<h2><SPAN name="page43"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>IV.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Johnny</span> had finished his tea, and
was lying at his ease in the old easy-chair, whistling, rattling
his heels on the hearth, and studying a crack in the ceiling that
suggested an angry face. Mrs. May had put the sixpence the
sloes had brought into the cracked teacup that still awaited the
return of Uncle Isaac’s half-crown, had washed the
tea-things, and was now mending the worn collar of
gran’dad’s great-coat, in readiness for the
winter. Bessy had fallen asleep over her book, had been
wakened, had fallen asleep again, and in the end had drowsily
climbed the stairs to early bed: but still the old man did not
return.</p>
<p>“I wonder gran’dad ain’t back yet,”
Johnny’s mother said for the third time. “He
said he’d be quick, so’s to finish that case
to-night.” This was a glass-topped mahogany box, in
course of setting with specimens of all the Sphinges: a special
private order.</p>
<p>“’Spect he can’t find them caterpillars he
went for,” Johnny conjectured; “that’s what it
is. He’s forgot all about racin’ me
home.”</p>
<p>Mrs. May finished the collar, lifted the coat by the <SPAN name="page44"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>loop, and
turned it about in search of rents. Finding none, she put
it down and stood at the door, listening.</p>
<p>“Think you’re too tired to go an’ look for
him, Johnny?” she asked presently.</p>
<p>Johnny thought he was. “It’s them
caterpillars, safe enough,” he said. “He never
saw any before, an’ it was just a chance last night.
To-night he can’t find ’em, and he’s
keepin’ on searchin’ all over the Pits and the Slade;
that’s about it.”</p>
<p>There was another pause, till Mrs. May remembered
something. “The bit o’ candle he had in the
lantern wouldn’t last an hour,” she said.
“He’d ha’ had to come back for more.
Johnny, I’m gettin’ nervous.”</p>
<p>“Why, what for?” asked Johnny, though the
circumstance of the short candle startled his confidence.
“He might get a light from somewhere else, ’stead
o’ comin’ all the way back.”</p>
<p>“But where?” asked Mrs. May.
“There’s only the Dun Cow, an’ he might almost
as well come home—besides, he wouldn’t ask
’em.”</p>
<p>Johnny left the chair, and joined his mother at the
door. As they listened a more regular sound made itself
plain, amid the low hum of the trees; footsteps.
“Here he comes,” said Johnny.</p>
<p>But the sound neared and the steps were long and the tread was
heavy. In a few moments Bob Smallpiece’s voice came
from the gloom, wishing them good-night.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page45"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Mrs.
May called to him. “Have you seen gran’dad
anywhere, Mr. Smallpiece?”</p>
<p>The keeper checked his strides, and came to the garden gate,
piebald with the light from the cottage door.
“No,” he said, “I ain’t run across him,
nor seen his light anywheres. Know which way he
went?”</p>
<p>“He was just going to Wormleyton Pits an’ back,
that’s all.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’ve just come straight across the Pits,
an’ as straight here as ever I could go, past the Dun Cow;
an’ ain’t seen ne’er a sign of him. Want
him particular?”</p>
<p>“I’m gettin’ nervous about him, Mr.
Smallpiece—somehow I’m frightened to-night. He
went out about six, an’ now it don’t want much to
nine, an’ he only had a bit o’ candle that
wouldn’t burn an hour. And he never meant stopping
long, I know, ’cause of a case he’s got to set.
I thought p’raps you might ha’ seen—”</p>
<p>“No, I see nothin’ of him. But I’ll go
back to the Pits now, if you like, an’ welcome.”</p>
<p>“I’d be sorry to bother you, but I would like
someone to go. Here, Johnny, go along, there’s a good
boy.”</p>
<p>“All right, all right,” the keeper exclaimed
cheerfully. “We’ll go together. I expect
he’s invented some new speeches o’ moth, an’
he’s forgot all about his light, thinkin’ out the
improvements. It ain’t the first time he’s been
out o’ night about here, anyhow. Not likely to lose
himself, is Mr. May.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page46"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Johnny
had his cap and was at the gate; and in a moment the keeper and
he were mounting the slope.</p>
<p>“Mother’s worryin’ herself over nothing
to-night,” Johnny grumbled.
“Gran’dad’s been later ’n this
many’s a time, an’ she never said a word. Why,
when he gets after caterpillars an’ things he forgets
everything.”</p>
<p>They walked on among the trees. Presently, “How
long is it since your father died?” Bob Smallpiece asked
abruptly.</p>
<p>“Nine years, now, and more.”</p>
<p>“Mother might ha’ married agen, I
s’pose?”</p>
<p>“I dunno. Very likely. Never heard her say
nothing.”</p>
<p>Bob Smallpiece walked on with no more reply than a
grunt. Soon a light from the Dun Cow twinkled through the
bordering coppice, and in a few paces they were up at the
wood’s edge.</p>
<p>“No light along the road,” the keeper said,
glancing to left and right, and making across the hard
gravel.</p>
<p>“There’s somebody,” Johnny exclaimed,
pointing up the pale road.</p>
<p>“Drunk,” objected the other. And truly the
indistinct figure staggered and floundered.
“An’ goin’ the wrong way. Chap just out
o’ the Dun Cow. Come on.”</p>
<p>But Johnny’s gaze did not shift. “It’s
gran’dad!” he cried suddenly, and started
running.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page47"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Bob
Smallpiece sprang after him, and in twenty paces they were
running abreast. As they neared the old man they could hear
him talking rapidly, in a monotonous, high-pitched voice; he was
hatless, and though they called he took no heed, but stumbled on
as one seeing and hearing nothing; till, as the keeper reached to
seize his arm, he trod in a gulley and fell forward.</p>
<p>The shock interrupted his talk, and he breathed heavily,
staring still before him, as he regained his uncertain foothold,
and reeled a step farther. Then Bob Smallpiece grasped him
above the elbow, and shouted his name.</p>
<p>“What’s the matter, gran’dad?” Johnny
demanded. “Ill?”</p>
<p>The old man glared fixedly, and made as though to resume his
course.</p>
<p>“Why, what’s this?” said Bob Smallpiece,
retaining the arm, and lifting a hand gently to the old
man’s hair. It was blood, dotted and trickling.
“Lord! he’s had a bad wipe over the head,” said
Bob, and with that lifted old May in his arms, as a nurse lifts a
child. “Theydon’s nearest; run, Johnny
boy—run like blazes an’ fetch the doctor
tantivy!”</p>
<p>“Take him into the Dun Cow?”</p>
<p>“No—home’s best, an’ save
shiftin’ him twice. Run it!”</p>
<p>“Purple Emperors an’ Small Coppers,” began
the <SPAN name="page48"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>old
man again in his shrill chatter. “Small Coppers
an’ Marsh Ringlets everywhere, and my bag full o’
letters at the beginning of the round, but I finished my round
and now they’re all gone; all gone because o’ London
comin’, an’ I give in my empty bag—” and
so he tailed off into indistinguishable gabble, while Bob
Smallpiece carried him into the wood.</p>
<p>To Johnny, scudding madly toward Theydon, it imparted a
grotesque horror, as of some absurd nightmare, this baby-babble
of his white-haired grandfather, carried baby-fashion. He
blinked as he ran, and felt his head for his cap, half believing
that he ran in a dream in very truth.</p>
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