The Gold-Stealers | Page 8

the Widow Haddon at home. She it was who answered his knock.
'I have come from the School Committee, ma'am,' he said, still intent upon his boots.
'About Dickie, is it? Come in.'
Mrs. Haddon was dressmaker-in-ordinary to the township, and her otherwise carefully tended kitchen was littered with clippings and bits of material. She resumed her task by the lamp a soon as the delegate of the School Committee was comfortably seated.
'Has Richard come home, ma'am?' Ephraim was an orator, and prided himself on his command of language.
The widow shook her head. 'No,' she said composedly. 'I don't think he will come home to-night.'
'We have had a committee meeting, missus,' said Ephraim, examining the toe of his left boot reproach fully, 'an' it's understood we've got to catch these boys.'
'What!' cried Mrs. Haddon, dropping her work into her lap. 'You silly men are going to make a hunt of it? Then, let me tell you, you will not get that boy of mine to-morrow, nor this week, nor next. Was ever such a pack of fools! Let Dickie think he is being hunted, and he'll be a bushranger, or a brigand chief, or a pirate, or something desperately wicked in that amazin' head of his, and you won't get a-nigh him for weeks, not a man Jack of you! Dear, dear, dear, you men--a set of interferin', mutton-headed creatures!
'He's an unregenerate youth--that boy of yours, ma'am.'
'Is he, indeed?' Mrs. Haddon's handsome face flushed, and she squared her trim little figure. 'Was he that when he went down the broken winze to poor Ben Holden? Was he that when he brought little Kitty Green and her pony out of the burnin' scrub? Was he all a little villain when he found you trapped in the cleft of a log under the mount there, when the Stream men wouldn't stir a foot to seek you?
During this outburst Shine had twisted his boots in all directions, and examined them minutely from every point of view.
'No, no, ma'am,' he said, 'not all bad, not at all; but--ah, the--ah, influence of a father is missing, Mrs. Haddon.'
'That's my boy's misfortune, Mr. Superintendent.'
'It--it might be removed.'
'Eh? What's that you say?'
The widow eyed her visitor sharply, but he was squirming over his unfortunate feet, and apparently suffering untold agonies on their account.
'The schoolmaster must be supported, missus,' he said hastily. 'Discipline, you know. Boys have to be mastered.'
'To be sure; but you men, you don't know how. My Dick is the best boy in the school, sometimes.'
'Sometimes, ma'am, yes.'
'Yes, sometimes, and would be always if you men had a pen'orth of ideas. Boys should be driven sometimes and sometimes coaxed.'
'And how'd you coax him what played wag under the very school, fought there, an' then broke out of the place like a burgerler?
'I know, I know--_that's bad; but it's been a fearful tryin' day, an' allowances should be made.'
'Then, if he comes home you'll give him over to be--ah, dealt with?'
'Certainly, superintendent; I am not a fool, an' I want my boy taught. But don't you men go chasm' those lads; they'll just enjoy it, an' you'll do no good. You leave Dickie to me, an' I'll have him home here in two shakes. Dickie's a high-spirited boy, an' full o' the wild fancies of boys. He's done this sort o' thing before. Run away from home once to be a sailor, an' slep' for two nights in a windy old tree not a hundred yards from his own comfortable bed, imaginin' he was what he called on the foretop somethin'. But I know well enough how to work on his feelings.'
'A father, ma'am, would be the savin' o' that lad.'
Mrs. Haddon dropped her work again and her dark eyes snapped; but Ephraim Shine had lifted one boot on to his knee, and was examining a hole in the sole with bird-like curiosity.
'When I think my boy needs special savin' I'll send for you, Mr. Shine--
'It'd be a grave responsibility, a trial an' a constant triberlation, but I offer myself. I'll be a father to your boy, ma'am, barrin' objections.'
'An' what is meant by that, Mr. Shine?'
The widow, flushed of face, with her work thrust forward in her lap and a steely light in her fine eyes, regarded the searcher steadily.
'An offer of marriage to yourself is meant, Mrs. Haddon, ma'am.'
Shine's eyes came sliding up under his brows till they encountered those of Mrs. Haddon; then they fell again suddenly. The little widow tapped the table impressively with her thimbled finger, and her breast heaved.
'Do you remember Frank Hardy, Ephraim Shine?'
'To be certain I do.'
'Well, man, you may have heard what Frank Hardy was to me before he went to--to--'
'To gaol, Mrs. Haddon? Yes.'
'Listen to this, then. What Frank Hardy was to me before he is still, only more