Dick Lionheart Part 1

d.i.c.k Lionheart.

by Mary Rowles Jarvis.

CHAPTER I.

SOMETHING TO LOVE.

"There, take that, and be off with you! And no dawdling, mind. It's ten minutes late, and you'll have to step it to be there by one.

That's _your_ dinner, and more than you deserve."

d.i.c.k Crosby took the one thick slice she offered, slipped the handle of the tin of tea on his arm, and with the big basin, tied up in a blue handkerchief, in his other hand, marched off in the direction of the tin works, while slatternly Mrs. Fowley went back into her cottage.

"Only bread and dripping again," he muttered, "while they've all got cooked dinner. How good it smells! She might have given me at least some taters and gravy. And I'm so thirsty. Perhaps if he is in a good mood I shall get a drink of tea. I s'pose n.o.body would know if I helped myself in Fell Lane, but I can't be Lionheart and do mean things, teacher said. Only if ever I grow up and have a little chap in my house what's only a 'c.u.mbrance, he shall have the same dinner as all the rest!"

Taking frugal bites at the bread and dripping, to make it last as long as possible, d.i.c.k hurried on to the Works, whose tall chimney sent out clouds of black smoke.

The hooter sounded for the dinner hour as he reached the last turning, and a crowd of men and boys pa.s.sed him, and one of the boys called out, "Hulloa, Slavey! How much a day for scrubbing floors and minding babbies?"

d.i.c.k's face flushed hotly, and the small hard hand that held the dinner trembled with a pa.s.sionate desire to fight the tormentors, among whom Tim Fowley, his cousin, laughed loudest.

But his uncle was standing at the gate, and he had to hurry up with the dinner.

His reward for good speed was a surly word from the man and a box on the ear, that made his head reel.

"Take that for dawdling, and be off with you!"

"Oi don't think he deserved that, mate," said the cheery voice of Paddy the fireman, as he pa.s.sed down the yard. "Shure, ye can see by the sweat of his brow he's been hurrying."

The man turned sulkily away, and Paddy whispered, "Come along of me, d.i.c.k, I've got somethin' to show you--somethin' you'll like almost as much as engines."

d.i.c.k followed eagerly, feeling that he had honestly earned ten minutes of dinner hour for his own.

It was hot in the great boiler house, where the stoke holes were glowing with fiery heat, and the throb of the machinery went on, like giant's music, all the time.

Paddy had worked there for years, and had found out d.i.c.k's intense love for engines and his secret ambition, some day, to be a stoker, too.

And the Irishman's warm heart had often been made angry by the Fowleys'

unkind treatment of the boy.

To-day he had a bacon sandwich and a drink of coffee to spare, and when d.i.c.k had gratefully disposed of these he took him to a warm corner behind the door, and showed him an old basket.

On the straw inside slept a tiny black and tan terrier, that as yet could hardly see. d.i.c.k was on his knees in a moment, fondling the little bundle, and crying, "Oh, Paddy, is he yours? What a _dear_ little doggie."

Paddy's homely face was beaming as he said, "Shure, an' I'm glad ye like him, d.i.c.k, me boy. Can ye kape a secret if I tell ye? His mother's dead and I begged him, and when he's a bit bigger, if I can rare him, he shall be your very own."

d.i.c.k fairly gasped with delight, as the little warm bundle was put into his arms, for he had never had a pet, or anything living, of his own, to love since his father died.

"And his name's 'Pat,' unless there's something you'd like better, and I'll kape him till he's big enough to look after himself."

Suddenly d.i.c.k's face changed, and a sob came into his throat as he said, "Oh, Paddy, it's so good of you to offer him, but they'll never let me have him to keep. There is nowhere I could hide him, and Tim would hurt him every time he came near."

"Bad luck to him then, for a ondacent spalpeen as he is. It's a shame how they trate you. Oh, oi know, without telling. But shure, ye won't be there for ever. They've no claim on ye at all, at all. The bit of money your father left, and the insurance, have paid for your keep over and over, to say nothing of the work you're doing for that lazybones all the while. If you could only get to Ironboro' now, and find your Uncle Richard, he'd see you righted. And more by token he's a fitter, and would put you in the way of the same trade, and give you engines to your heart's content."

d.i.c.k's face was a study, as he held the puppy closely in his arms and looked up eagerly at Paddy.

"Do you mean that the Fowleys are not relations, and that I'm not beholden to stay there?"

"No relations in the world, me boy; and if I was you, I'd be off some fine morning and give 'em the slip. Your poor father was only a lodger there, after your mother died, and they took all he had and kept you, so to say, out of charity. Of course you was too young to know any different. I was well acquainted with your father and your uncle, years agone, but _he_ had got work at Ironboro' long before your father died."

"And which is the way to Ironboro', and what is a fitter?"

"Ironboro'? Oh that's a hundred and fifty miles off, way up in the north, and you couldn't walk it yet, all alone. But some day---- And a fitter is a man who has learned his trade making engines, and can pull them to pieces, and put them together again as easy as I can fire these stoke holes."

d.i.c.k gently put the puppy back into the basket and straightened himself, like one taking a great resolve.

"Thank you, Paddy, ever so much for telling me, and if you'll only keep Pat till I can go, I'll save him a bit of my dinner every day."

"Indade and you won't, then, seein' as your dinner's none too hearty, judging by the leanness of your bones. No, I've no chick nor child of me own, and shure I can let the cratur alone enough to pay the milkman's bill for this little mite. You'll have to bring the dinner every day this week, and you'll see he'll get on fine in that time."

d.i.c.k gave his friend a hug of grat.i.tude, and kissed Pat's silky head before he went away. And he hurried home and washed the dinner things, and cleared up the untidy kitchen like one in a dream. Sometimes it seemed to d.i.c.k that all his work went for nothing at all, for Mrs.

Fowley always muddled things as soon as she came in.

She might have kept the house well on her husband's wages, but a large slice went to the "Blue Dragon," and out of the remainder she never had any left by the middle of the week. And she never did any work that could possibly be handed over to d.i.c.k, and the boy was in very truth the "slavey" they called him, and he rarely had enough to eat. Now she told him that he must stay away from school that afternoon and mind the baby, as she had business down the road at a neighbour's. And slipping a black bottle under her ap.r.o.n, she went out, and Susy, the youngest but one, followed her, leaving the baby fretting in the old wooden box that served as cradle.

As soon as d.i.c.k had finished he took her out into the dreary little garden and tried to pacify her. She was generally good with him, but the heat, and teething, had made her fretful, and he had to walk up and down the cinder path till his arms ached almost beyond bearing. She went to sleep at last, and d.i.c.k sat down and took a tattered book from his pocket and began to read once more the story of Richard the King.

It was the story that he loved best in the history lessons, for his own name was Richard Hart Crosby, and the fancy had come into his life like a sunbeam, that he might be Richard Lionheart too.

There were no books in the Fowleys' kitchen, and none of the children went to Sunday school regularly. Just for a week or two before the annual treat, or Christmas tree, they would go in great force, but d.i.c.k could not be spared.

But he had one other little book that was kept as a hidden treasure--his mother's Bible, that she had left to him. And in that he had learned how to be a true Lionheart and a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And every day he managed to read a few verses at least.

Now, as the sultry afternoon wore away, and the baby still slept, he thought again and again of the discovery he had made, that he did not really belong to the Fowleys.

"I _have_ tried to please them and be brave and do my duty because they've given me a home," he reasoned to himself, "but perhaps if they had money when father died, I'm not beholden after all, as they always say I am. And oh, I would like to find a real relation! And isn't it good of Paddy to get that dear little Pat for me? I _must_ wait till he is big enough to go too, and then I can have him for my very, very own."

d.i.c.k was thirteen, and small for his age, but his mental powers were keen, and he knew that if he stayed with the Fowleys he would have no chance to get on in life.

And looking up into the blue summer sky, he prayed to his heavenly Father to help him to get away.

CHAPTER II.

FIGHTING FIRE.

A sudden scream of terror from the cottage roused d.i.c.k from his thinking, and laying the baby down he rushed in.