Our Frank | Page 7

from one side of the clearing.
"They fetch a cart up yonder, and take 'em down into the high-road."
"And how fur is it?"
"A matter of two miles, and then three miles further to the factory, and there they make 'em up into cheers, and then they send 'em up to Lunnon Town by the rail."
Frank remembered the great cart-loads of chairs that he had seen passing through Danecross, but what chiefly struck him in his companion's answer were the two words "Lunnon Town." They fell on his ear with a new meaning. He had read of Lunnon Town, and heard schoolmaster talk of it, but had never imagined it as a place he could see, any more than America. Now, suddenly, an idea of such vast enterprise seized on his mind, that it stunned him into silence. He would go to Lunnon Town! Everyone became rich there. He would become rich too; then he would go back to Green Highlands, and give all his money to mother; there would be no need for any more field-work, and they would all be happy. At the thought of mother his eyes filled with tears, for he knew how unhappy she would be when he did not come back, and how she would stand at the door and look out for him. He longed to set about making this great fortune at once, it seemed a waste of time to sit idle; but he knew he must rest that night, for his legs felt stiff and aching; besides he had to work out his meal.
In half an hour the deaf man's lathe was hard at work again, and the two boys busily employed near. Frank's new friend showed him how to arrange the pieces of wood neatly in piles when they were turned and smoothed. He hummed a tune in the intervals of conversation and presently asked:
"Can yer sing?"
Frank could sing--very well. He was one of the best singers in Danecross choir, and Mrs Darvell held her head very high when she heard her boy's voice in church; so he answered with a certain pride:
"Ah, I can sing proper well."
"Sing summat," said the boy.
Frank waited a minute to choose a tune, and then sang "Ring the Bell, Watchman," straight through. The boy listened attentively, and joined, after the second verse, in the chorus, which was also taken up in a gruff and uncertain manner by the mate in the other shed. The deaf man looked on approvingly, and the lathe kept up a grinding accompaniment.
"That's fine, that is," said the boy when the last notes of Frank's clear voice died away. "Do yer know any more?"
"I know a side more," said Frank, "and hymns too."
"Can yer sing `Home Sweet Home?'" asked the boy.
"Ah."
But this song was not so successful, for after the chorus had been sung with great animation, and the second verse eagerly expected, something choked and gurgled in Frank's throat so that he could not sing any more. All that night, as he lay on the bed of shavings, which he shared with his new companion, he waked at intervals to hear those words echoing through the woods: "Home Sweet Home--There's no place like Home." But with the morning sun these sounds vanished, and he began his onward journey cheerily, refreshed by his rest and food. As he went down the cart-track the boy had pointed out to him he sang scraps of songs to himself, the birds twittered busily above his head, and the distant sound of the deaf man's lathe came more and more faintly to his ears. He felt sure now that he was on his way to make his fortune, and the wood seemed full of voices which said, "Lunnon Town, Lunnon Town," over and over again. The thought of his mother's sad face was, it is true, a little depressing. "But," he said to himself, "how pleased she'll be when I come back rich!" Then he considered what sort of shawl he would buy for her with the first money he earned--whether it should be a scarlet one, or mixed colours with an apple-green border, like one he had seen once in a shop at Daylesbury.
These fancies beguiled the way, and he was surprised when, after what seemed a short time, he found himself at the edge of the wood, and in a broad high-road; that must be the Wickham Road, and he had still three miles to walk before reaching the town and the chair factories, where he meant to ask for work as a first step on his way to London.
It was not a busy-looking road, and the carts and people who passed now and then seemed to have plenty of time and no wish to hurry; still, to Frank, who was used to the