The Fortunate Youth | Page 9

him.
"Steady on, my boy-steady on!"
Paul looked round in a dazed way. "Have A' won th' race?"
"I'm afraid not, my lad."
With a great effort he screwed his mind to another question. "Wheer
did A' coom in?"
"About sixth, but you ran awfully well."
Sixth! He had come in sixth! Sky and grass and trees and white mass of
ladies (among whom was the goddess) and unconsiderable men and
boys became a shimmering blur. He seemed to stagger away, stagger
miles away, until, finding himself quite alone, he threw himself down
under a beech tree, and, after a few moments' vivid realization of what
had happened, sobbed out the agony of his little soul's despair. Sixth!
He had come in sixth! He had failed miserably in his championship.
How she must despise him--she who had sent him forth to victory! And
yet how 'had it been possible? How had it been possible that other boys
could beat him? He was he. An indomitable personage. Some hideous
injustice guided human affairs. Why shouldn't he have won? He could
not tell. But he had not won. She had sent him forth to win. He had lost.
He had come in a sickening sixth. The disgrace devastated him.
Maisie Shepherd, interested in her child champion, sought him out and
easily found him under the beech tree. "Why, what is the matter?"
As he did not answer, she knelt by his side and put her hand on his lean

shoulder. "Tell me what has happened."
Again the celestial fragrance overspread his senses. He checked his
sobs and wiped his eyes with the back of his grubby hand. "Aw didn't
win," he moaned.
"Poor little chap," she said comfortingly. "Did you want to win so very
much?"
He got up and stared at her. "Yo' told me to win."
"So you ran for me?"
"Ay!"
She rose to her feet and looked down upon him, somewhat
overwhelmed by her responsibility. So in ancient days might a fair
maiden have regarded her knight who underwent entirely unnecessary
batterings for her sake. "Then for me you've won," she said. "I wish I
could give you a prize."
But what in the nature of a prize for a gutter imp of eleven does a
pocketless young woman attired for the serious business of a school
treat carry upon her person? She laughed in pretty embarrassment. "If I
gave you something quite useless, what would you do with it?"
"I 'u'd hide it safe, so 'ut nobody should see it," said Paul, thinking of
his precious cards.
"Wouldn't you show it to anybody?"
"By Gum!--" he checked himself suddenly. Such, he had learned, was
not Sunday-school language. "I wouldno' show it to a dog," said he.
Maisie Shepherd, aware of romantic foolishness, slipped a cornelian
heart from a thin gold chain round her neck. "It's all I can give you for a
prize, if you will have it."
If he would have it? The Koh-i-Noor' in his clutch (and a knowledge of

its value) could not have given him more thrilling rapture. He was
speechless with amazement; Maisie, thrilled too, realized that a word
spoken would have rung false. The boy gloated over his treasure; but
she did not know--how could she?--what it meant to him. To Paul the
bauble was a bit of the warm wonder that was she.
"How are you going to keep it?" she asked.
He hoicked a bit of his shirt-tail from his breeches and proceeded to
knot the cornelian heart secure therein. Maisie fled rapidly on the verge
of hysterics, After that the school treat had but one meaning for Paul.
He fed, it is true, in Pantagruelian fashion on luscious viands,
transcending his imagination of those which lay behind Blinks the
confectioner's window in Bludston: there he succumbed to the animal;
but the sports, the swing-boats, the merry-go-round, offered no
temptation. He hovered around Maisie Shepherd like a little dog-quite
content to keep her in sight. And every two or three minutes he
fumbled about his breeches to see that the knotted treasure was safe.
The day sank into late afternoon. The children had been fed. The weary
elders had their tea. The vicarage party took a few moments' rest in the
shade of a clump of firs some distance away from the marquee. Behind
the screen lay Paul, his eyes on his goddess, his heels in the air, a
buttercup-stalk between his teeth. He felt the comforting knot beneath
his thigh. For the first time, perhaps, in his life, he knew utter happiness.
He heard the talk, but did not listen. Suddenly, however, the sound of
his own name caused him to prick his ears. Paul Kegworthy! They were
talking about him. There could be no mistake. He slithered a foot