To The West | Page 6

whistled, hummed
over bits of songs, and chatted about the various things we passed, till
we had been at the printer's, and then had to retrace our steps so as to
cross Blackfriars Bridge, and reach Camberwell, where in a narrow
street off the Albany Road Esau's mother rented a little house, working
hard with her needle to produce not many shillings a week, which were
supplemented by her boy's earnings, and the amount I paid for my bed,

breakfast, and tea.
It was my fellow-clerk's proposal that I should join them, and I had
good cause to be grateful, the place being delightfully clean, and little,
quaint, homely Mrs Dean looking upon me as a lodger who was to be
treated with the greatest of respect.
"Shan't go for a soldier to-night!" said Esau, throwing himself back in
his chair, after we had finished our tea.
"I should think not indeed," cried his mother. "Esau, I'm ashamed of
you for talking like that. Has he been saying anything about it to you,
Master Gordon?"
"Oh, yes, but he don't mean it," I replied. "It's only when he's cross."
"Has master been scolding him then again?"
"Scolding?" cried Esau scornfully, "why he never does nothing else."
"Then you must have given him cause, Esau dear. Master Gordon, what
had he done?"
"Mr Dempster caught him asleep."
"Well, I couldn't help it. My head was so heavy."
"Yes," sighed Mrs Dean, "his head always was very heavy, poor boy.
He goes to sleep at such strange times too, sir."
"Well, don't tell him that, mother," cried Esau. "You tell everybody."
"Well, dear, there's no harm in it. I never said it was your fault. Lots of
times, Master Gordon, I've known him go to sleep when at play, and
once I found him quite fast with his mouth full of bread and butter."
"Such stuff!" grumbled Esau, angrily.
"It is quite true, Master Gordon. He always was a drowsy boy."

"Make anybody drowsy to keep on writing lots and figures," grumbled
Esau. "Heigho--ha--hum!" he yawned. "I shan't be very long before I
go to bed."
He kept his word, and I took a book and sat down by the little fire to
read; but though I kept on turning over the pages, I did not follow the
text; for I was either thinking about Mrs Dean's needle as it darted in
and out of the stuff she was sewing, or else about Mr John Dempster
and our meeting that day--of how I had promised to go up and see him
on Sunday, and how different he was to his cousin.
The time must have gone fast, for when the clock began to strike, it
went on up to ten; and I was thinking it was impossible that it could be
so late, when I happened to glance across at little Mrs Dean, whose
work had dropped into her lap, and she was as fast asleep then as her
son had been at the office hours before.
CHAPTER THREE.
MY NEW FRIENDS.
Poor Esau and I had had a hard time at the office, for it seemed that my
patient forbearing way of receiving all the fault-finding made Mr
Dempster go home at night to invent unpleasant things to say, till, as I
had listened, it had seemed as if my blood boiled, and a hot sensation
came into my throat.
All this had greatly increased by the Saturday afternoon, and had set me
thinking that there was something in what Esau said, and that I should
be better anywhere than where I was.
But on the Sunday afternoon, as I walked up the sunny road to Kentish
Town, and turned down a side street of small old-looking houses, each
with its bit of garden and flowers, everything looked so bright and
pleasant, even there, that my spirits began to rise; and all the more from
the fact that at one of the cottage-like places with its porch and flowers,
there were three cages outside, two of whose inmates, a lark and a
canary, were singing loudly and making the place ring.

It is curious how a musical sound takes one back to the past. In an
instant as I walked on, I was seeing the bright river down at home, with
the boat gliding along, the roach and dace flashing away to right and
left, the chub scurrying from under the willows, the water-weeds and
white buttercups brushing against the sides, and the lark singing high
overhead in the blue sky.
London and its smoke were gone, and the houses to right and left had
no existence for me then, till I was suddenly brought back to the
present by a hand being laid on my shoulder, and a familiar voice
saying--
"Mr Gordon!