Her Benny/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
In the Woods
I roam the woods that crown
The upland, where the mingled splendours glow,
Where the gay company of trees look down
On the green fields below.
Let in through all the trees
Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright,
Their sunny-coloured foliage in the breeze
Twinkles like beams of light.
Bryant.
Perks was very much annoyed that Benny had not stayed to see him perform the feat of picking a gentleman's pocket, nevertheless, he was very anxious to cultivate our hero's acquaintance, especially as Benny had generally treated him with unmistakable contempt; so on the following morning he sought out Benny, and tried his very best to make himself agreeable. But Benny was in a decidedly unfriendly mood, and threw cold water on all Perks' advances. But, nothing daunted. Perks kept near him most of the day, and even offered to treat him to what he called "a feed." But it was of no use. Benny had learned a lesson he would not easily forget, and he knew that his safety lay in having as little to do with Perks and his class as possible. So as evening came on and Perks still hung round him, he lost all patience, and, doubling his fist in an unmistakable manner, he said, with a gymnastic flourish—
"Look 'ere. Perks, if yer don't walk yer pegs in double-quick time, you'll wish yer had, that's all"
"Oh, that's yer game, is it?" said Perks, in a defiant tone, and squaring up in front of Benny.
"It are," was the reply;" an' if yer don't want to see fire, you'd better be off like greased lightnin'."
I shall go when I likes, and not afore," said Perks; an' if yer thinks yer's goin' to bully this little chap, you's got the wrong pig by the ear."
"I wants to bully nobody," said Benny, in a milder tone; "but I won't have yer a-hangin' about me all day."
"I 'spose yer wants to crib somethin' without my knowin' it," said Perks, with a sneer.
"It's a lie," said Benny, colouring painfully, as the event of the previous day crossed his mind.
"'T ain't a lie, neither," was the response, "or you'd not get so red over it."
"D'yer think I's a thief, then?" said Benny.
"No," said Perks scornfully, "but I knows it."
"An' yer shall know some'at else afore yer a minit older," said Benny, springing upon him, and dealing him a blow between the eyes that made him stagger; and, before he could recover himself, a second blow sent him reeling against a wall.
For a moment Perks glared at his antagonist with flaming eyes, but he saw that he was no match for Benny, so he turned on his heel and walked away. He had not gone many steps, however, before he came back again.
"Look here, Ben Bates," he said, "you's licked me now, but I'll get my revenge, an' I'll a'most plague the life out o' yer," and once more he walked away.
Perks kept his word; from that day he became the greatest plague of Benny's life. He stole his matches, picked his pocket, tripped him up in the street, and annoyed him in every possible way that he could imagine, always mindfiil, however, to keep out of the reach of Benny's arm; and, being fleet-footed, that was not difficult.
Benny, however, said that he could "'ford to bide his time," so he quietly went on his way, feeling that nothing could trouble him very much now that "little Nell" was getting better again.
And as the summer advanced she did seem to get very much better. The cough became less troublesome, her appetite improved, her cheerfulness came back, and altogether she seemed to be taking, as Joe Wrag put it, a new lease of her life."
And yet a close observer would have noticed that the improvement was more in appearance than in reality. The pink spot still burned on either cheek, and her great round eyes shone with an unnatural lustre, and her strength, which had been failing for months, did not seem to come back ; and though she went out with Benny in the morning and came back with him in the evening, yet each evening she seemed more tired and worn than on the previous one. She made no complaint, however; but, on the contrary, always declared that she was getting ever so much better.
For several weeks Joe Wrag had been planning to give the children a treat; and one fine morning in June he put in an appearance at Tempest Court before they had left, much to their surprise and delight.
Nelly was the first to see him coming up the court, and ran to meet him, her eyes beaming with pleasure. "Oh, Joe," she exclaimed, "I's so pleased to see you!"
"Is you, my purty?" said Joe, fondly; and, stooping down, he took her up in his arms, and carried her into the house.
Granny looked up in surprise, and Benny stared in bewilderment, fearing there was mischief in the wind.
"Yer don't get much heavier," said Joe, sitting down with Nelly on his knee. "We'll have to feed yer up a bit somehow."
"Oh, I's very well, Joe," said Nelly, nestling closer to her old friend.
"Dunno 'bout that," said Joe, reflectively; "but what d'yer say 'bout havin' holiday to-day?"
"Oh, Methusaler!" said Benny, brightening up in a moment, "that's the game, are it?" and he went out in the doorway and stood on his head—a sure sign that he was more than usually delighted.
Nelly looked up in Joe's face with a beautiful light in her eyes. "D'yer mean it, Joe?" she said, simply.
"Ay, my bonny, that I do," responded Joe.
"Oh, then, won't it be jist—jist—"
"Profusely," said Benny, coming to her rescue with one of his grand words, of which he had been laying in a stock of late.
"Now, then," said Joe, "get on yer best togs, and let's be off."
Poor children! they had not much of best or worst in the way of attire, but, such as it was, it was clean and neatly mended. Granny did her very best to turn them out respectable, and certainly they did her no discredit.
"Where is 'we going?" said Nelly, as she stepped along by Joe's side, her eyes sparkling with delight.
"Into the woods somewhere on t'other side o' the water," said Joe, looking fondly down into the child's beaming eyes.
Benny had nearly stood on his head again when he heard that; but thought better of it, and contented himself with a shrill whistle expressive of delight.
"Better an' better," he thought, flinging his cap into the air and catching it on his toe; "won't I enjoy myself, just, that's all?"
By ten o'clock they were on the landing-stage, and soon after they were gliding up the river towards Eastham. Oh, how the wavelets sparkled in the summer's sunshine, and how the paddle-wheels tossed the water into foam! How happy everything seemed to-day! The ferries were crowded with passengers, all of whom seemed in the best of spirits; and the rash of water and the beat of the engine seemed to Nelly the happiest sounds she had ever heard.
Benny was rushing here and there and everywhere, and asking Joe questions about everything. But Nelly sat still. Her thoughts were too big for utterance, and her little heart was full to overflowing.
At length they reach New Ferry, where several passengers get off and several others get on; then on they glide again. The river here seems like a sheet of glass, so broad and smooth. Now they are nearing the river's bank, and Nelly is delighted to watch the trees gliding past. How wonderful everything seems! Surely her dreams are becoming a reality at last.
For awhile after they land they sit on the river's bank in the shade of the trees, and Nelly rubs her eyes and pinches herself, to be certain that she is not asleep. How grandly the mile-wide river at their feet flows downward to the sea! And what a beautiful background to the picture the wooded landscape makes that stretches away beyond Garston and Aigburth! And Nelly wonders to herself if it is possible that heaven can be more beautiful than this.
But Benny soon gets impatient to be off into the woods, and, humouring his wish, they set off up a narrow path, between banks of ferns and primroses and wild flowers of almost every hue. The tall trees wave their branches above them, and the birds whistle out their happy hearts. Here and there the grasshoppers chirp among the undergrowth, and myriads of insects make the air vocal with their ceaseless hum.
They had scarcely got into the heart of the wood ere they found that Benny was missing; but they were neither surprised nor alarmed at this, for the lad was fairly brimming over with delight, and could not stay for five minutes in the same place if he were to be crowned.
Nelly was as much delighted as her brother; perhaps more so, but she had a different way of expressing it. She felt as she sat on a mossy bank, holding Joe's rough and horny hand within both her own, and looked away up the long avenues between the trees, and watched the dancing sunlight that was sifted down in golden patches, and listened to the dreamy murmur of the summer's wind through the leafy trees, mingling with the song of birds and the lowing of the cattle in the distant fields, as if she could have cried for very joy. It was all so solemn, and yet so delightful, so awe-inspiring and yet so gladsome, that she hardly knew whether to laugh outright, or hide her face on Joe's shoulder and have a good cry.
Benny, however, decided the matter for her. He had been wandering no one knew whither, and Joe was beginning to think that it was time to go off in search of him, when they heard him shouting at the top of his voice—
"Joe, Joe! Golly! Make haste—quick, d'ye hear? Thunder!"
Judging by the tone of his voice, as well as by his words, that he was in a difficulty of some kind, Joe and Nelly started off in the direction from whence the sound came. They had not gone far before they espied our hero, and at sight of him Joe stood stock-still and held his sides. Not many yards away was Benny suspended by his nether garment to the branch of a tree, and striking out with his hands and feet like a huge octopus in a frantic and vain endeavour to recover a horizontal position.
He had gone out on this branch, which was not more than six feet from the ground, for some unknown purpose, and, missing his hold, he slipped, and would have fallen to the ground but for the friendly stump that held him suspended in mid-air.
"Joe! Oh, do come! Murder and turf! D'ye hear? What's yer larfin at? Are 'e moon-struck? Oh—h—!" he shrieked out at the top of his voice, still going through most unheard-of gymnastic exercises, and vainly trying to raise his head to the level of his heels.
To make the matter worse, a young gentleman passing at the time inquired of Benny, with a very grave face, "Whether his was a new method of learning to swim on dry land? If so, he thought he had got the action nearly perfect, the only thing required was to keep his head just a trifle higher."
By this time, however, Joe had come to his relief, and easily lifted him down without further mishap.
The young gentleman tried to poke some more fun at Benny, but he would not reply, and soon after set off with Joe and Nelly to get some dinner. After dinner they took a ramble across the fields, in the direction of Raby Mere. Benny's adventure had rather sobered him, so he did not object to assist his sister in gathering wild flowers, while Joe artistically arranged them into what seemed to the children to be a magnificent bouquet.
Fleet-footed indeed were the hours of that long summer's afternoon. Benny wished a thousand times that the day could last for ever; and Nelly, though she was getting tired, watched with a look of pain in her eyes the sun getting farther and farther down in the western sky.
As they were returning across the fields Benny was strongly tempted to leap a ditch that he had noticed at the beginning of their ramble—so strongly tempted indeed that he could not resist it. So off he set at a swinging trot as soon as they got into the field. Joe guessed what he was after, and called him back; but it was of no use, he either did not hear or would not heed, for he went faster and faster as he neared the ditch. Joe saw him fling up his hands, take a flying leap, and then disappear. After waiting a few moments, and he did not appear on the opposite bank, Joe and Nelly hurried after him. On reaching the ditch they found that he was stuck fast in the mud about two feet from the opposite side, and that the more he tried to get out the deeper he sank.
"Oh, quick, Joe!" he shouted, "or I'll be out o' sight in another minit."
"Sarve you right!" said Joe, laughing; "you had no business to get in there."
"I can't stay to argify," retorted Benny; "don't yer see there's scarce anything of me left?"
"Ay, I see plain enough," said Joe, going to the other side, and pulling him out, though not without an effort. "I wonder what mischief you'll be into next?"
"Dunno," said Benny, regarding his legs with a look of dismay. Then, after a long pause, "1 say, Joe, how's I to get this mud off?"
"Scrape off what yer can," said Joe, "and let the rest dry, and it'll rub off as clean as a new pin."
Benny was rather ashamed of his appearance, however, when he got into the wood again, and found himself in the midst of two or three hundred Sunday-school children and their teachers, all nicely dressed, who had come out for a picnic. But when he saw them each with a small bun loaf and a cup of milk, he could not help drawing near, notwithstanding the rather disgraceful state of his legs. Nelly was also anxious to have a nearer view of all those happy-looking children.
Fortunately for Benny, the superintendent of the school was the gentleman that had invited him into the chapel months before. Benny felt sure he knew them again, but whether he did or not, he invited all three to sit down with the rest, and gave them each a bun and a cup of milk. Joe was as delighted as the children with the kindness shown, and was soon quite at his ease.
After lunch the children ran races for prizes, and Benny was invited to compete with the rest. This suited him exactly, and very soon after, with about a dozen others, he was bounding up a broad avenue between the trees, in a well-matched and most exciting race.
and amid loud hurrahs came first into the goal.
For the first half of the distance Benny dropped into the rear, then he began gradually to gain upon the others. Now was his time, so putting on a spurt, for which he had saved his breath, he went bounding ahead of all the others, and amid loud hurrahs came first into the goal.
Benny never felt so proud in his life before as when that first prize—a brand new sixpence—was put into his hand. His success, however, disqualified him from competing again, so he had to content himself with watching the others run.
But the most delightful circumstance of all to Nelly was when all the children stood up in a large circle, and sang in their pure young voices the following hymn:—
"Land ahead! Its fruits are waving
0'er the fields of fadeless green ;
And the living waters laving
Shores where heavenly forms are seen.
"There let go the anchor. Biding,
On this calm and silvery bay,
Seaward fast the tide is gliding,
Shores in sunlight stretch away.
"Now we're safe from all temptation,
All the storms of life are past ;
Praise the Rock of our salvation.
We are safely home at last."
Nelly never forgot that little hymn to her dying day; and when that evening they glided down the placid river towards home, she repeated to herself over and over again—
"Seaward fast the tide is gliding.
Shores in sunlight stretch away."
And when in her little comer she lay down to sleep, it was only to dream of the sunlit shores on the banks of the far Jordan river.
Heaven seemed nearer and dearer to her ever after that day, and she sometimes almost longed for the sunny slopes of that far-off country where there should be no more weariness nor pain.