A Rough Shaking by George MacDonald (simple ebook reader TXT) 📖

over which jasmine and other creeping plants were trained; but whether anything of the porch was left, no one could have told in that thicket of creepers, interlaced and matted by antagonist forces of wind and growth so that not a hint of door was visible. Clearly there was nobody within.

Tommy sought the window with the open shutter. Through the dirty glass, and the reflection of the moon, he could see nothing. He tried the sash, but could not stir it. He went round the corner to one end of the house, and saw another door. But an enemy stepped between: the moon shone suddenly up from the ground. In a hollow of the pavement had gathered a pool from the drip of the neglected gutters, and out of its hidden depth the staring round looked at him. It was the third time Tommy's nerves had been shaken that night, and he could stand no more. At the awful vision he turned and fled, fell, and rose and fled again. It was not imagination in Tommy; it was an undefined, inexplicable horror, that must have had a cause, but could have no reason. Young as he was he had already more than once looked on the face of death, and had felt no awe; he had listened to the gruesomest of tales, told not altogether without art, and had never moved a hair Only one material and two spiritual things had power with him; the one material thing was hunger, the two spiritual things were a feeble love for Clare, and a strong horror of water of any seeming depth. Now a new element was added to this terror by the meddling of the moon in the fiendish mystery-the secret of which must, I think, have been the bottomless depth she gave the water.

He rushed down the garden. With frightful hindrance from the overgrowth, he found the prisoned door by strange perversion become a ladder, gained by it the top of the wall, and sped along as if pursued by an incarnate dread. Horror of horrors! all at once the moon again looked up at him from below: he was within a yard or two of the big water-but! Right up to it he must go, for, close to it, on the other side of the wall, was the heap of iron by which alone he could get down. He tightened every nerve for the effort. He assured himself that the thing would be over in a moment; that the water was quiet, and could not follow him; that presently he would find himself in the smithy by the warm forge-fire. The scaring necessity was, that he must stoop and kneel right over the water-but, in order to send his legs in advance down the wall to the top of the mound. It was a moment of agony. That very moment, with an appalling unearthly cry, something dark, something hideous, something of inconceivable ghastliness, as it seemed to Tommy, sprang right out of the water into the air. He tumbled from the wall among the iron, and there lay.

The stolen eggs were avenged. The hen, feverish and unhappy from the loss of her hope of progeny, had gone to the but to sip a little water. Tommy, appearing on the wall above her, startled her. She, flying up with a screech, startled Tommy, and became her own unwitting avenger.


Chapter XXI.

Tommy is found and found out.


When Clare woke from his first sleep, which he did within an hour-for he was too hungry to sleep straight on, and the door, imperfectly closed by Tommy, had come open, and let in a cold wind with the moonlight-he raised himself on his elbow, and peered from his stone shelf into the dreary hut. He could not at once tell where he was, but when he remembered, his first thought was Tommy. He looked about for him. Tommy was nowhere. Then he saw the open door, and remembered he had gone out. Surely it was time he had come back! Stiff and sore, he turned on his longitudinal axis, crept down from the forge, and went out shivering to look for his imp. The moon shone radiant on the rusty iron, and the glamour of her light rendered not a few of its shapes and fragments suggestive of cruel torture. Picking his way among spikes and corners and edges, he walked about the hideous wilderness searching for Tommy, afraid to call for fear of attracting attention. The hen too was walking about, disconsolate, but she took no notice of him, neither did the sight of her give him any hint or rouse in him the least suspicion: how could he suspect one so innocent and troubled for the avenging genius through whom Tommy's white face lay upturned to the white moon! Her egg-shells lay scattered, each a ghastly point in the moonshine, each a silent witness to the deed that had been done. Tommy scattered and forgot them; the moon gathered and noted them. But they told Clare nothing, either of Tommy's behaviour or of Tommy himself.

He came at last to the heap of metal, and there lay Tommy, caught in its skeleton protrusions. A shiver went through him when he saw the pallid face, and the dark streak of blood across it. He concluded that in trying to get over the wall he had failed and fallen back. He climbed and took him in his arms. Tommy was no weight for Clare, weak with hunger as he was, to carry to the smithy. He laid him on the hearth, near the fire, and began to blow it up. The roaring of the wind in the fire did not wake him. Clare went on blowing. The heat rose and rose, and brought the boy to himself at last, in no comfortable condition. He opened his eyes, scrambled to his feet, and stared wildly around him.

"Where is it?" he cried.

"Where's what?" rejoined Clare, leaving the bellows, and taking a hold of him lest he should fall off.

"The head that flew out of the water-but," answered Tommy with a shudder.

"Have you lost your senses, Tommy?" remonstrated Clare. "I found you lying on a heap of old iron against the wall, with the moon shining on you."

"Yes, yes!-the moon! She jumped out of the water-but, and got a hold of me as I was getting down. I knew she would!"

"I didn't think you were such a fool, Tommy!" said Clare.

"Well, you hadn't the pluck to go yourself! You stopt in!" cried Tommy, putting his hand to his head, but more sorely hurt that an idiot should call him a fool.

"Come and let me see, Tommy," said Clare.

He wanted to find out if he was much hurt; but Tommy thought he wanted to go to the water-but, and screamed.

"Hold your tongue, you little idiot!" cried Clare. "You'll have all the world coming after us! They'll think I'm murdering you!"

Tommy restrained himself, and gradually recovering, told Clare what he had discovered, but not what he had found.

"There's something yellow on your jacket! What is it?" said Clare. "I do believe-yes, it is!-you've been eating an egg! Now I remember! I saw egg-shells, more than two or three, lying in the yard, and the poor hen walking about looking for her eggs! You little rascal! You pig of a boy! I won't thrash you this time, because you've fetched your own thrashing. But-!"

He finished the sentence by shaking his fist in Tommy's face, and looking as black at him as he was able.

"I do believe it was the hen herself that frighted you!" he added. "She served you right, you thief!"

"I didn't know there was any harm," said Tommy, pretending to sob.

"Why didn't you bring me my share, then?"

"'Cos I knowed you'd ha' made me give 'em back to the hen!"

"And you didn't know there was any harm, you lying little brute!"

"No, I didn't."

"Now, look here, Tommy! If you don't mind what I tell you, you and I part company. One of us two must be master, and I will, or you must tramp. Do you hear me?"

"I can't do without wictuals!" whimpered Tommy. "I didn't come wi'
you a purpose to be starved to death!"

"I dare say you didn't; but when I starve, you must starve too; and when I eat, you shall have the first mouthful. What did you come with me for?"

"'Acos you was the strongest," answered Tommy, "an' I reckoned you would get things from coves we met!"

"Well, I'm not going to get things from coves we meet, except they give them to me. But have patience, Tommy, and I'll get you all you can eat. You must give me time, you know! I 'ain't got work yet!-Come here. Lie down close to me, and we'll go to sleep."

The urchin obeyed, pillowed his head on Clare's chest, and went fast asleep.

Clare slept too after a while, but the necessities of his relation to Tommy were fast making a man of him.


Chapter XXII.

The smith in a rage.


They had not slept long, when they were roused by a hideous clamour and rattling at the door, and thunderous blows on the wooden sides of the shed. Clare woke first, and rubbed his eyelids, whose hinges were rusted with sleep. He was utterly perplexed with the uproar and romage. The cabin seemed enveloped in a hurricane of kicks, and the air was in a tumult of howling and brawling, of threats and curses, whose inarticulateness made them sound bestial. There never came pause long enough for Clare to answer that they were locked in, and that the smith must have the key in his pocket. But when Tommy came to himself, which he generally did the instant he woke, but not so quickly this time because of his fall, he understood at once.

"It's the blacksmith! He's roaring drunk!" he said.

"Let's be off, Clare! The devil 'ill be to pay when he gets in! He'll murder us in our beds!"

"We ought to let him into his own house if we can," replied Clare, rising and going to the door. It was well for him that he found no way of opening it, for every instant there came a kick against it that threatened to throw it from lock and hinges at once. He protested his inability, but the madman thought he was refusing to admit him, and went into a tenfold fury, calling the boys hideous names, and swearing he would set the shed on fire if they did not open at once. The boys shouted, but the man had no sense to listen with, and began such a furious battery on the door, with his whole person for a ram, that Tommy made for the rear, and Clare followed-prudent enough, however, in all his haste, to close the back-door behind them.

Tommy was in front, and led the way to the bottom of the yard, and over the fence into the waste ground, hoping to find some point in that quarter where he could mount the wall. He could not face the water-but-with the moon in it, staring out of the immensity of the lower world. He ran and doubled and spied, but could find no foothold. Least of all was ascent possible at the spot where the door stood on the other side; the bricks were smoother than elsewhere. He turned the corner and ran along a narrow lane, Clare still following, for he thought