The Gold-Stealers. Edward Dyson
reproach fully, 'an' it's understood we've got to catch these boys.'
'What!' cried Mrs. Haddon, dropping her work into her lap. 'You silly men are going to make a hunt of it? Then, let me tell you, you will not get that boy of mine to-morrow, nor this week, nor next. Was ever such a pack of fools! Let Dickie think he is being hunted, and he'll be a bushranger, or a brigand chief, or a pirate, or something desperately wicked in that amazin' head of his, and you won't get a-nigh him for weeks, not a man Jack of you! Dear, dear, dear, you men—a set of interferin', mutton-headed creatures!
'He's an unregenerate youth—that boy of yours, ma'am.'
'Is he, indeed?' Mrs. Haddon's handsome face flushed, and she squared her trim little figure. 'Was he that when he went down the broken winze to poor Ben Holden? Was he that when he brought little Kitty Green and her pony out of the burnin' scrub? Was he all a little villain when he found you trapped in the cleft of a log under the mount there, when the Stream men wouldn't stir a foot to seek you?
During this outburst Shine had twisted his boots in all directions, and examined them minutely from every point of view.
'No, no, ma'am,' he said, 'not all bad, not at all; but—ah, the—ah, influence of a father is missing, Mrs. Haddon.'
'That's my boy's misfortune, Mr. Superintendent.'
'It—it might be removed.'
'Eh? What's that you say?'
The widow eyed her visitor sharply, but he was squirming over his unfortunate feet, and apparently suffering untold agonies on their account.
'The schoolmaster must be supported, missus,' he said hastily.
'Discipline, you know. Boys have to be mastered.'
'To be sure; but you men, you don't know how. My Dick is the best boy in the school, sometimes.'
'Sometimes, ma'am, yes.'
'Yes, sometimes, and would be always if you men had a pen'orth of ideas.
Boys should be driven sometimes and sometimes coaxed.'
'And how'd you coax him what played wag under the very school, fought there, an' then broke out of the place like a burgerler?
'I know, I know—_that's bad; but it's been a fearful tryin' day, an' allowances should be made.'
'Then, if he comes home you'll give him over to be—ah, dealt with?'
'Certainly, superintendent; I am not a fool, an' I want my boy taught. But don't you men go chasm' those lads; they'll just enjoy it, an' you'll do no good. You leave Dickie to me, an' I'll have him home here in two shakes. Dickie's a high-spirited boy, an' full o' the wild fancies of boys. He's done this sort o' thing before. Run away from home once to be a sailor, an' slep' for two nights in a windy old tree not a hundred yards from his own comfortable bed, imaginin' he was what he called on the foretop somethin'. But I know well enough how to work on his feelings.'
'A father, ma'am, would be the savin' o' that lad.'
Mrs. Haddon dropped her work again and her dark eyes snapped; but Ephraim Shine had lifted one boot on to his knee, and was examining a hole in the sole with bird-like curiosity.
'When I think my boy needs special savin' I'll send for you, Mr. Shine—
'It'd be a grave responsibility, a trial an' a constant triberlation, but
I offer myself. I'll be a father to your boy, ma'am, barrin' objections.'
'An' what is meant by that, Mr. Shine?'
The widow, flushed of face, with her work thrust forward in her lap and a steely light in her fine eyes, regarded the searcher steadily.
'An offer of marriage to yourself is meant, Mrs. Haddon, ma'am.'
Shine's eyes came sliding up under his brows till they encountered those of Mrs. Haddon; then they fell again suddenly. The little widow tapped the table impressively with her thimbled finger, and her breast heaved.
'Do you remember Frank Hardy, Ephraim Shine?'
'To be certain I do.'
'Well, man, you may have heard what Frank Hardy was to me before he went to—to—'
'To gaol, Mrs. Haddon? Yes.'
'Listen to this, then. What Frank Hardy was to me before he is still, only more dear, an' I'd as lief everybody in Waddy knew it.'
'A gaol-bird an' a thief he is.'
'He is in gaol, an' that may make a gaol-bird of him, but he is no thief.
'Twas you got him into gaol, an' now you dare do this.'
Shine's slate-coloured eyes slid up and fell again.
''Twas done in the way o' duty. He don't deny I found the gold on him.'
'No, but he denies ever havin' seen it in his life before, an' I believe him.'
'An' about that cunnin' little trap in his boot-heel, ma'am?'
'It was what he said it was—the trick of some enemy.'
Mr. Shine lifted his right boot as if trying its weight, groaned and set it down again, tried the other, and said:
'An' who might the enemy ha' been, d'ye think?'
I do not know, but—I am Frank Hardy's friend, and you may not abuse him in my house.'
'You have a chance o' a respectable man, missus.' Mrs. Haddon had risen from her seat and was standing over her visitor, a buxom black-gowned little fury.
'An' I tell him to go about his business, an' that's the way.' The gesture the widow threw at her humble kitchen door was magnificent. 'But stay,' she cried, although the imperturbable Shine had not shown the slightest intention of moving. 'You've heard I went with Frank's mother to visit him in the gaol there at the city; p'r'aps you're curious to know what I said. Well, I'll tell you, an' you can tell all Waddy from yon platform in the chapel nex' Sunday, if you like. 'Frank,' I said, 'you asked me to be your wife, an' I haven't answered. I do now. I'll meet you at the prison door when you come out, if you please, an' I'll marry you straight away.' Those were my very words, Mr. Superintendent, an' I mean to keep to them.'
Mrs. Haddon stood with flaming face and throbbing bosom, a tragedy queen in miniature, suffused with honest emotion. Ephraim sat apparently absorbed in his left boot, thrusting his finger into the hole in the sole, as if probing a wound.
'You wouldn't think, ma'am,' he said presently with the air of a martyr, 'that I gave fourteen-and six for them pair o' boots not nine weeks since.'
Mrs. Haddon turned away with an impatient gesture.
'If you've said all you have to say, you might let me get on with my work.'
'I think that's all, Mrs. Haddon.' The searcher arose, and stood for a moment turning up the toe of one boot and then the other; he seemed to be calculating his losses on the bargain. 'You hand over the boy Richard, I understand, ma'am?'
'I'll do what is right, Mr. Shine.'
'The Committee said as much. The Committee has great respect for you,
Mrs. Haddon.'
Ephraim lifted his feet with an effort, and carried them slowly from the house, carefully and quietly closing the kitchen door after him. About half a minute later he opened the door again, just as carefully and as quietly, and said:
'Good night, ma'am, and God bless you.'
Then he went away, his hands bunched behind him, walking like a man carrying a heavy burden.
CHAPTER IV
DICK HADDON and Ted McKnight were still at large next morning, and nothing was heard of them till two o'clock in the afternoon, when Wilson's man, Jim Peetree, reported having discovered the