Me and Nobbles | Page 4

soon pursue him and bring
him back to his proper sphere; but he would have a delightful time

whilst the chase lasted, and the very difficulties that beset his
investigations made them the more exciting.
One bright spring afternoon he was turned into the kitchen garden to
play. Nurse had placed him under the charge of old Tom, for she was
busy with her machine, making some holland overalls for him, and she
was glad to have the nursery to herself. Bobby was in the seventh
heaven of delight. There was nothing he enjoyed so much as a talk with
Tom.
'And what's the first thing nice to eat that's coming out of the ground?'
he asked, his hands in his pockets and his legs well astride, as he
watched Tom sowing some seed in long drills across the square of
freshly dug ground.
Tom looked at him with a twinkle in his eye.
'Spring cabbages,' he said.
'But I mean fruit, not nasty vegtubbers! I sawed you taste a big white
ball, and then you frew it over the wall.'
''Twas a turnip, likely.'
'Let me taste a turnip.'
But Tom shook his head.
'Shall have your nurse at me a-sayin' I'm a-upsettin' your little inside.
Do you know who's a-comin' to-day?'
'No. Do tell me. Someone to the house?'
'It be Master Mortimer, the eldest son, who have been in furrin parts so
long, him what hangs up in the hall along with the master. You've
never seed him. He went off straight from school to India. He were a
favourit' of mine were Master Mortimer.'
'And he's coming to-day? Oh, I do hope I shall see him.'

Bobby capered at the thought.
''Tis any time to-day may bring him. His ship comed in yester morn.'
'I wonder if he's seen my father anywheres.'
'Ah! Best ask of him. Master Mortimer be a merry young gen'leman,
sure enough. But I reckon that time have sobered him!'
'Grown-up peoples aren't merry,' said the small boy, ''cept Sam Conway,
when he's drunk!'
Sam Conway was the cobbler, who was the village drunkard. Tom
shook his head reproachfully at the thought of him.
'And that there old soaker did marry my aunt's darter!' He continued a
grumbling discourse upon the evils of drink as he turned to his sowing,
and Bobby danced away down to the bottom of the garden, where he
opened the door into the orchard and found his way to his favourite
corner. This was an old apple-tree which grew close to the high wall
that separated the orchard from the public road. It was an easy tree to
climb, and from a comfortable perch upon the topmost bough he could
look out along the high-road. It was a broad, white, dusty road; on
market-days he was never absent from this seat; he loved watching the
farmers' carts, and the carriers, and the droves of sheep and cattle that
passed along to the town. There were other days when he watched there,
days when only motors whizzed by, or a few carriages and an
occasional cart rumbled along. But he never tired of his post, and his
face was always full of patient expectancy. He got up in the tree now,
and 'Nobbles' was tightly grasped in his hand.
'It may be "Nobbles" that they'll come together. It's a ship he'll come in
same as Master Mortimer, and the ship comed in yesterday--Tom said
so.'
His brown eyes scanned the horizon anxiously, and the hope that had
never died yet in his childish heart leaped up anew. Nobbles was stuck
into a crevice in the wall, and his smiling, ugly little head stared out in

the same direction as his master's.
'It may be a station fly, and it may be our carriage, and it may be a
motor,' pursued Bobby dreamily, 'but he's bound to come, I'm certain
sure!'
He was called into his dinner before a single carriage or cart had passed
him. But his little face was radiantly bright as he sat opposite his nurse
and ate his hot mutton and rice pudding at the nursery table.
'I 'specs the House is very busy to-day,' he remarked with a knowing
little nod of his head. 'Which is Master Mortimer's room, Nurse?'
'Master Mortimer, indeed! Who's been talking to you of him I'd like to
know! You must be a good boy and stay quiet in the nursery. I've never
seen your grandmother so upset. She's proper excited, and won't go out
for her drive this afternoon, and I'm helping Jane get out all the old bits
of furniture that used to belong in his room before ever he went abroad.
'Twas his only sending a telegram yesterday so sudden like, and no
letter nor nothing to prepare us,