roses at collingwood upon his return; and thorns. thorns supplied, not by the foster-father or the foster-mother, but by the boys, who, once they had extracted full particulars of bobbie’s adventure, made from these facts ammunition for gay badinage that, well aimed, gave them great content. in school, the game was played furtively. a slip of paper would be passed along the forms of the fourth standard class bearing the inquiry of a seeker after knowledge, “who pinched the cornet?” this would be varied by rough sketches executed by master nutler of a lad running, with the words underneath, “hold him!” when bobbie strolled out of school at dinner time there would come an affected cry of alarm, “he’s off again!” robert lancaster took all of this with stolidity and in a manner differing from that which he would have exhibited a month previously. it seemed that the failure of his expedition had tamed him; certainly his stay in the hospital and at the convalescent home had given him reticence. he applied himself to his lessons. after a few weeks the other boys declined to be led any longer by master nutler, because there seemed little sport in rallying a man who showed no signs of annoyance, and bobbie lancaster presently found—excepting for an occasional reminder—that the brenchley escapade had gone out of memory. miss nutler on one of the rare occasions when they met, expressed her regret at the consequences of their disagreement, hinting that, so far as she was concerned, the past could be shut out from memory.
“it was my eldest brother put me up to it,” said miss nutler apologetically. “you know what a one he is.”
“i do,” remarked master lancaster.
“i should never ’ave thought of it if it hadn’t been for him,” declared miss nutler. “a better hearted girl than me you wouldn’t find in a day’s march.”
“dessay!”
“in fact,” went on the young person, waxing enthusiastic, “i’m too good-hearted for this world. i’m a fool to meself. and that’s why i gave way when he told me to pretend you’d hurt me. see?”
“i see.”
“and so long as you say there’s no ill-will and so long as you agree to forgive and forget, so to speak, why there’s no reason, as you remarked just now, why we shouldn’t be capital friends.”
“i never said no such thing,” said the boy.
p. 91“didn’t you?” said miss nutler wonderingly. “words to that effect, then.”
“no! not words to that effect, neither.”
“you’re back in the band, aren’t you?”
“i am back in the band.”
“all the girls in our cottage rave about your cornet playing.”
“straight?” he could not help smiling at this generous compliment.
“as if i should tell a lie,” said miss nutler. “why, they’re always talking about you. how you’ve growed and how you’ve improved in your manner and—there! i tell you. i get quite jealous sometimes.”
“what call have you to be jealous?”
“oh, dear! oh, dear!” said the young woman self-reproachfully. “now i’ve been and let the cat out of the bag. that’s me all the world over. i never meant you to see that i was—hem—fond of you.”
“put all ideas of that out of your red young crumpet,” he advised steadily, “as soon as ever you like.”
“is there somebody else?” asked miss nutler, flushing.
“since you ask the question—yes.”
“does she live ’ere at the homes?”
“she does not live ’ere at the homes.”
“if she did,” said miss nutler fiercely, “i’d pay her out, the cat. and you’re a double-faced boy, you are. i wouldn’t be seen talking to you for fifty thousand pounds.”
“i guessed that was the amount.”
miss nutler walked off aflame with annoyance, turning as she reached the gate and making a face not pretty, in order that bobbie might understand the true state of her feelings. that evening one of the nutler family handed bobbie a note on which was written, “dear sir, referring to our meeting, i beg to inform you that all is over between us. yours obed’tly, louisa nutler.—p.s. a reply by bearer will oblige.” bobbie tore the note into many pieces, threw them over the messenger, and going indoors penned a careful note to mrs. bell, of pimlico walk. this contained an account of his progress; contained also five words, “give my love to trixie,” which note, reaching the walk the next morning, made so much sunshine for the industrious young lady that she proceeded to scrub the stairs from top to basement in order to prevent herself from becoming light-headed.
there was indeed progress to report. the fourth standard being carried by assault, his brain had now to wrestle in the large schoolroom with dogged enemies of youth.
by the help of an assistant master, whose stock of enthusiasm had not been quite exhausted by lads of the nutler brand, bobbie showed excellent fight, and if it sometimes happened that he was worsted, the defeats were but temporary. winter came, and with it football matches. an eminent three-quarter (who was also a trombone) having retired from the team during the off season in order to take up duties at kneller hall, bobbie, in games with private schools, found himself selected for the position. the drill-sergeant took interest in the lad, and on the boarded-over swimming-bath, instructed him carefully at five o’clock each evening in the art of vaulting. all this helped to make a solid youth of robert lancaster, and he found himself wishful for manhood.
the sister at the infirmary beyond the western gates, having to take a p. 92month’s holiday, a friend of hers came to act as substitute, and this friend proving to be sister margaret, bobbie found an additional incentive for correct behaviour because sister margaret, when going down at any time the broad gravelled road between the cottages, always selected him for one of her cheerful bows, causing bobbie’s cap to fly off in acknowledgment and making him flush with gratification. sister margaret told him that myddleton west had gone to ireland for one of the daily journals, and together they read his letters in that journal. it seemed clear that sister margaret continued to have no objection to talking about myddleton west, for she made the boy describe several times over the morning when he had called at his rooms in fetter lane; at each repetition bobbie managed to find (or to invent) some additional incident that made the young woman’s bright eyes become brighter with interest. when the regular sister returned, sister margaret had to leave, and bobbie walked with her to the station to carry her portmanteau, giving much good advice on the way with view of doing a good turn for his friend. apparently his arguments made some impression on sister margaret, for when, as the train went off, he shouted, “give my kind respects to him, miss, when you write. and tell him he ain’t forgotten,” it looked as though the young woman’s bright eyes became suddenly wet.
the seasons passed. the fourteenth birthday came so near that it was quite possible to reckon the interval by number of days. for some months robert lancaster had been a half-timer; he desired now to say good-bye definitely to school, and to go into the workshops, because this would be a conspicuous milestone marking his journey. the coastguard and the coastguard’s daughter, and the long customs’ officer came to see him on one of the later days, and he showed them with pride the tailor’s shop, the bootmaker’s shop, the carpenter’s shop, and the engineer’s shop, and coastguard and himself (whilst the tall daughter went with the representative of her majesty’s customs to take tea at the hotel opposite the gates) talked over questions of trades, and their various advantages. they weighed them separately; when the young couple returned, coastguard with a look of wisdom that judges of appeal try to assume and cannot, delivered his decision. bobbie, interested in this, saw the long customs’ officer snatch a kiss from coastguard’s daughter with no feeling of jealousy, and, indeed, with diversion.
“nothing like helping yourself,” remarked bobbie, amused.
“do give over, john,” said coastguard’s daughter reprovingly. “you never know when to stop.”
“these youngsters,” said bobbie to coastguard paternally, “they will carry on, won’t they? same now as it was in our young day.”
“dang the boy’s eyes,” said coastguard, “if he don’t notice everything.”
“it makes anyone,” said bobbie, “when you see a couple young enough to know better a kissin’ each other.”
“you’re supposed not to notice such things at your age,” said the angel reprovingly.
“ah,” said the boy, acutely, “supposed not.”
“reckon you’ll be the next one we shall hear of getting engaged.”
“many a true word spoke in jest,” said the boy. “and you think,” turning with seriousness to the coastguard, “you think i can’t do better than go in for learning that?”
p. 93“sure of it, my boy.”
therefore to the engineer’s shop went bobbie, because the coastguard had pointed out to him that some of the knowledge to be gained there could not fail some day to be valuable. not that he intended to become an engineer. decision as to his first occupation on leaving the home had already been taken, being preserved as a secret which he proposed not to disclose until the appropriate moment came. at the tables in the engineer’s shop he worked, and learned under direction, after some failures, how to use a lathe without pinching his fingers. the lads worked in extra garments of aprons and paper caps; their task made them so grimy that they felt sure no one could tell them from adults; the wash that came after a day in the workshop seemed to put them back ten years. an increased feeling of maturity came to bobbie when, on being selected to play “the lost chord,” as a cornet solo at a concert in the neighbourhood which the home’s band attended, a local paper called him by a fascinating misprint mister robert lancaster, intending to say master, but allowing the i’s to have it. he walked rigidly upright for several weeks after this and spoke to no boy under the age of thirteen.
“you fancy yourself,” remarked sarcastically the boys whom he ignored.
“i do,” he replied, frankly.
it became his keen endeavour at this period to reach at least four feet six in height. he had special reasons for this ambition, and days occurred when, in his impatience, he measured himself three times during the twenty-four hours. the last inch seemed as though it would never arrive; other lads in the engineer’s shop, to encourage him, expressed the cheerful opinion that he had stopped growing. finding in a newspaper an advertisement specially addressed “to the short,” he wrote privately to trixie bell to obtain for him the golden remedy that the advertisers promised to send on receipt of two shillings and ninepence, and when trixie, glad of an opportunity for being useful, obeyed, sending him the result as a birthday present, “with kind regards,” bobbie found that the remedy was but a pair of thick list soles to be worn inside the boots; he perceived hopelessly that nothing could be done to encourage nature. the last pencil mark on the wall of his dormitory denoting his height remained as a record for months; depression enveloped him when he gazed at it. but there came a spring season when he found to his intense delight that he had, within a brief period, not only shot up to the necessary inches, but just beyond them, and the mother of collingwood cottage had to lengthen the arms of his jackets and the legs of his trousers. on being measured anew in the tailor’s shop, he laughed with sheer delight.
the day of all days came.
“father wants to see you, lancaster,” announced one of the other lads.
“what’s up?”
“committee day,” said the other lad.
robert lancaster ran off to find the collingwood father, and came up to him breathless. the collingwood father was a serious man, made more serious by his family of other people’s children; his face took now an aspect of importance, and he laid his hand on the lad’s shoulder.
“time’s come,” he said.
p. 94“three cheers,” said bobbie.
“keep cool, my lad.”
“i am cool,” said bobbie, trembling with eagerness.
“don’t forget that the gentlemen, what you are going now to have an interview with, represent so to speak your benefactors what have looked after you and clothed you and fed you and generally speaking kept you flourishing.”
“i know what you mean.”
“you’ll go before the committee,” said the father of collingwood cottage, solemnly, “and what i want to impress upon you, my boy, is the necessity of putting on your very best manners. a little bad behaviour on your part will go a long way.”
“i’ll watch out, father.”
“you can’t be too civil,” urged the father of collingwood, anxiously. “i tell you that, bobbie, because, naturally, you ain’t what i call the humblest chap going, and if you want these nobs to agree to what you want, you must show ’em any amount of what i may venture to call deference.”
“i’ll lick all the bloomin’ blackin’ off their bloomin’ boots,” promised bobbie.
“give your ’ands another wash,” recommended the father, “and then go up.”
the superintendent stood at the side of the table; seated there were half-a-dozen men who looked like, and indeed were, retired tradesmen. in one of them the lad recognized the carpenter (now in white waistcoat and with other signs of prosperity) who had been on the jury which had investigated, years ago, the death of his mother. a cheery red-faced man sat in the large arm-chair.
“robert lancaster, gentlemen, fourteen years of age and a good lad with a fairly good record, has passed the fourth standard, and is one of the best of our bandsmen.”
“now, my lad!” the jovial-looking chairman pointed the ruler at him. “what would you like to be? we’ve fed you and educated you and brought you up, and we don’t want to see all the trouble wasted.”
“moreover,” said the carpenter, as bobbie prepared to speak, “it’s a question on which, by rights, you ought to take our advice. we’re men of the world, and as such we know what’s good for you a jolly sight better than you do. my argument has always been that pauper children—”
the chairman coughed.
“or whatever you like to call ’em ought not to be allowed to pick and choose. it pampers ’em,” said the carpenter, gloomily, sending his penholder, nib downwards, into the table, “i don’t care what you say; it pampers ’em.”
“i should like, sir, please,” said bobbie, “to—”
“choose a honest trade,” suggested the carpenter.
“let the boy speak,” urged one of the other members.
“i should like to be a sailor,” said the lad.
“ah!” said the carpenter, triumphantly. “what did i tell you?”
“our band boys don’t often go into the navy,” said the superintendent. “most of them go in for the other branch of the service.”
“jolly good thing,” said the gloomy carpenter, with his fingers in the p. 95pockets of his white waistcoat, “if all your armies and all your navies was done away with and abolished.”
“talk sense!” advised his neighbour.
“what are they,” asked the carpenter, “but a tax on the respectable tradesmen of this country? what good are they? what do they do? that’s what i want to know.” he looked round at his colleagues with the confident air of one propounding a riddle of which none knew the answer. “will someone kindly tell me what good the navy does? what benefit does it do me or any of us seated at this table? if all our ships was to disappear this very morning before twelve o’clock struck, should i be any the worse off?”
“why, you silly old silly,” broke in the lad on the other side of the table, impetuously, “if that was to ’appen some foreign power would be down on us before you could wink, and you’d find yourself—”
“silence!” ordered the superintendent.
“find yourself,” persisted bobbie, “turned into a bloomin’ russian very like, and sent to siberia.”
“you have your answer,” remarked the chairman, jovially.
“kids’ talk,” growled the carpenter.
“why,” declared bobbie, “it’s the only protection you’ve got to enable you to carry on your business peaceably and successfully, and without interference.”
“i never felt the want of no navy in carryin’ on my business in shoreditch.”
“course you didn’t,” said bobbie. “but if there hadn’t been a navy you would.”
it was all very irregular; the superintendent felt this, but the members of the committee showed so much gratification in seeing their colleague routed that it scarce seemed right for him to interfere. the chairman rapped gently on the table as a mild reminder that order appeared to be temporarily absent.
“fact of it is,” said the carpenter, resentfully, “you youngsters get so pampered—”
“come, come!” said the chairman, “let us get along. you think you’ll like the navy, my lad?”
“sure of it, sir.”
“it’s a hard life, mind you. especially at first.”
“shan’t mind that, sir.”
“you’ll undergo pretty severe preparation; we shall have to find out from the doctor whether you can stand it or not. her majesty doesn’t want half and half sort of lads in her navy.”
“i think i shall be all right, sir. i’ve improved wonderful in the years i’ve been here.”
“made a man of you, have we?”
“you have that, sir,” said bobbie.
“well, then—”
“something was said,” interrupted the carpenter, still smarting, “about this lad having a fairly good record. i should like to be kindly informed what his record actually is. if there’s anything against him it’s only right and fair and honest and just that we should know about it now.”
the superintendent explained, and robert lancaster went white at the p. 96lips as he heard the account—by no means a harsh account—of his escape from the homes.
“since which time,” added the superintendent, “his conduct has been most exemplary.”
“thank you, sir,” burst out the lad.
“and this is the lad,” argued the carpenter, “that you’re going to spend more of the ratepayers’ money on. this is the lad that’s cost us a matter of thirty pound a year for the last four years, and now we’re going to send him off to a training ship, where he’ll cost us a matter of thirty-two pound a year. is that so, or is it not so?”
“it is so,” said the chairman.
“it’s enough,” declared the retired carpenter, gloomily, “to make a man give up public life altogether. what was he when we begun to have to do with him? answer me, somebody.”
the superintendent asked if the information was really necessary.
“pardon me, sir,” said robert lancaster, from the other side of the table. “i can give the information what’s required. i was left without parents, i was, and i become the ’sociate of bad characters. my coming down ’ere put me on the straight, and i tell you i ain’t particular anxious to get off of it.”
“my lad!” said the jovial chairman, “we’ll see that you don’t. you’ll have a couple of years on the training ship, and when you leave there i hope you’ll make up your mind to be a credit to your parish, to your country, and your queen.”
“hooray!” said robert lancaster, softly.
“and we shall look to you to see that all this money which has been spent on you is not wasted. we shall expect you to become a good citizen, one who will help in some small way to improve the estimate in which his great country is held.”
“bah!” said the carpenter. but the other members of the committee said, “hear, hear.”
“come back and see the homes when you get an opportunity,” said the jovial chairman, a little moved by his own eloquence; “remember that we shall watch your career with interest and—god bless you!”
the chairman leaned across the table and shook hands with robert. the lad bowed awkwardly to the other members of the committee, and would have spoken, but something in his throat prevented him. he punched at his cap, and on a signal from the superintendent went out at the doorway.
“pampering of ’em,” said the retired carpenter, darkly, “pampering of ’em as fast as ever you can.”
