Dick Lionheart | Page 5

have allowances made for its deficiencies.
But at home all the effects of Susy's rescue had passed away, and Dick was more scolded and starved than ever before.
CHAPTER III.
A DASH FOR FREEDOM.
"Here, you young rascal, I'll teach you to meddle with my tools! What have you done with my knife?"
"I haven't had it," said Dick, looking up from the stocking he was awkwardly trying to darn by the firelight.
His hands were quite healed now, but still stiff and scarred from the burns, though the doctor had said the marks would get less as time went on.
"None of your tales, now. Tim said he saw you with it to-day. Give it me back this minute, or you shall have a dressing you won't forget in a hurry!"
"But I haven't seen it even," cried Dick earnestly. "Tim must have made a mistake."
"Oh, of course! Putting it on Tim, as usual," sneered Mrs. Fowley. "Your impudence is getting past bearing. Just go and get the knife this minute."
Dick stood up uncertainly, not knowing how to prove his innocence.
Everything that went wrong in that ill-managed household, was always in some mysterious way due to his shortcomings, but nothing had ever yet made him tell a lie, and in their hearts they knew it.
"I haven't seen it," he repeated, and there was absolute truth in the clear brown eyes, and Mrs. Fowley shifted her own uneasily as he looked at her.
But she said aloud, "He wants something to break down his spirit, Fowley, he ain't half so biddable as he used to be, and now he's passed the standard and can go to work, we shan't live for his pride and upstartness."
Now, Dick had not once refused to obey her commands, but since Paddy had told him about his uncle, and the possibility of going next year to find him and independence at the same time, the new hope had given him a bolder bearing.
There were times when he quite forgot to be afraid of blows and short rations, and when sharp words passed over him almost unheard. He was so sure the way would be made plain for him, and that his bondage would soon be at an end.
"Impudent, is he?" said Fowley, with an ugly scowl on his face, as he turned to the corner where the cruel strap was hung, to be the terror of all the children.
"I'll teach you manners, you young thief that we've kep' out of the workhouse and supported for nothing all these years."
"Not for nothing!" said Dick, with a sudden flash of passionate indignation. "You had all father's money and kept it, and I've worked just like a slave besides. It's not I that am a thief."
For a moment Fowley looked confounded, while his wife turned pale and shivered. Then, with a brutal laugh, he clutched the strap and reached forward.
But the table was between them, and Dick had never felt more like a Lionheart than at that moment.
"You shall never beat me again, or call me names, never!" he cried, as he opened the door and dashed out into the November night.
There was a dense fog outside that seemed to swallow him instantly, and by the time Fowley got to the door the boy had vanished.
"He's escaped me this time, but he shall have a double dose when I set eyes on him again," said the man grimly, as he hung up the strap; "I'll let him know about father's money!"
"But who could have told him?" asked his wife, in a frightened tone. "What if he goes with his tale to the police, or to that meddling doctor, that took such notice of him. He's never been the same boy since then."
"Police! not he, but if he should, 'mum's' the word, mind. We never had naught but just enough to pay for the buryin'. He'll be back again, meek enough, come bedtime, and then you can find out."
And flinging the tools back into the box, the man, who had already drunk too much on his way home, lurched off to the "Blue Dragon," where all his evenings now were spent. But his wife sat over the fire and looked at the grate Dick had laboriously black-leaded that morning, and her thoughts were busy with the past. And her long sleeping conscience was awake, and she heard again the feeble voice of a dying man, "Send this letter to brother Richard at once. We quarrelled before he went off to Ironboro', but he'll come and see to things and take charge of little Dick. And there'll be enough to pay for his upbringing, when all's said and done." But the letter was conveniently forgotten, and presently thrust into the flames, and the leathern pouch with its store of gold greedily taken possession of, as soon as the lodger