to bruise her delicate wings in
the mill where the everyday world ground its sub¬
stance ? What right to ask her to come to his side
and grow careworn and worried over the sixpenny
troubles that crush out the joyousness .of half the
world ? Thurston was reported to have ten thou¬
sand a year. He thought of the brilliant, beautiful
hfe she could have with him, the chance to mingle
with the best intellectual hfe in the old world, to
develop her own artistic powers, to five softly and
free from petty worries aU her days. And this
honest-faced yoimg lord at whom half the Sydney
igo THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
girls had set their caps, if he were old enough to be
in earnest, what briUiance again lay in her path !
When he sought her for his third dance and took
her from Mr. O'Manney's care he was as white as
death.
" Let us go outside," he said, a little thickly. " I
have something to say to you, Linley."
CHAPTER XXII
THE END OF THE BALL
" 'Twas only striking from the calendar
Unbom to-morrow and dead yesterday."
UTSIDE in the pale moonlight Linley paused
" Shall we go on the balcony? " she said ; " there
is a httle out-door staircase leading up to it at
the end of this verandah."
" I want to get away from every one," he said.
She could teU from his tone he was upset, and
in her hght-hearted state it jarred upon her. She
told herself she was getting just a httle tired
of Roger's exactions.
They went down one of the long paths leading
water-wards. Here and there a white dress gleamed
on a garden-seat on a lawn, here and there the
red eye of a cigar showed through the fohage.
But a waltz was in full swing and just now the
defaulters were few.
They stopped where between trees the harbour
lay below imfolded between them—not, indeed, with
its waves lapping at their feet, but only separated
by the quiet Admiralty Wharf. To-night enchant¬
ment seemed on the face of the water, so still it
lay, so golden were the lamps reflected in the
black and silver waters. Sometimes the hghts of
a ferry-boat shot smoothly along and went to lose
a httle.
191
192 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
themselves behind headlands, like stars out of their
orbit. Sometimes a night-departing steamer for the
coast gUded onward, a hght in every port-hole.
Shadowy ships, motionless in the bay, twinkled,
a lamp here and there, on the thin, vague masts.
Blacker ones, out in the moonlight, silhouetted
clear yards and networks of rigging on patches of
pale sky. And once or twice there gleamed the
white sail of a boat in which unseen hands were
making sharp *' fishermen's lufís " to get a clear
nm into Wooloomooloo Bay.
Linley drew her white cloak closer around her
neck.
" What a ghostly look it all has ! " she Scdd.
" It's hke a bit of the Arabian Nights shown on
a magic-lantem sheet." She moved a Httle closer
to him. '* Well, you imsociable old Grosbeaks,
how are you enjoying yourself ? Is all the scene
a target for your cynicism, or are you deriving
pleasmre from it ? "
But he was looking down at her with an expres¬
sion of anguish in his eyes.
" I am going to give you up," he said.
Down below two sailors from a French man-o'-war
rolled by, arm-in-arm, one breaking the night's
hush with a roUicking Breton love song in a not
unmelodious sea-strong voice. Nearer, a girl's Hght
trilHng laugh and chatter made alto for her part¬
ner's deep-toned bass.
There was the faintest shade of exasperation on
Linley's face.
*' I know what it is," she said ; " you are getting
into one of your tiresome moods, Roger. Don't you
think you have been having them rather frequently
lately ? They are growing a trifle monotonous.
There is notMng I have done, nothing, to cause
THE END OF THE BALL 193
them. You don't want me to think you are jealous,
degradingly jealous, do you, because I like lalking
to a clever author, or am amused with a boy-lord's
conceit ? Or is it Mr. O'Manney you take exception
to ? Oh, no, you must be jokin , the fellah's forty.
Come along back to the ball-room, you dearest boy,
and let us finish the waltz ; this is not the place for
the blues."
But the misery in his eyes was no whit abated.
" Try to imderstand me, little girl," he said,
" There's nothing in all the world, not the smallest
thing, that you are to blame for. Only something
has shown me things clearly to-night, and I know
I must give you up."
She moved away from him impatiently.
** Oh, dear," she said, " what am I to do with
you ? This is the second time you have said this
to me. I can't do more than tell you I don't want
to be given up, that I refuse to be given up. Do be
sensible again, Roger ; you know you don't mean
it."
" I do mean it," he said.
Then there was silence, white, wind-touched
silence, that the magnohas made heavy with frag¬
rance, and something telling her heart in a voice,
fainter even than a whisper, of the pleasant paths
of freedom. But shame came and silenced it. She
moved close to him again, lovably close, but he did
not even touch ■'her hand.
" Tell me all about it, Roger," she said patiently.
" First, you have not really minded Mr. Thurston,
have you ? "
His answer was not in the quiet, restrained tone
of his other speeches, it came in a rush of fierce,
swift words.
" Am I a stone ? " he said. " I've not minded 1
N
194 the little larrikin
I've wanted to cut his throat, I've wanted to
break my stick across his sneering face. Don't you
know what you are to me ? What do you think it
is for me to picture him thinking of you as I thought
of you before you gave yourself to me ? I used to
dream aU night of kissing you, all day of holding
you in my arms. And he does the same, men
alwajTS do. It's sacrilege, Linley, as much as if you
were my wife."
He turned and walked away from her, arid back
again, half a dozen times, struggling for calmness
and composure.
" You are imjust—^you are wicked, Roger ; neither
of them have said a word of love to me. They are
my friends—surely I may have friends."
Linley's voice quivered with anger. But he
caught her arm.
" Don't fence with me, Linley," he said. *' Don't
you know they are both in love with you ? "
For answer her eyelids fell and she moved from
him restlessly.
" What I do know is you are the most tiresome
boy in the world," she said.
" Can I do more, then, than set you free ? "
** But I won't be set free. I refuse, utterly, alto¬
gether. Now what can you do ? "
" Make you. Go away from you if necessary.
Never see you again. Leave you to feel just as you
did before you saw me."
Again the whispering voice, again shame's hurried
stifling.
Linley stood thinking in silence a few minutes,
then she turned round and took his arm.
" I am going back to the ball-room, Roger," she
said. " It sormds heartless, but it is the best thing I
can do. ' While I am away I want you to walk quietly
THE END OF THE BALL 195
about and smoke and think all this over ; you are
upset now and don't know what you are sa30ng.
It MÛU be your dance again after four more ; bring me ,
down here then and tell me what you have thought."
He took her back along the paths in silence.
Just at the verandah steps she spoke again in a low
tone. " Only remember all the time," she said, " that
I don't want to be given up, that nothing on earth
would have made me ask it."
Then she was swept away by the young lord, who
was not at aU accustomed to be kept waiting, and
Roger went back to the moon-painted garden to
fight with the miserable problems that he had
carried about, and put away, for more than three
months.
And misery has a clairvoyance of its own. He
knew just how her thoughts had fled to the relief of
hberty, and j ust how she had struggled against them.
It was a night full of event for Linley.
She was not used, Hke Marcia or any other
beautiful woman, to making conquests wherever she
went ; she was merely moderately pretty, not always
even that, and hitherto no more attention had fallen
to her share than comes to any girl with similar
advantages. The last few weeks had really been
calculated to turn her young head. Here were two
of the most " desirable " men in Sycmey at present,
men that anxious mothers of marriageable daughters
were ready to spend their last sixpence in enter¬
taining, men that might choose wives from the
proudest families at home—here were these vjdng
with each other in courting a young Australian girl
possessed neither of a superfluity of money nor good
looks It seemed incredible—the kind of thing that
happens only to beautifiil, down-trodden governesses
in yellow-backs.
igô THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Lord Annesley swung her round the room twice,
collided with two couples and begged no pardon,
then waltzed her right out of the room, put her
arm into his, and walked her into the garden without
any by-your-leave.
" Look here," he said, " what did you go stoppin*
down the garden for ? "
" There was a moon," Linley answered lightly.
" The largest I have ever seen. I grew afraid it
would fade far away, dissolve and quite forget us
if I didn't stay and watch it."
He twitched a bit of gold lace excitedly.
" Look here," he said—" look here, Linley, I love
you ; upon my soul I love you."
It was quite a different matter knowing this young
lord was pleased to allow himself to dance attendance
on her to hearing this bold and honest statement.
It startled the girl not a httle.
" Hush," she said, " I don't think you know what
you are saying. Lord Annesley."
He assured her eagerly that he did.
" I've been dyin' to say it for a week," he said
" I've been thinkin* of nothing else, upon my soul.
I've never thought of another girl since that picnic
at that what d'ye call it Pass—^when you had that
big hat on, don't you know."
" Oh, please stop," Linley said ; " indeed I cannot
let you say another word. Lord Annesley—I am
" She slid deftly away from the arm that came
to encircle her.
But he broke in with a rush of quick words.
" You're thinkin' of my people ? " he said. " Upon
my soul they're not half so bad as they're made out.
The duke's an awf'ly decent old boy, he gives me
my head in everything. And the mater's an awf'ly
nice woman ; there's no one hke her, upon my soul.
THE END OF THE BALL 197
She'll be awf'ly fond of you. You mightn't get on
with my sisters at first, they're a bit pious, don't
you know, but they're awf'ly nice girls. We'll
have an awf'ly rippin' time of it, Linley. We'll
get a yacht and knock about in it, if you'd rather.
You do love me, don't you ? you wiU marry me,
Linley ? "
Then he became aware that Linley was saying
something, had been trying to say it and break his
torrent of eloquence, was telling him she was
engaged to some one else.
For one moment my Lord Annesley, of Caradoc
and Wintherop, and of Glan-lewis, Wales, looked
at her with the face of a schoolboy that disappoint¬
ment and reproach have almost betrayed to tears.
His happy young egoism had never dreamed of a
refusal.
But the next he was a man again.
" Most unpardonable thing of me," he said ; " had
no idea at all. Pray forgive me. Miss Middleton ;
you must want to box my ears. Pray pardon me.
Had no notion of it, upon my soul. I really deserve
a horsewhipping."
But he refused the friendship Linley offered and
asked for, as girls will to the end of time for want
of something to say at such a juncture.
" I couldn't stand that," he said, and led her back
to the ball-room.
The thought of his elastic temperament and
short score of years gave Linley comfort, however.
When it was Ids dance Mr. Thurston took her up¬
stairs on to the balcony. He spoke a little of his
life, of the men who were his friends at home, the
pleasures of intercourse with genius that London
afforded more than any city in the world ; then he
asked her very quietly and tenderly to be his wife.
igS THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
It was far harder than it had been with Annesley ;
this man was older, graver, very much in earnest,
though, perhaps, also a httle self-assured. ^
She told him of her engagement to Roger, ex¬
pressed her sorrow falteringly that this should have
happened through his ignorance of it.
He had heard a rumour or two about it, and
before he had spoken to her had taken the precaution
to ask Marcia if it were true. But Marcia had
denied it carelessly, as she always did, and he had
felt free to ask.
" Oh, I am so sorry," she said. " I did not dream
you reaUy cared. Oh, I am so very sorry." Tears
were in her eyes and her heart was aching. She
felt she had put an indignity on this man who had
been so much to her through his books even before
she had met him. " I ought to have told you, I
ought to have made the engagement public—bh, ^
please forgive me."
" I cannot let you blame yourself," he said, and
there was a little stifEness in his manner. " It has
happened entirely through my own fault. Do not
think of it again, I beg you. Let us be friends as
we were before ; put it quite out of your mind that
I have troubled you with my feelings."
They sat almost in silence imtil the music began
for the next díince, and they joined the stream going
to the lights again.
It was Roger himself who took her from his
arm. The two men avoided looking at each other.
" Let us go back where we were before," Roger
said, leading her down the path. And she knew by
his tone that the hour's meditation had done him
no good.
For half a minute there came a passionate little
wish that Roger stood in Mr. Thurston's shoes, that
THE END OF THE BALL 199
he was an author, could take her to London, let her
see the life she craved for. The title of Annesley
and its attendant glories attracted her not at all.
Then a wave of shame came over her, she tried to
shut her eyes to everything but her lover, to keep
her thoughts with him and him only. What good¬
ness was his 1 How he loved her 1 No man on
earth could love with the strength and tenderness
and passion of this one ! What were other men's
aSections to her, other men's glories, the wealth of
the whole world, the genius of it all ? Her nature
could never satisfy itself with lesser love, it would
demand always as its right the whole-souled worship
and unselfishness and infinite patience to which
Roger had made her accustomed. Should she go
heart-hungry all her days for the pleasure of a
bottomless purse and the company of distinguished
authors for dirmer sometimes, or poets for five-
o'clock tea ?
This was the reasoning of both head and heart,
but the very fact of forcing it, and trying to hsten
to it, robbed it of its power. The events of the
evening lent constraint to her manner, and the very
shame she felt at herself for the suspicion of waver¬
ing made her seem cold.
" You know that I love you," she said. " I beg
of you, Roger, not to say an5rthing more of this to
me. Why should you make aU this unhappiness ?
What can I say more than that I love you beyond
every one ? "
Roger trembled for a minute, almost put his
face down to hers in the dark. Then he stood
very straight.
" Listen," he said—" hsten, my darling, my httle
girl, my httle, httle sweetheart. Everything I said
before was right ; I must do it, my darhng ; I must.
200 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
to be honourable, to respect to take care
of you."
Linley laid her cheek on his sleeve, but not quite
as lovingly as she would have done three months
ago.
" Have you nearly finished talking," she said ;
** because I am not attempting to hsten."
" Don't," he said—" don't make it harder. Listen,
my dear one, I am not going to give you up alto¬
gether. I find I can't ; I am not so strong as I
thought myself. But for a year I am going to set
you completely free. To fall in love with whom you
choose, to do with your hfe whatever you choose.
You shall give the little ring back to me to keep,
and before God I will never reproach you, nor
think in of you, if you find you cannot come back
to me."
" Have you nearly finished ? " she repeated. And
hated herself because she had no impulse to burst
into tears, to throw her arms round his neck, to
compel him to a knowledge of her love and so
vanquish his determination. She had a curiously
detached feeling, as if she were an onlooker, as
if she were speaking for some one else.
" Not quite, my dearest one," he said. " You are
not to pity me, or make yourself unhappy thinking
I shall be miserable. I am going to work very
hard* and leave no time to think at aU. I want
you to be the same light-hearted httle girl you
were two years ago. And if any other man comes
along, and you feel you could like him, well, you
are free to do so. But if not, then you wiU come
back and be my own darling again, and "
" One minute, Roger. I think I owe it to you to
teU you something, as I denied it just now. Those
men did—care for me. I have learned it since."
THE END OF THE BALL 201
He nodded.
" What did you tell them ? "
She crept into his arm, red in her cheeks.
"That I loved you—yo«. Oh, Roger, how can
you doubt me so ? "
He held her gently.
" They wül ask you again," he said. " That is
what I want—for them to know you are free ; for
you to feel you are free, and the end to shape
itself."
" But I will not be given up. I refuse to be, I
refuse* utterly," she said. " This is a thing you
cannot do by yourself."
" Yes," he said steadily, " 1 can. You are a
sweet, dear, little girl to talk like this. But what¬
ever you say, my darhng, I must do it ; for it is
for the happiness of all your Ufe. I shall not
trouble you at aU during the time. I will take
care to keep altogether out of yom way, and not
even write. You have just to forget me for twelve
short months, and then remember or forget me
for ever."
Carriages were beginning to leave when they
spoke of going back to the ball-room. Roger had
grown very quiet ; the pain of the scene was becom¬
ing almost beyond endurance. For the faint hope
that for long had refused to be stifled now lay dead,
that her love would be strong enough to force him
to see this thing was unnecessary.
Y et she had been long in yielding ; the diificulty
he had to make her do so was great enough to be
a slight appeasement to her conscience. She had
called pride to her at last and given in. She chose
to teU herself he doubted her love, he wanted to
test her—weU, she would accept the twelve months.
After all it was not very much when she would be
eo2 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
his for all her life after. One year free and un¬
fettered—she felt she had never appreciated freedom
before—then she would go back to him and show
him how unnecessary his doubting had been. She
tried to make her heart feel sore against him, instead
of full of ignominy for herself.
" I must go back now. Marcia and Robert will
be waiting," she said.
She moved across the grass to the path. But he
took one step after her.
" You are going to say good-bye to me," he said.
There was something almost fierce in his tone,
something that had broken through the restraint.
He snatched her into his arms in the shadow of a
great magnolia. He lifted her face up with one of
his hands I " LinUy " he said, and the voice was
that of a man drowning hard ! All her life she
would remember his kisses and the eyes that looked
into hers in the moonlight. Then he hurried her
away to the ball-room, left her with Marcia, and
went home.
CHAPTER XXIII
A LARRIKIN PICNIC
• You'U soon get used to her looks/ said hat,
♦ « And a very nice girl you'll find her/ "
JUST a fortnight later there came a chance for
Loi to wear his larrikin suit.
Eliza's young man's brother had taken a wife
unto himself, and Canning Street was en fête.
It was not a region where wedding-breakfasts,
rice and rose-leaves might be expected, but blows
and fights and an eternal shortness of means had
not entirely crushed the abihty for rejoicing from
the hearts of the inhabitants thereof.
Events of importance were generally celebrated
by gatherings at the comer public-house.
But when the occasion was one to be specially
marked, then the bûliès of the district were mus¬
tered, the local butcher did brisk trade in the
succulent German sausage that lends itself so
genially to sandwich-making, the girls spent their
earnings in fearful and wonderful hats, and a picnic
was the result.
The last time, the Prince of Wales's birthday, to
wit, the illness of Martin had deprived the gathering
of the company of Eliza and Loi, but this time there
was no let or hindrance whatever, and the colony's
anniversary day coming pleasantly along to ofíer
opportunity, the rejoicings were made coincidently.
203
204 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
On the programme of the day there was a pleas¬
ing item that had much to do with the exception¬
ally strong mustering of the youths of the part.
Three members of the Canning Street *' push "
had applied for certain situations in the plumbing
line, but failed to obtain them because three re¬
spectable fellows belonging to no " push " at all
had been preferred, owing to superior qualifica¬
tions. The injury was quite sufficient.
It was not often Canning Street attempted to earn
its bread by an3rthing so monotonous and wearying
as the sweat of its brow. When, therefore, having
formed the Intention, it was frustrated, its anger
was boimdless. The programme for the day con¬
sequently included the spoliation of the Gasfitters'
Picnic, the destination of which the larrikins had
ascertained and settled upon also for their own.
If Eliza had not occupied the proud position of
sister-in-law elect to the hero and heroine of the
day, Lol's presence would not have graced the
proceedings.
For in Canning Street children were regarded in
the most unfriendly light possible, necessary evils to
be pushed aside, left behind and forgotten when
chance offered.
But Eliza had made interest with the great man
of the occasion for her favourite ; and besides this
Loi iiad acquired a certain standing of his own
among the inhabitants of the part, and a liking and
friendliness that the boldest of their own small
dwellers had been powerless to gain.
The picnic was to start at nine and proceed by
tram to the Circular Quay, from there to the bay
decided upon in a steamer hired for the day.
Eliza was giggling unmusically with a girl-friend,
because there was scant room in the car and a great
A LARRIKIN PICNIC
205
brawny fellow was proposing some one should nurse
him.
Loi had not yet come on board ; he had been
exchanging greetings in each compartment, and
tr30ng to induce the driver of the motor, for whom
he had a friendship, to promise at the end of the
journey to " nick away and come too."
Just as the whistle started, he swung himself up
into Eliza's division, and then it was seen for the
first time that Jimmie Smith had sprung from some¬
where and was at his heels.
Loi was attired in the suit Marcia had given him,
but some of the glory of it had fallen also upon his
faithful companion.
Jimmie's suit was of pepper and salt, trousers
hanging half a foot below the knees, coat somewhat
ancient in cut, and trimmed generously with rents.
Loi had cut oS half his own bright buttons, and
with incredible labom: in some way made them
adhere to Jimmie's coat.
" But if you lose one of them I'll give you a most
awful thrashing," he had said, mindful whose gift
they had been.
Not more than nine or ten of the larrikins were
attired in this style that had for recommendation
" as done in London." It was a somewhat expensive
suit for one not in daily use. The poorer members
made up the deficiency by ties of startling brilliancy,
coloured linen or flannel shirts, decorations of
flowers, feathers, bits of ribbon in their hats.
Ehza wore a dress of white muslin, evilly washed
and ironed, but much trimmed. Her underskirt
was of brown, heavy stuñ, frayed at the edge and
much in evidence, for the skirt of her dress was
half a dozen different lengths. Her stockings were
of tan open-work cotton, her shoes the favoiurite
206 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
white canvas, newly pipe-clayed. Her hat was
toque shape, blue velveteen with heavy trimming
of velvet bows, gold daggers, butterflies and red
roses. Red artificial roses were pinned on at
intervals over her dress, one little bunch coquettishly
at her left shoulder, one at her waist. Her gloves
were bright tan, sphtting whitely at the seams. Sha
wore one of the fashionable veils, white, with black
crescents, drawn up full under her chin. Her
parasol was of draggled pink chiffon, and she carried
a big scent-bottle with a bright brass stopper. For
a wrap she had some one's worn-out opera-cloak of
old-gold plush.
Loi had laughed at the costume before they
stâirtcd
" Well, you do look a thing ! " he said. " Why
don't you notice the way Marcia dresses, or Linley
even. Some of her things aren't half bad."
Eliza looked uncertain whether to cry or to hit
him. Most of her costxxme had been copied from
the ladies at the big house—with improvements.
Her hat was the exact shape of one Marcia had
driven out in sometimes in the winter, only she
had carried it out in velveteen and roses, instead
of soft, duU fur. Linley frequently wore white
muslin, Marcia's parasols were often of chiffon ; both
aflected tan gloves.
" I've a drade mint nod to täte you to the pitnit,
you witked boy, you," she said. " It's twite as
dood as Mardia't. What's te madder wit it ? "
Loi spoke frankly, tempering his desire to do her
good, however, with the mercy of affection.
" It isn't as if you were pretty, you know,
Eliza," he said. " Of course I'm not blaming you.
I know you can't help it. But with a face like
yours I'd wear black or something plain. You
A LARRIKIN PICNIC 207
wouldn't notice it so then. And Marcia never
wears white shoes in the street, only to balls and
things. Can't you take off those siUy flowers ?
And pin up your brown petticoat ; it's all hanging
down. And that's an awfully fat-headed hat, Eliza.
Marcia wouldn't be seen at a dog-flght in it."
But Ehza threatened to box his ears and " knock
'is nasty 'ed orf." She carried the war into his
own camp and jeered at his fine suit.
" If Mardia hat any liddle boyt she wouldn't led
em dret up like that."
Loi'smoothed the silk revers and rubbed up a
button caressingly.
" That's the difference," he said airily. " I only
wear it as a joke and know as weU as any one it
isn't proper."
When Jimmie Smith's anxious face was seen two
or three of the youths wanted to drop him out of
the tram at the next stopping-place. Unlike Loi
he was one of themselves and not in the least
interesting or original.
" Oh, he may as weU come," Loi said easily.
"He won't be in the way. I'll look after him
myself."
" Hid moder's on de trunk. Led 'im tome, poor
little chap," said Ehza to the bride.
The bride had a wonderful fringe, bold, laughing
eyes, and a good mouth. At eighteen she had not
forgotten her own drink-cursed childhood.
" 'E can come," she said, " if the other Uttle 'un
'11 give us a good kiss and a 'ug."
The whole of the masculine element of the com¬
partment volunteered to act as proxy for Loi.
One or two even left their seats to make the attempt,
but the new husband put himself in mock fighting
attitude.
2o8 the little larrikin
And Loi in this case had no particular desire to
be relieved of his task. He was thoroughly imbued
with the spirit of the occasion, and besides this the
bride was a personage, the queen of the day, the
cutter of the big cake which the husband himself
was so jealously carrying. He went over to her,
kissed her heartily and hugged her tiU she and her
papery white silk cried for mercy.
Over the waters they went, through the blazing,
down-pouring sunshine. The gasfitters had chartered
a laimch and run up a gay blue flag ; it kept im¬
pertinently ahead of the larrikins' steamer, kicking
up its white-frothed heels insouciantly before it aU
the time. When landing time came there was
aggravation again ; the launch had emptied out aU
its bubbling life and started ofE again before the
steamer's gangways were down, consequently the
spot where lay the coolest, softest shade was an¬
nexed by the gasfltters, their sisters, cousins and
aunts.
The morning fled away on swift, gay wings
The little cool breath there had been on the water
was a thing of the past, the sharp rays beat down
mercilessly, but no one heeded them. Ehza's
freckles, that life indoors kept moderately in
abeyance, came out brilliantly brown ; her elegant
veil parted company with her hat dming the frantic
rushes of the game of " twos and threes," and she
used it to mop her heated brow.
She frisked and capered through the games with
the grace of a particularly ungainly young elephant,
there was something almost pathetically grotesque
in the spectacle of the poor, unbeautiful thing tossing
her servitude to the winds and giving vent to her
animal spirits in this wild, uncouth way. So
boisterously loud indeed her mirth grew that even
A LARRIKIN PICNIC 209
in this place of wild shouts and laughter the un-
harmonious sc^nds became annoying. Her young
man bade hef " Shut up, or he'd get another girl."
He turned away from her where she was clinging
to her section of the merry-go-round, and giving
gurgling, hysterical yells of laughter and delicious
fear. He went to run round with a smart-looking
girl who served in a sixpenny restaurant.
So Eliza put a curb op herself and choked down
her unruly enjoyment. This ginger-haired young
man, with blue, prominent eyes and stubbly beard,
and nose, once broken in a fight, was the only
specimen of mankind who had ever attempted to
appropriate her and her unloveliness. She clung
to him almost desperately ; sometimes when her
eyes discovered her lack -of beauty she was filled
with cold horror of the fear of losing him and never
having any one else. The hopeless pain of love
she bore for Martin never made her reckless of this ;
when the youth threatened her as he did, not in¬
frequently, that he would get another girl, her terror
and dismay were infinite.
Loi soon discovered there was a prospect of
pleasurable excitement at hand. Quite what the
modus operandi was to be he could not make out, but
he knew the plans that were being laid had to do
with the band of harmless-looking people who were
enjoying themselves in such a quiet, yet whole¬
hearted and merry way a little distance ofí.
But presently there came the distraction of setting
out the lunch, and he left the men and went to hover
about the girls who were bringing out the eatables
from baskets and bags.
The cake, though more manifestly of plaster-of-
Paris construction than is usual, made a charming
centre-piece on the cloth of newspapers. Being
o
210 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
a co-operative affair, the viands set out had the
charm of variety.
The bride's mother had brought a goose that cut
as if it had come to Australia with Captain Cook.
The bridegroom's father had a supply of whisky and
beer ; two had brought rounds of corned beef, many
sheep's tongues and feet, long red sausages, slabs of
cold bacon. There were cakes galore, crumbled
with careless packing, but aU of confectioners' manu¬
facture ; the Australian woman of this class is not
given to producing home-made dainties.
When he was convinced there were no more
baskets to be emptied, Loi suggested to Jimmie
Smith that they should go over and see what sort
of a *' feed " the gasfitters' women-folk were spread¬
ing out. So they went. There was a great, clean
tablecloth here, decorated with ferns, flannel flowers
and Christmas bush ; shiny and delightful meat-pies
nestled on dishes of bracken, tempting-looking cakes
shaped into pigs and cows and horses, currant-eyed,
for the dehght of the little folks, made a fascinating
procession round the centre decoration. Sweets,
nuts, red-cheeked apples and bonbons added attrac¬
tion to this table that made Loi consider the
expediency of beginning a friendship with the
pleasant-looking women, and insuring an invitation
to a second dinner. He broke the ice by inquiring
of one woman whether she or the " other pretty
girl " had made those beautiful animals. It turned
out one had made the pigs and another the horses ;
he looked such a quaint, dear little fellow in his
comical clothes that they drew him in among them
and said he should be umpire and say which work
was best. They presented him with a little pig and
a thing with uneven legs and curious head they
called a horse.
A LARRIKIN PICNIC 211
" He's an awíiú good judge, too," Loi said, indi¬
cating the neglected Jimmie.
They were forced to disburse two more, but they
chose two of the poorest instead of fine ones like
those they had given Loi. " Well ? " they said.
Loi masticated thoughtfully.
" The horse's head is better than the pig's," he
said, " but the pig's body is the best."
He ate each leg separately, slowly, watching in a
disinterested way the movements of the men in his
own j)arty. They had come up somewhat close and
were playing a game of twos and threes that seemed
to lack genuineness. Then up from the beach came
Eliza's young man and another youth, bearing a
kerosene-tin bucket a-piece.
" They can't boil salt water for the tea, the goats,"
was Lol's innocent thought. He opened his lips to
tell them so.
They were passing, one on either side of the
daintily-laid cloth.
" Scissors ! " said Eliza's young man, pretending
to sprain his foot.
" Moses 1 " said the other slouching youth, and
stumbled over nothing.
The buckets emptied themselves simultaneously
on to the snowy cloth and its tempting array ; one
was full of sand, and the other of dirty water. In
a moment the peaceful, beautiful spot became a
Pandemonium. The gasfitters had been close enough
to see the deed ; they rushed upon the youths with
a fury that seemed as if nothing short of murder
would content them.
But the reserve division of larrikins poured in,
armed with sticks and stones and shells. Such a
fight as took place had not been seen for months.
The gasfitters fought like men possessed ; they had
212 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
the fury of undeserved injury in their breasts to
spur them on : their women sprang into the fray,
screaming, sobbing, tr3dng to drag away husbands,
brothers, lovers. Bold spirits from the larrikin
girls rushed into the turmoil, and fought and shouted
with the best of them.
Loi found himself in the strange position of fight¬
ing against his own party. His breast was heaving,
his eyes aflame with anger at the outrage on these
kindly women who had been so hospitable to him.
There was no humour or cleverness or originahty in
the action ; once when he was tossed by the human
wave on to the outskirts of the mass where lurked
the affrighted *pnger-haired youth, he fastened him¬
self on to a leg of him and kicked with aU his small,
furious strength. Jimmie, slow of brain and a child
of custom, flimg a few stones and struck a blow or
two for his own side. And Loi, perceiving him and
half mad with the knowledge of the uselessness of
pitting his own httle strength against men, made
a wild rush at him, dragged him some httle distance
off, and fought him like a young tiger.
It was Eliza who came and separated them. A
stone had struck her on the temple and blood
was trickling down her face. There had been a
whisper of a boat having started off for the pohce,
and two or three of the women of the larrikin party
were hurrying off to pack up their untouched feast
and get on to the boat and away.
Eliza had remembered Martin and the injunctions
for care of Loi.
" Tum away, you witked boy," she said. *' The
politeet are tuming—you'll ged pud in gaol. Tum
and help me to pat up te foot."
Lol's arms dropped to his sides ; sudden hght
flashed in his eyes.
A LARRIKIN PICNIC 213
* Come on 1 " he said.
He scuttled along before her to the deserted feast.
Into the baskets two of the women were putting the
food. Loi fell to helping with eagerness. He got
the biggest bag of all, popped in the goose, a joint
of beef, filled it up with cakes ; he helped with the
packing of the other baskets.
" Now we'U take them down," he said. " Come
on, Jimmie. Catch hold—look alive."
The women decided it would be best for them to
let the httle boys take all; they would be less
observed.
" Hide them among the grass," they said, " down
near the water ; then when the boat is in the men
can pick them up as they run."
The larrikins' steamer was lying some little dis¬
tance out, waiting for the return trip. Unlike the
gasfitters', which had gone back again and would not
return till night.
The raiders sent word down for their boat to
come alongside ; the minute it touched the wharf
they flung down their arms and made a rush with
all their women down the grass slope and over
the gangway, snatching up the baskets, as bidden,
on the way.
The gasfitters followed in hot pursuit, but the
captain had the interests of the larrikins at heart,
and cast off hastUy.
Loi and Jimmie came flying on at the last moment,
they waved good-bye with their hats from the side
of the boat, and all on board were amazed that two
of the women on shore waved back and smiled.
When they were a few miles off and safe from
pursuit, hunger made itself felt. Tliey decided to
dine on board, as affording greater security than
landing again.
214 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
*' Unpack the baskets," said the tired warriors.
And the women knelt down to them and lifted the
Uds.
Loi and Jimmie at the far end watched the por¬
poises interestedly, and spoke of the queerness of
felly-fish in the intervals of finishing up the cakes
and bananas in their pockets.
When they strolled back to the deck, sixty con-
foimded people were gazing with the wildness and
despair of hunger at the sand-filled baskets, and
gnashing their teeth at the thought of the gasfitters
revelling in their feast. The bride fairly wept at the
thought of the white cake and the well-browned
goose, and Loi offered her the consolation of a
banana he had reserved for her.
His face was innocent of ever5rthing but disgust.
" Well, of all muttons 1 " he said. " Why, an
ass with no head might have known some one would
get to the baskets 1 Just mustn't they be grinning
at you 1 "
And the larrikins answered not a word.
CHAPTER XXIV
a morning's post
" But you, sweet, you who know me, who so long
Have told my heart-beats over, held my life
In those white hands of yours—it is not well."
Roger had just carried his breakfast into the
dining-room, and sat down to it at the comer
of the table.
He told himself with a feeling of luxury that he
could take half an hour over it if he wished, for the
judges were on circuit, and the only work the day
held so far was a small matter in chambers. Phil
came in presently with a hot face and some toast,
freshly buttered.
" Better than bread," he said, pushing aside the
loaf Roger was mechanically cutting. " How's your
cocoa ? cold, I'll bet. Chuck it away ; I've got some
hot in this jug."
Roger made a better breakfast than he would
have done despite the half-homr's grace he had given
himself. He had grown so thin and silent of late,
that PhU, in a half-shamed way, had taken to look¬
ing after him almost as a sister might have done.
But so stealthily and unobtrusively that Roger had
never discovered it.
The household was a small one now Clem and
Martin were gone ; the loneliness of it was wonder¬
ful.
215
2i6 the little larrikin
Roger never went anywhere at night. He used
to smoke in the drawing-room all the evening,
reading sometimes by the hght of a guttering candle
—^they had ceased to use gas for economy's sake—or
staring into the tireless grate.
In the dining-room Phü, with another candle, did
his lessons, and then worked at shorthand, in which
he was endeavouring to give himself extra lessons
for future necessities. And Loi, his yormg soul
oppressed by the silence and desolation of the
house, lay on the table and read penny tales of
adventure, or stole out to the gate for conferences
with Jimmie.
Freda had almost ceased looking for window-
pictures ; the raising of the blind had for so long
shown the same that she had wearied of the mono¬
tony and taken to other occupations. The study of
Linley engrossed her exceedingly ; she was both
baffled and excited by the turn things had taken.
No longer was she in request as a chaperon in the
dear, dingy house in Balcombe Street, nor for after¬
noon tea in the studio on Sunday afternoons. " We
have broken oS the engagement for a year, that is
all," Linley had said, feeling forced to give some slight
explanation, when the child already knew so much.
But the little girl's eyes of horror had made her
uncomfortable.
" Doesn't he love you any longer ? " she gasped.
" Don't be foohsh," said Linley.
" You can't have stopped loving him, Linley. Oh 1
you couldn't,—oh, I wouldn't beheve you coiild."
Linley's cheeks grew warm.
" You are too little to understand things, Freda,"
she said.
" You've quarrelled, that's what it is ; you've had
a lover's quarrel. Oh, Linley, do make it up—darling
A MORNING'S POST 217
Linley, don't be proud and horrid when he's so
very, very nice. Oh, Linley, I don't know how you
can. Let's go down to Balcombe Street, and you
make it up."
The little girl's anxiety was pitiable. That was
all a month ago, and Linley had explained nothing
more to her.
Such a strange, hard, worldly Linley she seemed to
be growing. For one thing, fame had come to her,
a modest, local kind of fame. *' The Flight of Little
Souls ' ' was the talk of the art-loving section of the
city, "her name was in all the papers, people thronged
to her studio and seemed to feel themselves honoured
by being able to buy her pictures. Mr. Thurston
had advised, as Roger had done, the painting out of
all the figures in her big picture but the chüd-angels.
And Linley had at last taken her brush and sub¬
stituted a soft, beautiful background of sun-warm
sky and clouds, and the mists of a wonderful hill.
Then the power and tenderness of the little
figures were seen, the fame of the canvas went
abroad, and the city was pleased to anticipate a
career of brilliancy for the yoimg artist.
But Roger stood by silent and gave no sign.
*' He might have congratulated me," she said, then
remembered he had confessed himself jealous of her
work and concluded he could not share her gladness.
Just as Phil had poured out a second cup for his
brother and started to cut the lunch-sandwiches,
giving as excuse that Roger always " made such a
beastly mess of the loaf," Loi came in with the post,
—^he had just met the man at the door.
There were three letters for Roger.
" That's from Clem," the small youth said, hand¬
ing over a thin, shabby-looking envelope with Clem's
unmistakable scrawl. " Here's from Martin—^he can
2i8 the little larrikin
write, that fellow can. There's a C for you. What's
the postmark, Phil ? it says Wooldi—Wool—it's all
smudged."
" Give me the other one," sidd Roger ; his very
lips were white.
Loi tossed over the square pale-grey envelope.
" It's from Linley," he said, " and about time she
wrote. You've not had a letter for long enough,
Roge. I wouldn't stand it, if I were you."
Roger drank all his cocoa ; he laid the envelope
face down on the table-cloth and looked away from
it. He simply dared not trust himself to open it j ust
yet. He broke open Martin's to steady his hand.
It told of settling down, better health, fairly good
prospects. " But why on earth that agent," it said
at the end, " refused to take the premium he asked
at first, still beats me. It's a mystery I'm absolutely
unable to fathom, for he's more than a bit of a yid-
disher. I thought his profession of sudden interest
in me meant the practice was worth a song. But
it seems to promise very well."
Phil's face flamed when he read this in his turn,
for this was the conspiracy Marcia had made him a
party to. She had secretly paid the premium
herself, that the boy might start fresh and fairly in
the world. For the days she had passed by his
bedside in her novel capacity of nurse had made
her feel very tenderly to him, and afterwards, when
he started to run full tilt down that facilis descensus
boys find so easily, and all because of his useless
love for her little name-sake, she had felt towards
him just a® if he had been a dear, wilful young
brother of her own. ^
So she had stood behind the scenes and pulled
the wires that gave him fresh woods and pastures
new in which to grow strong and forgetful. And
A MORNING'S POST 219
when, many months afterwards, he came down for
a fljdng visit, his laugh as infectious as ever and
his smüe as golden, she gathered her reward and
his new secret from a song he sang her, with a half-
comical, half-deprecating look on his face, and his
banjo in his hands.
You cannot eat breakfast all day.
Nor is it the act of a sinner
When breakfast is taken away
To turn your attention to dinner.
• And it's not in the range of belief
That you could hold him as a glutton.
Who, when he is tired of beef,
Determines to tackle the mutton.
Consider the moral, 1 pray.
Nor bring a young fellow to sorrow
Who loves this young lady to-day
And loves that young lady to-morrow."
But at the time of this letter his harp still hung
on a willow-tree, and he carefxiUy refused all in¬
vitations to afternoon teas.
" See what Clem's got to say," Phil said, putting
Martin's note hurriedly away.
Clem's was a wild, disconnected, hiimorous epistle
as usual.
" Dear Roge,—Thanks for the five bob, but it's
no earthly good to me up here. I'm sending it back
in stamps : it'll come in handy for Lol's boots or
Eliza's smashings. Don't send any more. On my
soul it's no use to me, old chap, unless you'd like
me to start going on the spree ; that's the only way
you can spend money up here. Jove, the feUows
do waste it, half kill themselves to earn it and then
chuck it away as if it was dirt ! Some of them are
tough-looking subjects, old bullock-drovers, for all
the world like monkeys with tremendous whips in
220 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
their hands. Freda wants to know what I do with
my time. Tell her here's a sketch of a day without
the slightest exaggeration. Work, log-splitting.
Heat, 115° in the shade. Sleep, lying awake all
night, and feeling as if you were getting boded. Or
else it's riding, riding every day till I'm sick of
saddle and bridle and the sight of a horse.
*' You never saw anything like the barren deso¬
lation of the place just now, the brick-red dust
without a blade of grass, the sheep d3dng in himdreds,
or crawling about like shadows—^the only kind of
shadow we get—and the rabbits l5dng against the
fences in piles two feet high. The whirlwinds are
distinctly fine and large. I've seen them carry oS
the tops of trees, catch up a sheep and throw it down
with terrible violence. You can hear them roaring
and crashing far enough oS.
" How's old Mart getting along ? I suppose he's
got a red lamp of his own by now. I wish he'd send
me a prescription to cure an eternal thirst. Look
here ! it's just struck me, but tell Phü to do it. In
the wash-house vmder the sink-place there's that old
billy we used to take camping. Phü could give it a
bit of a clean and send it up : it would only be about
sixpence. I can make tea any time then for myself.
I daresay the fid's somewhere in Lol's rubbish-heap.
Look about for it.
"Xook here, Roge, all that's nothing, I've only
been writing an5rthing to lead up to something.
Now don't write and throw cold water on it. On
my soul I couldn't stand it, and I '11 never get another
such chance. You remember that fellow Barclay
I told you about, decent chap, out for colonial expe¬
rience, got a fair amount of tin ? Well, he's been
wüd for long enough to go prospecting. Coolgardie,
of course. It used to make me a bit sick sometimes
A MORNING'S POST 221
to hear him skite, knowing how much chance I had
of getting there unless I walked over. Well, it was
when we were drafting cattle the other day, he got
rather in a tight place, and, as I was nearest, of
course I gave him a hand. And now what must he
do but insist I've saved his life and all that rot.
But it's pretty lucky for me after all, for he's full up
of sheep, and cattle, and rabbits, and has settled
to start to Coolgardie immediately. Now don't get
excited, Roge. He's asked me to go with him, and
I'm going. It's no use rowing—look here, I'm nearly
ofí my head at the thought ; I haven't slept a wink
since he told me. He'll pay all expenses, and we'll
peg out a claim somewhere, and dig tiU the blessed
earth disgorges nuggets by the shovelful. Look
here, you can grin Ö you like, but I know we'U
strike gold ; I've got the feeling in every bone, and
Barkie's the same. Now, don't get your hair off,
Roge, but it's no good you trying to stop it, for it's
too late. By the time you get this I'll be on the
way. I reaUy had to take it into my own hands.
Next time you write address to Perth post-office.
I'm off to Melbourne with sheep to-morrow, and I'U
go from there by the Konoowarra, I'U write when
I get there and teU you where to send future letters.
Wish me luck, Roge. I feel like turning Catherine
wheels across the paddocks and doing circus tricks
in the saddle. Look here, old chap, it's aU right.
You needn't go imagining I'U take to drink and
the ways of the Not-Good-One. I'm keeping
as straight as the first definition in PhU's old EucUd.
I couldn't very weU turn out a bad lot—^the Uttle
mother makes me Uve square yet."
Since it was altogether taken out of his hands
Roger could do nothing. There was a certain reUef
in the thought.
222 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
"But there's just as much chance for him as
there is for you to become governor, Phil," he said,
standing up and picking up the delicate grey
envelope. " Yes, you can keep the letter and tell
Loi."
He went away to his little bare bedroom again.
He sat down on the edge of the tossed bed and
broke open this first letter he had received from
Linley since the long-past evening of the ball.
" Dear Roger," it said. The writing was careful,
well formed, even the date and address were there ;
bitterly showing the distance she had travelled
from the days of the letters full of sweet words, when
her pen had flown along too lovingly and hurriedly
for fair caligraphy, and scorned to remember the
orthodox beginning of place and time.
" Dear Roger," it said. " Somehow I have
expected you would write to me—why, I don't know.
Perhaps I thought I was more to you, and that you
would find after aU you could not do without me.
Perhaps I thought you would be pleased at my
success and, whatever our relationship, would write
and tell me so.
" I am on the eve of deciding upon rather a
momentous matter. After aU that has been, and
stiU may be, I cannot let you hear, just as an
acquaintance might, that 1 have gone away.
" X want to go to Italy and work hard. At the
most I should not be away more than eighteen
months, which is very little longer than the year you
insist I shall be free. Still, I cannot forget the im-
happiness even my little absences have always caused
you ; if you really think you would feel it very much
I will give it up. Though, as things are with us,
surely Italy is little farther than Boyd's Road.
" Roger, write to me, tell me everything. Is this
A MORNING'S POST 223
making you too unhappy ? Roger, shall I come back
to you ? If you ask me to do so, we will just wipe
this month away out of our lives. I shall expect
your answer this afternoon. I cannot sign this
the thought of all those other letters of ours makes
me wonder if we are mad."
The last paragraph was less steadily written ; it
was blacker than the rest, it looked as if the pen
had run away from the strange stiffness and written
the end of itself.
And Roger's control deserted him. He found
himself in a chair at his Uttered writing-table, his
pen was in his hand, paper before him, he was
writing out his heart to her.
Oh, the wüd, passionate appeal, the breaking up
of the long drought, and the rushing forth of flood
waters ! AU his strength went into his pen, the
pages quickened into quivering Ufe and cried aloud
for her. The woman did not Uve who could have
read it and not jielded.
His face was burning, his hands shaking like
those of a man with ague.
He found an envelope and addressed it, he
determined to go to Boyd's Road, and put it himself
into the letter-box at the gate. He took his hat and
walked away out of the house. It did not occur to
him to remember he had on the coat he had worn
at breakfast only, and that it had several holes burnt
in it and a burst seam or two.
When he was half way down Boyd's Road and
near the Barretts' house, he found the gates were
open, and a riding party was coming out—Marcia,
Linley, three or four gentlemen, one of them Mr.
Thurston, Linley was smiling, there was pink in
her cheeks, her brow looked smooth and imwom ;
when her horse curvetted restlessly and needed to
224 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
feel her hand, she laughed, and Roger could find
no happiness in the Uttle sound.
The turn of her horse's head made her see him ;
he was moving hastily away. The sight of his face
and his almost tagged coat gave her a curious
shock. She could only stare at him amazed for
the moment his eyes looked up to her. When she
recovered, and had made her fidgety horse stand
stül, he had hurried on, and was a hundred yards
away in a minute.
Every one was waiting for ^larcia, whose stirrup-
leather some one was altering. Linley could hardly
put her horse to a gaUop and go after that swift-
walking lover of hers. She turned to Mr. Thurston,
her face a httle white, for she could not forget
Roger's expression.,
" Wül you ride after that gentleman in front for
me ? " she said ; *' the one in the straw hat. He
could not have seen me. Please tell him I wish to
speak to him."
She walked her horse in the wake of him when
he rode off to obey her request.
But the hurr5dng figure turned round a corner
and disappeared. Thurston caught him up and
delivered the message courteously ; there was that in
the young man's face that made him look away. ' '
" Beg her to excuse me," said Roger. He had
the. curious sense of hearing his own voice just as
it had sounded to him once from a phonograph.
" Kindly teU her I am in great haste but wül write."
There are limits to the strength of the strongest ;
to speak to Linley just then with others near, Linley
with those strangely amazed eyes, was more than
he even dared to think of doing ; he hfted his hat
and turned round still another corner, and Thurston
had no choice but to ride back with his ill-success.
A MORNING'S POST 225
Roger walked home again, the fire dying out of
his veins all the way.
He went up to his room, his step slow, deliberate.
Loi was in the upper passage shouting to Eliza to
hurry ; blood was streaming from a cut in his fore¬
head. Roger only noticed the strange, waved kind
of pattern the red made on the child's pallor.
When he had shut the door he sat down again
on the unmade bed ; the head of it was near the
window. He stared out into the squalor of Canning
Street for almost an horn:. Then he stood up,
lighted his candle, and held the sealed envelope in
the flame of it tiU it fell in black flakes among the
matches and dripped wax of the tin holder.
" The letter of a coward," he said, burning his
fingers with the last fragment of it.
"Then he took paper and pen again, and wrote the
letter that was sent.
" Little Girl,—I need not tell you what I think
of your loving ofíer. But I cannot accept it, dear.
I want you to have the whole year we spoke of.
Yes, go to Italy. I would not stop you for all the
world. But if you stay longer you will write and
tell me what your feelings are at the end cf the
twelve months ? You are not to trouble about me
at aU. I shall be working hard and the time wiU very
soon pass. But I must ask one thing of you as you
will be so very far away—let me have two lines from
you from time to time, that I may know you are safe
and not ill. God bless and prosper you, little Linley."
CHAPTER XXV
ROBERT
IT was the day Linley sailed that Robert's crash
came. But the horror of the knowledge of its
coming had been hanging over him for a long time.
The sudden failure of great houses in England, the
steady depreciation of the wool market, the bank
troubles that had convulsed the colony, and the
collapse of a promising mine had overwhelmed him
with utter ruin.
There had at last come a day when he could no
longer put off the telling of it to Marcia, for on the
morrow the world would know it aU,
0
He went with her to see Linley off. There was no
need for the trouble to sadden or prevent the sea
voyage or dull the glow of the bright Italian days.
Yet something filled the girl's heart wûth infinite
pity as she looked down at him the last moment
when the gangways were put away and the first
slow movement came to WTench the hearts of more
than half the crowd. He looked so dull and dusty
and crushed and insignificant, standing there be¬
tween the radiance of Marcia and feather-fine
bravery of weeping Freda,
The hopelessness of the eyes he hfted, when his
lips smiled and his hand waved, struck her heart
with a sense of shame that she had tried so httle
to brighten his days when she was with him, or to
226
ROBERT
227
win the confidence that no one in the world seemed
to want.
" I will make up when I come back," she told
herself, her eyes hot with the tears that most eyes
held just then. The ache at her heart was almost
beyond endurance.
The hurry and excitement of preparation and the
intoxicating vision of'the days to come had left her
no time for thought that brings regret, till now,
when she leaned over the vessel's side and felt the
dull v^Jsration of it, and saw the casting ofí of the
ropes and the widening space of water against
the wharf. Something rose in her throat, grasped
at her heart, throbbed in her head. Terror came
to her, clearness of sight ; she knew it was happi¬
ness she left behind and a myth she went to seek :
the voice of the roll of the waters came to tell her
dully, irrevocably that fate might not be sported
with, that she had cut ofí the fiower of her days and
might never gather it more.
Until now when the wharf had fallen back, back
into the dingy city, and become a little patch of grey
with white, waving Unes, she had hoped against
hope that Roger would come to see her off. She
had strained her eyes for the sight of his figure in
the crowd, her heart had leapt and sickened a score
of times, and now it was aU too late.
The vessel had passed through the Heads and
set its face towards the great, green ocean.
Marcia avowed her intention of drowning her
grief by going to dinner at the Monices'.
" One has to talk there," she said.
She suggested, gently enough, to her Uttle, griev¬
ing stepdaughter that she should come also. And
Freda in her new loneliness and sorrow accepted
and kept close to her all the way.
228 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
Robert turned away alone ; they would be home
at eleven, they said, and it was three now.
Just outside the company's wharf he found
Roger, who had watched the boat go out from an
unseen place.
They walked on together, utterly without speech ;
their mutual misery gave them a common bond.
Into the city they went to seek the solitude the
crowd gives ; they walked up through the busy
streets keeping in step together.
Once Roger spoke.
" That was Mr. Thurston under the bridge ? "
" Only going as far as Colombo," Robert returned.
'* Got a fad to study the Cingalese. The little girl's
safe enough, Carruthers."
Silence fell again for half an hour ; they turned
their faces citywards again at last, and came back
from the unfamiliar parts whence their blind foot¬
steps had taken them. Then they nodded briefly
and parted.
At seven o'clock in Boyd's Road, Robert was
quite sane, but thinking labouredly of madness.
He was in the Japanese sitting-room. The bamboo
stools and tables and palm-stands were in almost
straight hnes, for a clear space of pacing-ground had
been absolutely necessary. On the table Marcia
used for tea his piles of paper lay. Her favourite
bronze idol, fallen on its face, served to secure them
from the hght breath of the early evening wind.
For an horn: or two he had remamed sitting,
working with the quiet and mechanical accmacy
that characterized him. But when everything was
in order he laid down his pen, blotted the last
sheet, and stood up.
Now there was time to pace and think he un¬
locked the httle brain-cell he had guarded so
ROBERT
229
long, and brought out to deliberate view the thing
he had hidden away in it.
For three or four years he had possessed this
chamber of horrors, and closed the door of it with
hurried hand whenever it stood in the shghtest
degree ajar. But it was only the last few months
it had become necessary to turn a steel key on
the thing within, that it might intrude on no other
times than the wasteful midnight or reluctant
birth of mom.
Blipdness threatened him, swift and complete.
The warnings of his doctor had been frequent, but
the acknowledgment had hitherto also been wmng *
that even the greatest care could hardly avert the
catastrophe.
Robert comforted himself with that when the
financial clouds rolled up and made him strain
through the visual ones to know properly the
shape and size and blackness of the ones to be
the most dreaded.
For it was not the blotting-out of the sun's
yellow glory and the moon's sweet hght, the up-
springing gladness and green of the earth, the
wonderful colours that lurk in the wave-dips of
summer or winter seas, that gave him that heart-
sickness and dread. Not even the thought bitter¬
ness of turning eyes that saw not on the face whose
exquisite beauty had been his dehght and dearest
misery.
It was the horror of being no longer able to
see figures, and work with them the wonderful
things he had done all these years, that Marcia
might live softly and his little daughter want for
nothing.
The last of all the doctors he had consulted, and
the one of the greatest skill, had held out an olive-
230 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
leaf of hope that was worse than the flood waters.
If he could rest for three or four years, if he could
lay aside completely all business and brain worries,
and be watched with greatest care, then there
might, even at this late hour, be a chance for
ultimate recovery.
Robert laughed as he thought of it and paced the
matting, actually laughed out at the strange, grim
mockery of the thing.
All the years he might have rested, had he then
been bidden, had slipped away, toil-filled, and might
not be exchanged. And even the toü that might
now have made the thing possible lay spüt on the
ground and he was penniless. There was Marcia's
hundred that was stiU secure to herself : he was not
to know that she had drawn the next year's in
advance and paid it secretly for Martin's premium.
And there was land in Freda's name that might sell
and yield another hundred yearly.
He pictured the possibflity of the three of them
living on that, himself sitting aside useless in the
dark. His lips laughed again, made at least the
facial curves laughter delights to he in.
People with two hundred five in cottages that
lack rooms, space, garden, conveniences, servants,
everything. People with two hundred wear clothes
that fashion smiles at, ride in traips and omnibuses
instead of carriages, stay at home all the year round
and remember to forget there are blue, cool moim-
tains, green country, and white wings to cross the
breezy seas. His wildest imagination refused to
picture Marcia amongst such.
So he turned his thoughts to the only other
capital he had, and decided. In just as ordinary
and unemotional a way as the generality of men
decide about calling in bonds or foreign stock, that
ROBERT
231
I
he must make it available. It was the policy of
his life insurance and would yield between three
or four hundred a year. Eight o'clock found him
determined upon ever5rthing but the actual means.
The letter he had written to Marcia he told himself
was masterly. It was full of expectations, of return
and plans for the futmre ; it told of the ruin of every¬
thing, but spoke strongly of hopes for a fresh start
in hfe. " I am compelled to go to New Zealand
to-night. I may be in time, by being on the spot
mysep, to save a trifle from a house with which I
am involved there. You may expect me back by
the end of the week. TeU Freda she is to be good
and obedient to you ; sometimes, Marcia, I could
wish you were kinder to the little thing and took
more interest in her."
Then he signed himself her husband, her affec¬
tionate husband, and laid the pen away beyond his
reach.
For the little, swift, flexible thing was making him
feel the power it held. It urged him to write a
passionate farewell full of all the strength and
sorrow and love and despair there is in a man's
heart who goes out with conscious will and swinging
step into the great night. He ached for a moment
to lift the shackles from himself and let her feel just
what this love of her had been, just what the binden.
When the delicate, sweet wind of the evening
came in to him, and wafted the soft curtains, and
touched his hair, and played with the draperies of
the room that seemed full of her, his strength ebbed
for a httle time.
Since it was his life he was giving for her, since
of himself he was going beyond reacii of her hands
and lips, her eyes, her voice and smile, might he not
let her know, just her of all the world, that he was
232 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
doing it for love of her ? Tlie loneliness of the
strange dark would have no terrors for him, he knew,
if he could feel her thoughts would follow him into
it with tenderness, even sometimes with tears. But
coldness and strength were born in the wind of the
night, and when it blew in to him again he was
braced, and his head lifted itself. He even con¬
sidered whether the last sentence about Freda
might stand, the world and herself as readers ; but
his anxiety for the little child and the slant of years
to be climbed by her guideless feet caused him to
leave it. He reared his envelope against an ivory
mandarin with a wicked face and marvellously carved
head-dress ; then he put away his papers in the
hbrary-drawers, made various preparations, left word
with the servants, and went out.
Going up the street he was again confronted with
the necessity of decision as to means.
Never a Browning student even in the hopefuUest
of his days, when he had tried to like whatever her
mind touched at, yet into his head came Unes of that
man he had somewhere seen quoted. He revolved
them thoughtfully :—
'* Death's to fear from flame or steel
Or poison, doubtless. But from water—feel."
He shut his eyes and felt. Thought of the great
harbour waters he had loved almost as a live thing
aU his life. In his boyish days when he had tossed
upon them in a cocldesheU fashioned of his own
hands, or harnessed the wonderful winds to his sails,
and ridden it in a delirious triumph ; when he
squared his shoulders and knew himself for a man,
and found in the strong, bright waves an echo of
the eagerness and restlessness, and a new-born joy
that came to possess him. And now when even the
sunsets were grey, and the work and sadness of the
ROBERT
233
years had crushed him and made him very quiet and
grave, still in the depths of the soul of the waters
he foimd an answer to his own.
Thankfulness filled him that it was in this way
he might best satisfy the world of lack of intention.
There was a boat that left at nine, and it was eight
now ; the voyage down would ofíer facilities.
Behind him swift footsteps sounded and breath
that came in little gasps. Some one caught hold
of his coat and pulled to retard further progress.
Robejrt peered down through the darkness with his
failing eyes.
" Well, you are a nice one," said a breathless
voice that he recognized as the little larrikin's. His
heart warmed for a moment ; he had always felt a
friendliness for the boy, and the chirpy little voice
was pleasant to hear when he had supposed all
familiar things were passed by.
" If I was pretendmg I was a steam-engine I'd
walk in a straight line," said Loi. He leaned
against a fence to recover himself, and looked at
Robert in some disgust.
" Wasn't I ? " Robert said. His voice was quick ;
he had hardly supposed his eyes would give him
such short notice. Then he remembered how httle
it mattered.
" 'Bout as straight as treacle rimning out of a
bottle," said Loi. " Come on back."
Robert told him he was on the way to catch the
New Zealand boat ; he showed his Gladstone as a
guarantee of good faith.
" I know all about that," Loi said. " Your cook-
woman told me. Do you think I'd have burst
myself to come after you like this if I thought you
were just going to have a drink or anything ? ''
Robert inquired his business.
234 the little larrikin
" But you'd better walk on with me while you
talk," he said, '* or I'll lose my boat."
Loi walked on. But in the direction that led
back to the house, and Robert, glad of the little,
familiar voice, turned also, telling himself he could
take the short cut afterwards.
" Look here I " Loi said. " This is what I want
you to do—have you ever written a reference
before ? "
Robert acknowledged he had—one or two in his
time.
" WeU, I just want you to write one for Phü.
Pile it on a bit, you know. He's clever enough in
his way. Say he's honest and all the rest, and
advise them to take him while they've got the
chance."
" Who's them ? " said Robert, changing his Glad¬
stone to the other hand. He had packed it with a
quantity of clothes for Marcia's sake.
'* Featherstone and Hague," answ^ed Loi.
" They're wool people. Didn't I tell you ? They
want a clerk. It's a good-enough bület, I can pro¬
mise you. None of yoiir dirty office-boy work at five
bob a week and find your own fares. It's a poxmd to
start with. My scrimmy, you never saw such a lot
as were after it 1 Phil says the street was full, and
as many men as boys. And what d'ye think they
did ? Just opened the door and let in six, and told
the others to clear. Phil fought hke a wolf, knocked
a couple of fellows over, and scraped in at the door
just as they were shutting it."
Robert felt quite interested. Thirty years ago a
similar thing had happened to him, and the chance
. had made his position in the world.
" Did he get it ? " he said.
** They seemed to like him. His writing was best.
ROBERT
235
and no one else knew shorthand, and he'd been to
a good school. And they said if he could bring a
good written reference from some well-known man
they thought he'd do. Mind you spread it on thick,
Robert."
Robert hastened hia steps. It was great gladness
to him to be able to do a little thing like this before
he went.
He gave Loi the bag to hold and went into the
library again. He sat down at the table and wrote
a w^m recommendation, for he knew the firm
personally. '
" There, the billet's his," he said, handing over
the note. " Now I must be off. I'm afraid I've cut
it rather fine. Are you coming up to the tram with
me, Loi ? "
But Loi had got what he wanted.
" What's the good ? " he said. " I think I'll stop
here and wait for Marcia and that young Freda.
What time d'ye suppose they'll be home ? "
" Not till eleven," said Robert. " You'd better
not. Go home to bed now. Good-bye, old fellow."
" Good-bye," said Loi. " You haven't such a
thing as a shilling about you, I suppose ? Thomases'
at the corner have got some rather stunning
crackers."
Robert had. He tossed one over from the small
supply in his pocket, said good-bye again, and went
away.
CHAPTER XXVI
MARCIA
WOMAN with eyes like that must have a
heart," said the doctor who had pronounced
on Robert's sight. He was speaking to himself.
Across the room, close to a great lamp canopied with
scarlet, Marcia was sitting, sometimes joining in
the talk of two men who were excitedly tearing a
Parliamentary reputation to shreds, sometimes lean¬
ing back in her big chair, utterly silent and thoughtful.
The doctor had watched her for a qxiarter of an hour
before he had formed his conclusion, having hither-
to[on his meetings with her held a contrary opinion.
He went over presently to Mrs. Morrice to strengthen
his diagnosis.
The lady concurred, but confessed to being bafSed
always in any continued study of her beautiful
guest.
" Something has sent her to sleep internally," she
said, " or turned her to stone. She has been like
this for years."
" It is time then that she was waked," the doctor
said, and made his way across to her low, wide chair.
He was a big man with determination and courage
for leading characteristics.
Mrs. Morrice smiled to herself when she saw him
two or three minutes later pushing Marcia's chair
away from the lamplight to where a corner, tall
bulrushes and a revolving bookcase ofíered quietude«
230
237
The men melted away towards the verandah doors,
their h^lnds going pipewards ; the hostess returned
to her entertaining and wondered what an awaken¬
ing would bring.
" Are you in or out of your husband's confidence,
madam ? " said the man, settling himself astride,
as was his wont, on the sturdiest chair he could
find.
Marcia showed her objection to the title he gave
her by half closing her eyes and begging his pardon
for having ears that heard not.
The repetition held no softening.
" There is not such a thing, nowadays," she said,
and fanned with the latest Sketch ; " the modern
iron safe is all sufficient."
He told her of the ruin, bluntly, brutally almost,
and formd, though she did not wince a moment and
only grew a trifle pale, that her ignorance had been
entire.
Then he detailed the threatened danger to his
patient's eyes.
The colour ran to and fro in her cheeks in strange,
swift waves, but she heard him to the end without
speech.
*' I cannot conceive of any woman in the ^'orld
allowing this to be her first intimation," he ^aid.
" Surely you have known of the danger ? "
" No," she said.
He spoke, after plain language, of the hope he
had held out to his patient that two or three years
of rest might restore him.
" And he laughed at me," he said ; " told me
of his ruin, laughed at me and went out of my door
with a look in his eyes I have seen in three men's
before."
" Whose ? " said Marcia.
238 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
The doctor tilted his chair and pocketed his hands
one after the other.
" Two shot themselves," he said. " There was
a coroner's inquest at the Morgue on the third."
" Ah I " she said.
He stood up.
" Go home, madam," he said, " go home and
give him a shoulder through. He'll want it to-night
and for a day or two."
Marcia went direct. Mrs. Morrice helped her
with gentleness into her wraps, for she knew she
was awake.
" Let Freda stay here for the night," she said ;
" she will only weep over the litter in Linley's
bedroom."
Marcia nodded and stepped into her carriage
alone.
" When one has been awake always," said the
little genius-lover to the doctor, " pain is cruel
enough. But to have pain and waking at the same
moment will be like death."
" That leads into a new life. She doesn't know
what happiness is," he answered. " If I were the
Creator I would give her a six-roomed house, a
general servant and half a dozen children—boys,
chiefly, with the element of devildom in them ; she
would work out her own salvation and make Barrett
a happy man."
It was twenty-flve to nine when Marcia moved
the wicked httle mandarin and broke open the
envelope he supported. And the falling away of
the long sleep from her eyes gave them searching
power and clearness. Just as certainly as if he had
written down all his intentions instead of these bald,
deceptive words, she knew what was in his heart.
She ran away down to the kitchen It was a
239
quicker way than summoning the servants separately.
Loi was outside the window, projecting jumping
J acks and throwdowns on the floor, and keeping the
cook and two of the maids on the table.
Her white face restored instant order, but they
had nothing to tell further than that the master had
said he was going to catch the New Zealand boat,
and had carried his own bag, as both the men were
away.
" It was eight sharp when he went," they said,
and felt pleasurably excited to see how the hour
affecfed her and drained the last of the blood
from her face.
They had known things were going wrong for
a week, and had resented what they thought was a
successful effort on her part to keep up appearances.
Loi had tied three penny packets of crackers in
one long string and the match was ready in his
hand ; he looked at the disturber impatiently.
" If you cut after him this minute you might
catch him up," he said ; "he came back to do some¬
thing for me, and I know he naissed that tram ha
went for."
" How do you know ? " said Marcia.
Loi looked scornful.
'* You couldn't have caught it yourself if you had
tried to run like a blue crab, and it was whistling
like mad before you got to Thomases'," he said.
Marcia had hurried off again, drinking the relief
as she went.
Half-way to the Quay she sprang out of the
carriage at the sight of an empty cab, sent her own
man home, and promised treble fare to the cabman
for his race against time.
They clattered across the wharf at Sussex Street
five minutes after the hour. The gangways had
THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
gone, and the premonitory shudder of departure was
spreading itself from the engines to the stern.
Robert stepped out from his shadow at the sudden
wave of excitement. He moved hurriedly to the
side when he saw they were getting some one on
board at great risk.
There was a gap in the httle crowd ; he sprang
to fill it with his natural instinct to lend a hand,
and the next moment received his wife into his
arms.
CHAPTER XXVII
" TWO ON A MOUNTAIN "
How soon a smile of God can change the world I
How we axe made for happiness I "
HE ashes in the drawing-room fireplace were
a fortnight old, the dust lay grey on the tables,
the sofa stood against the wall in a fine as straight
as if it had no recollection of a time when it had
been wheeled to the hearth comer-wise and lost its
shabbiness in the red, tender glow.
There were withered banana-skins and the dry
peel of an orange on a fruit-plate at the end of the
mantelpiece, for even Eliza had forgotten to skirmish
with the disorder of late, having been bewildered
with recent good fortunes. There had come to
Canning Street a middle-aged and respectable man,
who had opened a new grocery at competitive prices.
And he wanted, actually wanted Ehza, whose young
man had cast her off just after the picnic. Ehza
of all the girls in the street I
" You mud be chokin'," she said, her dull eyes
rounding on him. '* I'm sud an awful clumdy thing,
Mider Jont."
Mr. Jones assured her of his seriousness, and made
speeches that betrayed the magnificent blindness
of love.
" Eliza looked at him piteously.
" Bud you don't know aboud my troat," she said ;
241
Q
242 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
" noboty's dot a treat like me, something's te madder
wit it."
4
He answered her it made no difference whatever.
But she still regarded him incredulously. If this
could be true she could put away her love for Martin
with hardly a pang, and serve sugar and sand with
a Jubilant heart all her days.
** Oh, you mud be chokin'," she said ; " you mud
be poldn' fun ad me."
But the gentleman again protested his good faith,
and again entreated her to say she woidd be his
wife.
Then Eliza gave in ; suppressed the desire to
burst into her hysterical laughter of gladness, and
laid her poor, imlovely head imreservedly on his
shirt-front.
"You will ? " said the man of tea delightedly.
And Eliza recollected herself of a novelette she
had read, and murmured,—
" If I am dood enough fodgers, Mider Jont."
It was hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that
the dust accumulated on the books, ashes were
forgotten, and the cooking was invariably either
burnt or raw.
Into this cheerless room came Roger at the im-
usual hour of eleven a.m. He cast his hat into
one chair, his wet mackintosh and bag into another,
and sat down on a third as if his express reason in
returning home two hours after he had left was to
stare at the dead, miserable coal and dust.
His face looked old and worn, the new thinness
of it discovered a likeness to Phff ; in his eyes was
the look of a man unacquainted with sleep ; his coat
was imbrushed. He had gone to chambers that
morning at nine, just as he went six mornings
alwa}^ out of the seven that go to make a week.
"TWO ON A MOUNTAIN" 243
He had unlocked his desk and taken out a paper
of certain pleas he was drawing. And first there
came a canvasser lauding a blotting-pad, and then
two " Little Sisters of the Poor " to collect his sub¬
scription and then a girl with a delicate complexion
and a worthless magazine she was endeavouring to
circulate.
His pen stuck, his brain refused to grasp even
the simplest of the points ; after each interruption
he was compelled to go back to the beginning of his
case and work through it afresh.
TÊen there came in a man to borrow half-a-crown "
for urgent reasons. His chambers were on the floor
beneath, and they had smoked and played chess
together for years.
Roger felt amongst his change ; he was obliged to
give it in three coins.
" You must let me have it back in a week," he
said.
" Where's your pipe ? " said the man.
Roger had forgotten the world held such a thing ;
he felt in his pockets, drew it out, looked at it, and
put it back again abstractedly.
" Look here," the man with the half-crown said,
" you're going to stuS that work away at once,
CajTuthers."
Roger made no movement to do so.
" It's Parsons v. Finlay," he said. " Have you
got Pollock on * Torts * ? I wish you'd send it up."
But the man's eyes had been observing.
" You're going away home this minute," he said.
" Don't be an ass ! you're a sick man. Here's your
hat, bang up your desk and cut."
Roger protested, lied, even swore a little, but the
man turned him out, locked his door for him, and
accompanied him down to the tram.
244 the little larrikin
" When you get home have a whisky and tum
in," he said ; " you'll wake as fresh as a bird."
So Roger went home through the duU, slanting
rain, and surprised Eliza in the drawing-room
adding extra bows and butterflies to her blue velvet
toque, and making an interesting confldant of Loi.
'* I mud be geddin' rader dood-lootin'. Loi," she
said, trying it on at the dusty mirror and regarding
herself anxiously.
But Loi eyed her critically.
" I expect he thinks you must be honest, Eliza,"
he said.
The pair dissolved kitchenwards at Roger's un¬
expected return, and he shut the door and gave
himself up to a chair and the thoughts he had
kept at bay so long.
But first his eyes sprang to the end of the mantel¬
piece where they always put his letters for him.
Linley's boat had long left Albany and there had
been ample time now for the line she had promised
he should have. But the only envelope there bore
Clem's fly-away capitals and scrawled flourishes.
He forced himself to recognize the fact that she had
forgotten him and he could hear nothing tiU they
touched at Colombo.
So he sat down and regarded the greyness of the
ashes and heard the rain as a thing in another land.
When he leaned his head on his hands it was
aU his misery he was hving over again ; not for
a single moment his happiness, for he knew just
the quality of the remnant of his strength.
Her happiness was a different matter. He
allowed himself to think of that, and even placed
by her side the figure of the man he had last seen
standing, not too far away from her, under the
ship's bridge.
V
"TWO ON A MOUNTAIN" 245
There came the scraping sound the gate always
made in wet weather, for the wood swelled where
it touched the ground. Feet came along the path
with the light soimd that belonged to Loi only in
this house, or that frequent comer, Jinunie Smith.
There was no knocking at the front door, but the
handle of the drawing-room one tiumed at once.
Roger dragged himself together and moved to eject
the Uttle larrikin with determination and so have
peace for the day.
Aad Linley ran into his arms, Linley, Linley I
*****
Her face was a wonderful thing ; pale and red
every moment like a child's in excitement, the con¬
trol of her hps had gone, the rain-drops hung wet on
the httle blown curls beneath her hat.
" Roger," she said, " Roger, Roger, Roger ! "
Nothing else at all. There was no language foiy
her; nothing in all the world to do but cling to
him hke some one who has been drowning and
suddenly fastens to something strong.
When time became a thing of moments again
Roger unbuttoned her dripping cloak and took the
pins out of her hat. Then Eliza bore off the ashes
and brought back coal and sphnts of wood, and a
fire sprang up joyously. And the sofa came out of
its straight position and encircled the hearth, and the
lines on Roger's face smoothed themselves out, and
peace came into his heart, though he understood
nothing, except that he had her in his arms, by what
seemed a miracle, and that nothing on earth would
ever make him let her go again.
She was' chnging to him stül, holding to his coat
with a tense httle movement of her hands ; once or
twice she laughed a httle from sheer joy at being
246 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
there, and then fell to sobbing again with her face
on his breast.
It was not until a week later that he learned
everything that had brought her back to him. It
came out during that time, little by little ; at first
she could not bear to speak of it at all, and shivered
at the very thought of the intolerable wretchedness
and mind misery of the three weeks. But when he
knew all he was able to put away from him for ever
the doubt that she loved him.
For he learned of long nights at sea when sleep
had held aloof, driven back by the pale ghosts of the
happy days behind. All the cramped scroU of her hfe
had seemed to fiutter out straight in the sharp cold¬
ness and purity of the winds of the sea. Vanity
and foolishness passed away, and the new-bora
clearness of sight and mind brought anguish at the
thought of the irrevocableness of her blind step.
Sometimes the knowledge of the misery she had left
for him to bear was more than she could endure,
accompanied as it was by the steady fl5Ûng forward
of the ship. She found herseif one night pra5dng
madly, wildly, for it to turn in its course, or for a
miracle to happen and him to come after her. Some¬
thing seemed to tell her if she got as far as Italy
they would never see one another again, that one of
them would die, and the world might j ust as well not
have been.
Then a yellow, early dawn showed her the streaks
of cloud-land to starboard, and it came to her with a
throb of thankfulness that it was not yet too late,
that the far coast-line was still that of Australia, and
having put her hand to the wrong plough there still
remained the blessedness and saving grace of power
to turn back.
Three days later she stepped ashore at Albany,
"TWO ON A MOUNTAIN"- 247
counted the boxes carried after her with a light
heart, and smiled at those that were marked " not
wanted on the voyage " and had been extricated
from the hold with such diflûculty. Forfeiting her
passage-money seemed the smaUest thing in the
world.
To her travelling friends she vouchsafed merely
the explanation that she had changed her mind. To
Thurston she told rather more, for he had shown the
initial s5nnptoms of choosing to consider Australian
ties loosened with the casting ofí of the wharf-ropes.
So he checked himself and rendered the best help
in his power, even wanted to put ofí his voyage to
Colombo and escort her back to Sydney in safety.
She came alone, however, caring nothing for all
the difBculties in the way, and accepting hardships
as pleasant punishment. She was robbed at the
outset of most of her ready money, and forced to
travel second-class and want for manv things. And
she was ül all the way, and frighttned and lonely,
for the weather was stormy beyond precedent even
of coast voyages.
She had landed in Sydney entirely penniless, left
her boxes on board and walked out all the way from
the Quay to Balcombe Street. She had meant to
wait there for Roger's return ; to go to her sister in
that state was more than she could contemplate
doing. Then she saw Loi chatting with a Chinaman
about his vegetables, and learned that Roger was
actually at home at that moment.
" And what are you going to do, little girl ? " he
said very tenderly, for it was only the first morning
as yet, and all of this he had not learned. He told
her of Robert's troubles that were the world's pro¬
perty now.
" He and Marcia are both in New Zealand, though
248 THE LITTLE LAHRIKIN
nobody seems to know why they went. Brownlow,
the solicitor, tells me there will be three or four
himdred a year left from the wreck, so it might be
worse."
" Much worse," Linley said.
She was not very much concerned at the news ;
when two are on a mountain that has sprung up
far above the world the añairs of every one else
lack salient interest. Besides, Marcia had been
miserable even when she was rich.
Roger knelt down by the sofa and put his arms
roimd her waist ; having so much happiness it
seemed to him impossible to live without some
more.
*' Linley," he said, " I can't wait much longer. If
I work hard—the boys are settling now—^if I work
hard, even if I am poor, will you come to me in
six months ? "
She put her cheek down on his hair. The tender¬
ness of the movement sent his thoughts leaping
wildly the little half-year ahead even before her
answer came.
But her hps said " No," and the decision in the
sound made the intolerable length of a year unfold
itself before his eyes.
" When ? " he said, and tried to keep the inflexion
of disappointment out of his voice.
Cdlour ran into her face.
" This afternoon," she said.
CHAPTER XXVIII
lol's wedding-breakfast
There is no good in life but love, but love !
What else looks good is some shade flung from love.
Love gilds it, gives it worth."
IT was about four o'clock when they walked in at
the gates of a certain church.
Linley's ideal church was grey with as great age
as Australia allows ; the shining of the windows
was rich and meUow, the light was dim and soft.
This was a little brick place just bom, the windows
were of white glass, crossed with lead, the benches
and desks were deal, penitential and obtmsively
varnished. So murky was the light from the sallow,
weeping sky the clergyman had to put a match to
the two eiltar-lamps that he might see the faces of
the two he was to join at such short notice. Roger
had been very hard to persuade to this instantaneous
happiness. He had thought joyfully of working
almost to death for six months that he might make
her a little home and clear away some of the sharp,
vexatious stones that strew poverty's path. He
tried to show her in detail j ust where the sharpness
would hurt and the pettiness chafe ; he was fiUed
with all manner of fears for her, but she laughed at
them.
" When we are married," she said, " we will talk
of these things ; but I wül not hear a word until.
He endeavoured to impress upon her the wisdom
of a reverse proceeding, but she shook her head.
" Ordinary people can do that. Let us break
249
250 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
through monotony and be extraordinaiy. What
can you do when I insist ? "
He saw his helplessness without acknowledging
it, and still harped upon the wisdom of the every¬
day world.
But she overcame him with a little rush of words
and love.
" It is what I want—wanf. For us to be together
for the rough places, helping each other ; not you
fighting alone. I want to have half of everything—
stones and hills, as well as flowers and plains.
How can you deny me ? Roggr, think of it ; me
asking, you holding back. Darling, how can you ?
To send me away from you again ; besides, I have
no home at all now."
So he gave in to her, and went away to make
preparations like a man in a dream.
Such things to be done I The hours flew away
like loosened birds. A clergyman to be seen and
prepared. The little, gold, wonderful drclet to buy.
Her luggage to be brought from the ship. Bags
to be packed, and a telegram sent to a little, quiet
place on the coast ; for they were sufliciently ordinary
to want a week of days to themselves.
It was three o'clock before Linley had time to
think of her wedding-costume. She laughed at the
thought of the days when a veil and snowy shoes
had seemed as indispensable as the bridegroom.
" White is too cold for the day," she said, " and
I haven't a grey, which is the next orthodox garb.
Was ever any one married in a blouse with little
pink spots, do you suppose, Roger ? "
He said some one was going to be. He would
not hear of her altering the dress she was wearing
for she had never in all her life looked so beautiful.
So they set ofí to the church when ever3dhing
LOL'S WEDDING-BREAKFAST 251
was in readiness, and Roger wore his blue sac-
suit under his mackintosh, and Linley a blue serge
and a blouse. The hats of both were of straw.
While they were waiting for the witnesses—
Roger's friend, who had borrowed half-a-crown, and
the clerg3nnan's housekeeper—^to take their seats
there was a little stir at the door and a rush of
wet air through the place. They turned their
eyes from the altar for a second, and there, coming
down the aisle, Jimmie Smith at his heels, was
Loi, attired in his larrikin suit, and displaying a
sunflower in one of his button-holes.
The housekeeper made a movement to eject them,
but Roger and Linley shook their heads and smiled,
so they seated themselves on one of the benches,
and giggled and made whispered remarks all through
the ceremony.
They even had rice in their pockets, a proof that
such orthodoxy is sacred even with the most lawless,
and threw grains of it, observed by the public only,
after the two, aU the way home.
" Well, of aU sneaks," the small one said when
they reached the gate—he had not accosted them
before, making benevolent allowance for their
wanting a httle private conversation after such an
event—" of all sneaks—you actually meant to have
gone ofí and got spliced and never asked a soul to
see you I "
Linley kissed him impulsively. Whereupon he
informed her that it was proper for brides to wait
till people kissed them. Roger was curious to know
how he had managed to frustrate their intentions
and find out everything.
He put his hands in his pockets and emptied out
the last of the rice.
" When a girl comes bursting home from Italy
252 THE LITTLE LARRIKIN
aU in a minute, and a man stops at home instead of
going to his chambers, it's enough to make a fellow
know if he didn't want to. Specially when there's
a label on a bag in the drawing-room with ' Mrs.
Carruthers' on it."
Linley blushed deliciously, and moved away
into the drawing-room from his merciless yoimg
voice.
But he followed.
" I never saw such a mean sort of a wedding in
my hfe," he said. *' Not a ghost of a white horse,
or a flower, or flags or anything. Do you mean to
say you're not going to have a wedding-brealcfast ? "
Roger felt in his pocket.
" Certainly we are," he said. " Here's half-a-
crown ; you can go out apd buy it ; we'll have it in
the dining-room in an hour. The train doesn't go
till seven. But teU Ehza she's to have the dinner I
ordered ready too ; you see, we mightn't get enough
of the breakfast, old fellow."
Loi considered.
" I could do it on five bob," he said ; " half-a-
crown's too little. There are five of us, you see, with
Eliza. I couldn't do it with any style on less than a
shilling a head—go on, you'll never feel half-a-crown
more. People never think about money when they're
being married."
Roger disbursed the extra coin to get rid of him,
and he hurrahed loudly, kissed the bride, shook
hands heartily with Roger, and rushed away, followed
by Jimmie, as full of importance as if he had the
appointment of commissariat to an army.
Such a warm, tender glow was over everything,
the httle fireht room, with the door shut, seemed
the most beautiful place in the world.
" It's no use," Roger said, " I simply can't be-
LOL'S WEDDING-BREAKFAST 253
lieve it. I have the feeling every minute I am going
to wake and find you far out at sea."
But he looked less like a man in a dream than a
jubilant schoolboy. The years he had no right to
had fallen away from his face ; he was merely twenty-
five again and a httle surprised to remember he was
that.
He called her by a new name, the little, strange,
tender title just hers. He said it again and again,
just for the pleasure of the music of the sound and
the sight of the wave of colour that came to her face
each time. He had to do all the talking, for she had
grown very quiet, but the new gravity of her face
and eyes was infinitely sweet.
Presently there came the clatter of Loi and Jimmie,
and manifold parcels passing through the hall.
•'There's our wedding-breakfast," he said, and
sm üed. " I'm afraid the other boys wiU feel left
out, and our httle chaperon wUl find it hard to
forgive us,"
" Does she still write to Clem ? How is the
boy ? " Linley said.
He told her about the new undertaking and the
lad's enthusiasm.
" Here's a letter from him that came this morn¬
ing," he said, taking it from the mantelpiece. " I've
not had time to open it yet. I expect it's to say he's
down with typhoid, or that he would give his head
never to have seen Coolgardie."
But the reading of the wüd, blotted scrawl took
all the colour from his face and made his heart
throb. He passed it to Linley's hands, and walked
away to the window for a minute.
Surely the wüdest letter that had ever yet been
penned I It might have been written under intoxi¬
cation, such a scrawl it was, so black and dirty.
254 the little larrikin
so disconnected the reading. But the news of it I
They had struck gold, he and Barclay, gone
prospecting far from the great field, pegged out
what seemed a most unpromising claim, and had
the almost stupef5Ûng good fortune of unearthing
almost immediately several nuggets. And the size
of them was so great, and the promise of more, if
the mine was properly worked, so good, a rush had
set in instantly. Then a company came forward
and ofíered the two fortunate ones 25,000 for their
mine, and they had accepted it, and hardly cared
when they heard it had been sold again, immedi¬
ately after, for £35,000.
'* We share equally," he wrote. ** Mine's safe in
the bank. Of course I'm coming home now to set
the family on its legs ; the life here has no further
attraction for me. On my soul, I beheve I'm going
ofí my head with sheer happiness. For heaven's
sake, Roge, cut and get married instantly, and tell
the others to shut up the tumbledown old place, put
up at the Austraha, and spend as much as ever they
can. Give Ehza carte blanche for as many velvet
hats and white boots as she can wear, and let Loi
have a ripping time. TeU young Freda she'll have
to be letting down her tucks and doing up that long
hair of hers, for I shall be wanting to be married
before I'm much older."
TThe rest of the letter was mostly blots and wild
exclamations, showing the state of mad excitement
he had been in when he had written.
They folded the wonderful letter away, and spoke
softly, reverently, of the Guidance of aU lives.
Then Loi came in to announce the great break¬
fast.
Eliza's end of the table bore cutlets, mashed
potatoes, a bread-and-butter custard, and fragrant
LOL'S WEDDING-BREAKFAST 255
coflee ; she had had orders to find efficient help for
the day. Lol's contained water-melon, hokey-pokey,
pink ice-cream, jam tarts, monkey-nuts, dates,
figs, and a plate of sliced ham garnished with
rose-leaves. In the centre were five white-iced
Napoleons, ornamented with devices cut from silver
tea-paper, this being the nearest the funds would
stretch to wedding-cake ; for drinking healths there
was ginger-beer,
Roger insisted that dinner should come first ; but
the comfort of it was not very great, for Loi and
Jimniie watched them eat with keenest anxiety lest
they should take the edge ofí their appetites.
Luckily the clock discovered only five minutes re¬
mained for the breakfast if the train was to be
caught.
They managed a Napoleon each, and listened to a
wild travesty of a speech, heard Heaven knows
where, with a cup of ginger-beer raised to their
hps.
Then down the road came the swift, glad wheels
of the cab.
When the doors of it were shut on them, and the
reins loosed, the httle larrikin recollected something
and rushed down again to the gate. (Jimmie was
at his heels.)
*' I say, what about the grub that's left ? " he
shouted. " Do you want it left ? "
But Roger and Linley had gone away out of
hearing through the thin, dehcate rain of the evening
to a new country.
THE END.
823.9 T945IÍ
3 5556 007 145