The Obstacle Race | Page 4

her. "Where do you come from?" he asked curiously.
"From London." She met his curiosity with absolute candour. "And I'm tired of it. I'm very tired of it. So I've come here for a change. I'm going to like this much better."
"Better than London!" He gazed, incredulous.
"Oh, much better." Juliet spoke with absolute confidence. "Ah, here is Columbus! He likes it better too."
She turned to greet her companion who now came hastening up to view the new acquaintance.
He sniffed round Robin who bent awkwardly and laid a fondling hand upon him. "I like your dog," he said.
"That's right," said Juliet kindly. "We are both staying at the Ricketts', so when you come to see the baby, I hope you will come to see us too. I must go now, or I shall be late for lunch. Good-bye!"
The boy lifted himself again with a slow, ungainly movement, and raised a hand to his forehead in wholly unexpected salute.
She smiled and turned to depart, but he spoke again, arresting her.
"I say!"
She looked back. "Yes? What is it?"
He shuffled his bare feet in the grass in embarrassment and murmured something she could not hear.
"What is it?" she said again, encouragingly, as if she were addressing a shy child.
He lifted his dark eyes to hers in sudden appeal. "I say," he said, with obvious effort, "if--if you meet Dicky, you--you won't tell him about--about--"
She checked the struggling words with a very kindly gesture. "Oh, no, of course not! I'm not that sort of person. But the next time you want to get rid of me, just come and tell me so, and I'll go away at once."
The gentleness of her speech uttered in that soft slow voice of hers had a curious effect upon her hearer. To her surprise, his eyes filled with tears.
"I shan't want to get rid of you! You're kind! I like you!" he blurted forth.
"Oh, thank you very much!" said Juliet, feeling oddly moved herself. "In that case, we are friends. Good-bye! Come and see me soon!"
She smiled upon him, and departed, picking up her stick from the path and turning to wave to him as she continued the ascent.
From the top of the cliff she looked back, and saw that he was still standing--a squat, fantastic figure like a goblin out of a fairy-tale--outlined against the shining sea behind him, a blot upon the blue.
Again she waved to him and he lifted one of his long arms and saluted her again in answer--stood at the salute till she turned away.
"Poor boy!" she murmured compassionately. "Poor ruined child! Columbus, we must be kind to him."
And Columbus looked up with knowing little eyes and wagged a smiling tail. He had taken to the lad himself.
CHAPTER II
SACRIFICE
"Lor' bless you!" said Mrs. Rickett. "There's some folks as thinks young Robin is the plague of the neighbourhood, but there ain't no harm in the lad if he's let alone. It's when them little varmints of village boys, sets on to him and teases him as he ain't safe. But let him be, and he's as quiet as a lamb. O' course if they great hulking fools on the shore goes and takes him into The Three Tuns, you can't expect him to behave respectable. But as I always says, let him alone and there's no vice in him. Why, I've seen him go away into a corner and cry like a baby at a sharp word from his brother Dick. He sets such store by him."
"I noticed that," said Juliet. "In fact he told me that Dicky and your baby were the only two people in the world that he loved."
"Did he now? Well, did you ever?" Mrs. Rickett's weather-beaten countenance softened as it were in spite of itself. "He always did take to my Freddy, right from the very first. And Freddy's just the same. Soon as ever he catches sight of Robin, he's all in a fever like to get to him. Mr. Fielding from the Court, he were in here the other day and he see 'em together. 'Your baby's got funny taste, Mrs. Rickett,' he says and laughs. And I says to him, 'There's a many worse than poor young Robin, sir,' I says. 'And in our own village too.' You see, Mr. Fielding he's one of them gentlemen as likes to have the managing of other folks' affairs and he's always been on to Dick to have poor Robin put away. But Dick won't hear of it, and I don't blame him. For, as I say, there's no harm in the lad if he's treated proper, and he'd break his heart if they was to send him away. And he's that devoted to Dick too--well, there, it fair makes me cry sometimes to see him. He'll sit and wait for