Humphrey Bold | Page 5

him. They were not talking now, but gazing at the barrel rolling down towards them, and the one who was seated wore the trace of a smile upon his face.
But the other--Heaven knows what terror seized me when my eyes lighted upon him: it was none other than Joshua Vetch, the father of the boy who, as I feared, was being churned to a jelly; and he stood full in the path of the barrel.
Mr. Vetch, as I have said, was a small but corpulent man, and stood very upright, with a slight backward inclination, to balance, I suppose, the exceeding greatness of his rotundity. His countenance habitually expressed disapproval, and his shaggy brows were drawn down now in an angry frown. I perceived that he said something to his companion, and then I saw no more for a while, a mist seeming to gather before my eyes.
When I regained possession of my faculties, dreading what might have happened, I found myself on the skirts of a group of five or six, and heard the loud voice of Mr. Vetch bellowing forth words which, for modesty's sake, I forbid my pen to write. He was not dead, then, I thought, nor even hurt, or assuredly he would not have had the strength to curse with such vigor. But what of Cyrus?
"I'll have the law on the villain! Run for a potticary! D'you hear, you gaping jackass? Run for Mr. Pinhorn and bid him come here!"
And then followed a string of oaths like to those I had heard before. The group parted hastily, and out came Dick Cludde, with a face as white as milk, and sped up the town as fast as his long legs would carry him. No doubt he was the "gaping jackass" whom Mr. Vetch had so addressed in his fury.
Pushing my way through the townsmen who had gathered, and whose numbers were swelled every moment by the afflux of aproned grocers, and potboys, and 'prentices, and others from the streets, I saw Cyrus laid on his back by the parapet, white and still, his father pacing heavily up and down, and his friend Captain Galsworthy fending off the prying onlookers with his cane.
"I'll thrash the villain to a pulp! I'll send him to the plantations, I will! I'll break every bone in his body!"
So Mr. Vetch roared and, much as I disliked him, I could not but feel a certain compassion, too, for all the world knew how he doted on his son. I looked around for Joe Punchard, to see whether he was in hearing of these threats, but he was not among the crowd.
By and by came Mr. Pinhorn, the surgeon, and some while after him four lads bearing a stretcher, upon which the unconscious form of my enemy was conveyed slowly up the town to Mr. Vetch's house on Pride Hill. I followed on the edge of the crowd until I saw the doors close upon the bearers, and then I betook myself home, in sore distress at the fate in store for my friend Joe Punchard, and in some terror lest I should share it, the mad freak of which he was guilty having been performed on my behalf.
Chapter 2
: Joe Breaks His Indentures.
It was so much later than my usual hour for returning from school that I was not surprised to see Mistress Pennyquick at the gate of our farm, shading her eyes against the westering sun as she looked for me up the road. I endeavored to compose my countenance so as to betray no sign of the excitement through which I had passed; but the attempt failed lamentably, and when the good creature began to question me, I burst into tears. This was so rare an occurrence with me that she was mightily concerned and adjured me to tell all, promising that if I had done wrong she would shield me from my father's anger. And when in answer to this I told her what Joe Punchard had done to Cyrus Vetch, and the terrible things I had heard the alderman threaten against him, she laughed and said I was too tender hearted for a boy, and Joe Punchard would be none the worse for a basting, and a deal more to the same tune, which almost broke through my determination to say nothing of what had caused the mischief; for, after all, Dick Cludde and Cyrus Vetch were my schoolfellows, and, in my day; for one boy to tell on another was the unpardonable sin.
My father came in soon after, and when he heard so much of the story as I had told Mistress Pennyquick he drew his fingers through his beard and said in his quiet way: "To be sure, barrels were not made for that kind