Johnny Ludlow, First Series. Henry Wood

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      The race went on. She was a woman not to be daunted. Just as we turned round by the yellow barn, I first, she raving behind, the Squire pounced upon us, asking what the uproar meant. Molly told her tale. I was a thief, and had gone off with the whole larder, more particularly with her mince-pies.

      “Open the basket, Johnny,” said the Squire: which was the one Tod and I used when we went fishing.

      No sooner was it done than Molly marched off with the pies in triumph. The Pater regarded the pork-pie and the meat with a curious gaze.

      “This is for you and Joe, I suppose. I should like to know for how many more.”

      I was one of the worst to conceal things, when taken-to like this, and he got it all out of me in no time. And then he put his hand on my shoulder and ordered me to say who the things were for. Which I had to do.

      Well, there was a row. He wanted to know what I meant by being wicked enough to give food to Lease. I said it was for the children. I’m afraid I almost cried, for I did not like him to be angry with me, but I know I promised not to eat any dinner at home for three days if he would let me take the meat. Molly’s comments, echoing through the house, betrayed to Mrs. Todhetley what had happened, and she came down the road with a shawl over her head. She told the Squire the truth then: that she had sanctioned it. She said she feared the Leases were quite in extremity, and begged him to let the meat go.

      “Be off for this once, you young thief,” stamped the Squire, “but don’t let me catch you at anything of this sort again.”

      So the meat went to the Leases, and two loaves that Mrs. Todhetley whispered me to order for them at Ford’s. When I reached home with the empty basket, they were going in to dinner. I took a book and stayed in the parlour. In a minute or two the Squire sent to ask what I was doing that for.

      “It’s all right, Thomas. I don’t want any dinner to-day.”

      Old Thomas went away and returned again, saying the master ordered me to go in. But I wouldn’t do anything of the sort. If he forgot the bargain, I did not.

      Out came the Squire, his face red, napkin in hand, and laid hold of me by the shoulders.

      “You obstinate young Turk! How dare you defy me? Come along.”

      “But it is not to defy you, sir. It was a bargain, you know; I promised.”

      “What was a bargain?”

      “That I should not have any dinner for three days. Indeed I meant it.”

      The Squire’s answer was to propel me into the dining-room. “Move down, Joe,” he said, “I’ll have him by me to-day. I’ll see whether he is to starve himself out of bravado.”

      “Why, what’s up?” asked Tod, as he went to a lower seat. “What have you been doing, Johnny?”

      “Never mind,” said the Squire, putting enough mutton on my plate for two. “You eat that, Mr. Johnny?”

      It went on so throughout dinner. Mrs. Todhetley gave me a big share of apple pudding; and, when the macaroni came on, the Squire heaped my plate. And I know it was all done to show he was not really angry with me for having taken the things to the Leases.

      Mr. Cole, the surgeon, came in after dinner, and was told of my wickedness. Lena ran up to me and said might she send her new sixpence to the poor little children who had no bread to eat.

      “What’s that Lease about, that he does not go to work?” asked the Squire, in loud tones. “Letting folks hear that his young ones are starving!”

      “The man can’t work,” said Mr. Cole. “He is out on probation, you know, waiting for the verdict, and the sentence on him that is to follow.”

      “Then why don’t they return their verdict and sentence him?” demanded the Squire, in his hot way.

      “Ah!” said Mr. Cole, “it’s what they ought to have done long ago.”

      “What will it be! Transportation?”

      “I should take care it was not, if I were on the jury. The man had too much work on him that day, and had had nothing to eat or drink for too many hours.”

      “I won’t hear a word in his defence,” growled the Squire.

      When the jury met for the last time, Lease was ill. A day or two before that, some one had brought Lease word that Roberts, who had been lingering all that time in the infirmary at Worcester, was going at last. Upon which Lease started to see him. It was not the day for visitors at the infirmary, but he gained admittance. Roberts was lying in the accident ward, with his head low and a blue look in his face; and the first thing Lease did, when he began to speak, was to burst out crying. The man’s strength had gone down to nothing and his spirit was broken. Roberts made out that he was speaking of his distress at having been the cause of the calamity, and asking to be forgiven.

      “Mate,” said Roberts, putting out his hand that Lease might take it, “I’ve never had an ill thought to ye. Mishaps come to all of us that have to do with rail-travelling; us drivers get more nor you pointsmen. It might have happened to me to be the cause, just as well as to you. Don’t think no more of it.”

      “Say you forgive me,” urged Lease, “or I shall not know how to bear it.”

      “I forgive thee with my whole heart and soul. I’ve had a spell of it here, Lease, waiting for death, knowing it must come to me, and I’ve got to look for it kindly. I don’t think I’d go back to the world now if I could. I’m going to a better. It seems just peace, and nothing less. Shake hands, mate.”

      They shook hands.

      “I wish ye’d lift my head a bit,” Roberts said, after a while. “The nurse she come and took away my pillow, thinking I might die easier, I suppose: I’ve seen her do it to others. Maybe I was a’most gone, and the sight of you woke me up again like.”

      Lease sat down on the bed and put the man’s head upon his breast in the position that seemed most easy to him; and Roberts died there.

      It was one of the worst days we had that winter. Lease had a night’s walk home of many miles, the sleet and wind beating upon him all the way. He was not well clad either, for his best things had been pawned.

      So that when the inquest assembled two days afterwards, Lease did not appear at it. He was in bed with inflammation of the chest, and Mr. Cole told the coroner that it would be dangerous to take him out of it. Some of them called it bronchitis; but the Squire never went in for new names, and never would.

      “I tell you what it is, gentlemen,” broke in Mr. Cole, when they were quarrelling as to whether there should be another adjournment or not, “you’ll put off and put off, until Lease slips through your fingers.”

      “Oh, will he, though!” blustered old Massock. “He had better try at it! We’d soon fetch him back again.”

      “You’d be clever to do it,” said the doctor.

      Any way, whether it was this or not, they thought better of the adjournment, and gave their verdict. “Manslaughter against Henry Lease.” And the coroner made out his warrant of committal to Worcester county prison: where Lease would lie until the March assizes.

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