By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War. Henty George Alfred

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СКАЧАТЬ holidays with them; but he knew how lonely his mother would feel in his absence, and he declined all the invitations. Mrs. Hargate was far from strong, and had had several fits of fainting. These, however, had taken place at times when Frank was at school, and she had strictly charged her little servant to say nothing about it.

      One day on returning from a long walk he saw the doctor’s carriage standing at the door. Just as he arrived the door opened and the doctor came out. Upon seeing Frank he turned.

      “Come in here, my boy,” he said.

      Frank followed him, and seeing that the blinds were down, went to draw them up. The doctor laid his hand on his arm.

      “Never mind that,” he said gently.

      “My boy,” he said, “do you know that your mother has been for some time ailing?”

      “No, indeed,” Frank said with a gasp of pain and surprise.

      “It is so, my boy. I have been attending her for some time. She has been suffering from fainting fits brought on by weakness of the heart’s action. Two hours since I was sent for and found her unconscious. My poor boy, you must compose yourself. God is good and merciful, though his decrees are hard to bear. Your mother passed away quietly half an hour since, without recovering consciousness.”

      Frank gave a short cry, and then sat stunned by the suddenness of the blow. The doctor drew out a small case from his pocket and poured a few drops from the phial into a glass, added some water, and held it to Frank’s lips.

      “Drink this, my boy,” he said.

      Frank turned his head from the offered glass. He could not speak.

      “Drink this, my boy,” the doctor said again; “it will do you good. Try and be strong for the sake of your little sister, who has only you in the world now.”

      The thought of Lucy touched the right chord in the boy’s heart, and he burst into a passionate fit of crying. The doctor allowed his tears to flow unchecked.

      “You will be better now,” he said presently. “Now drink this, then lie down on the sofa. We must not be having you ill, you know.”

      Frank gulped down the contents of the glass, and, passive as a child, allowed the doctor to place him upon the sofa.

      “God help and strengthen you, my poor boy,” he said; “ask help from Him.”

      For an hour Frank lay sobbing on the sofa, and then, remembering the doctor’s last words, he knelt beside it and prayed for strength.

      A week had passed. The blinds were up again. Mrs. Hargate had been laid in her last home, and Frank was sitting alone again in the little parlor thinking over what had best be done. The outlook was a dark one, enough to shake the courage of one much older than Frank. His mother’s pension, he knew, died with her. He had, on the doctor’s advice, written to the War Office on the day following his mother’s death, to inform the authorities of the circumstances, and to ask if any pension could be granted to his sister. The reply had arrived that morning and had relieved him of the greatest of his cares. It stated that as he was now just fifteen years old he was not eligible for a pension, but that twenty-five pounds a year would be paid to his sister until she married or attained the age of twenty-one.

      He had spoken to the doctor that morning, and the latter said that he knew a lady who kept a small school, and who would, he doubted not, be willing to receive Lucy and to board and clothe her for that sum. She was a very kind and motherly person, and he was sure that Lucy would be most kindly treated and cared for by her. It was then of his own future only that Frank had to think. There were but a few pounds in the house, but the letter from the War Office inclosed a check for twenty pounds, as his mother’s quarterly pension was just due. The furniture of the little house would fetch but a small sum, not more, Frank thought, than thirty or forty pounds. There were a few debts to pay, and after all was settled up there would remain about fifty pounds. Of this he determined to place half in the doctor’s hands for the use of Lucy.

      “She will want,” he said to himself, “a little pocket money. It is hard on a girl having no money to spend of her own. Then, as she gets on, she may need lessons in something or other. Besides, half the money rightly belongs to her, The question is, What am I to do?”

      CHAPTER V: ALONE IN THE WORLD

      “What am I to do?”

      A difficult question indeed, for a boy of fifteen, with but twenty-five pounds, and without a friend in the world. Was he, indeed, without a friend? he asked himself. There was Dr. Parker. Should he apply to him? But the doctor had started for a trip on the Continent the day after the school had broken up, and would not return for six weeks. It was possible that, had he been at home, he might have offered to keep Frank for a while; but the boys seldom stayed at his school past the age of fifteen, going elsewhere to have their education completed. What possible claim had he to quarter himself upon the doctor for the next four years, even were the offer made? No, Frank felt; he could not live upon the doctor’s charity. Then there were the parents of the boys he had saved from drowning. But even as he sat alone Frank’s face flushed at the thought of trading upon services so rendered. The boy’s chief fault was pride. It was no petty feeling, and he had felt no shame at being poorer than the rest of his schoolfellows. It was rather a pride which led him unduly to rely upon himself, and to shrink from accepting favors from any one. Frank might well, without any derogation, have written to his friends, telling them of the loss he had suffered and the necessity there was for him to earn his living, and asking them to beg their fathers to use their interest to procure him a situation as a boy clerk, or any other position in which he could earn his livelihood.

      Frank, however, shrunk from making any such appeal, and determined to fight his battle without asking for help. He knew nothing of his parents’ relations. His father was an only son, who had been left early an orphan. His mother, too, had, he was aware, lost both her parents, and he had never heard her speak of other relations. There was no one, therefore, so far as he knew, to whom he could appeal on the ground of ties of blood. It must be said for him that he had no idea how hard was the task which he was undertaking. It seemed to him that it must be easy for a strong, active lad to find employment of some sort in London. What the employment might be he cared little for. He had no pride of that kind, and so that he could earn his bread he cared not much in what capacity he might do it.

      Already preparations had been made for the sale of the furniture, which was to take place next day. Everything was to be sold except the scientific books which had belonged to his father. These had been packed in a great box until the time when he might place them in a library of his own, and the doctor kindly offered to keep it for him until such time should arrive. Frank wrote a long letter to Ruthven, telling him of his loss, and his reasons for leaving Deal, and promising to write some day and tell him how he was getting on in London. This letter he did not intend to post until the last thing before leaving Deal. Lucy had already gone to her new home, and Frank felt confident that she would be happy there. His friend, the doctor, who had tried strongly, but without avail, to dissuade Frank from going up to London to seek his fortune there, had promised that if the lad referred any inquiries to him he would answer for his character.

      He went down to the beach the last evening and said goodbye to his friends among the fishermen, and he walked over in the afternoon and took his last meal with Farmer Gregson.

      “Look ye here, my lad,” the farmer said as they parted. “I tell ye, from what I’ve heerd, this London be a hard nut to crack. There be plenty of kernel, no doubt, when you can get at it, but it be hard work to open the shell. Now, if so be as at any time you run short of money, just drop me a line, and there’s ten pound at your service whenever СКАЧАТЬ