A FORTUNATE CHANCE

He was a sensible, practical enough boy in some ways. He thought it all well over that night, and made what preparations he could. He packed up the clothes he thought the most necessary and useful in an old carpet-bag he found in the box-room, and then he looked over his drawers and cupboards to see that all was left in order, and he put together some things to be sent to him in case he found it well to write for them.

Then he looked at his purse. He had, carefully stowed away, thirty shillings in gold, and of his regular pocket-money a two-shilling piece, a shilling, a threepenny bit, and some coppers. It was enough to take him some hours’ distance out of London, where he would be quite as likely to find what he wanted, employment at some farmhouse, as farther away.

He did not sleep much that night. He was so anxious to be off early that he kept waking up every hour or two. At last, after striking a match to see what o’clock it was for perhaps the twentieth time, his watch told him it was past six. He got up and dressed, then he shouldered his bag, and made his way as quickly as he could downstairs. He could not resist lingering a moment outside his mother’s door; it was slightly ajar, and there was a faint light within. Elsa’s voice came to him as he stood there.

“I am so glad you are better this morning, dear mamma,” she was saying. “I hoped you would be when I went to bed, at three o’clock. You were sleeping so peacefully. I am sure you will be quite well again soon, if we can manage to keep you quiet, and if you won’t worry yourself. Everything is quite right.”

Geoff’s face hardened again.

“I know what all that means,” he thought. “Yes, indeed, everything is so right that I, I, have to run away like a thief, because I am too miserable to bear it any more.”

And he lingered no longer.

He made his way out of the house without difficulty. It was getting light after a fashion by this time, though it was quite half an hour earlier than he usually started for school. He felt chilly-chillier than he had ever felt before, though it was not a very cold morning. But going out breakfastless does not tend to make one feel warm, and of this sort of thing Geoff had but scant experience. His bag, too, felt very heavy; he glanced up and down the street with a vague idea that perhaps he would catch sight of some boy who, for a penny or two, would carry it for him to the omnibus; but there was no boy in sight. No one at all, indeed, except a young man, who crossed the street from the opposite side while Geoff was looking about him, and walked on slowly a little in front. He was a very respectable-looking young man, far too much so to ask him to carry the bag, yet as Geoff overtook him-for, heavy though it was, the boy felt he must walk quickly to get off as fast as possible-the young man glanced up with a good-natured smile.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said civilly, “your bag’s a bit heavy for you. Let me take hold of it with you, if we’re going the same way.”

Geoffrey looked at him doubtfully. He was too much of a Londoner to make friends hastily.

“Thank you,” he said. “I can manage it. I’m only going to the corner to wait for the omnibus.”

“Just precisely what I’m going to do myself,” said the other. “I’m quite a stranger hereabouts. I’ve been staying a day or two with a friend of mine who keeps a livery stable, and I’m off for the day to Shalecray, to see another friend. Can you tell me, sir, maybe, if the omnibus that passes near here takes one to the railway station?”

“Which railway station?” said Geoff, more than half inclined to laugh at the stranger’s evident countrifiedness.

“Victoria Station, to be sure. It’s the one I come by. Isn’t it the big station for all parts?”

“Bless you! no,” said Geoff. “There are six or seven as big as it in London. What line is this place on?”

“That’s more nor I can say,” said the stranger, looking as if he would have scratched his head to help him out of his perplexity if he had had a hand free. But he had not, for he had caught up the bag, and was walking along beside Geoff, and under his arm he carried a very substantial alpaca umbrella. And in the interest of the conversation Geoff had scarcely noticed the way in which the stranger had, as it were, attached himself to him.

“Ah, well! never mind. I’m going to Victoria myself, and when we get there I’ll look up your place and find you your train,” said Geoff, patronizingly.

He had kept looking at the stranger, and as he did so, his misgivings disappeared.

“He is just a simple country lad,” he said to himself. And, indeed, the young man’s blue eyes, fresh complexion, and open expression would have reassured any but a most suspicious person.

“You’re very kind, sir,” he replied. “You see, London’s a big place, and country folk feels half stupid-like in it.”

“Yes, of course,” said Geoff. “For my part, I often wonder any one that’s free to do as they like cares to live in London. You’re a great deal better off in the country.”

“There’s bads and goods everywhere, I take it, sir,” said the young man, philosophically.

But by this time they had reached the corner where the omnibus started, and Geoff’s attention was directed to hailing the right one. And an omnibus rattling over London stones is not exactly the place for conversation, so no more passed between them till they were dropped within a stone’s throw of Victoria Station.

Geoff was beginning to feel very hungry, and almost faint as well as chilly.

“I say,” he said to his companion, “you’re not in any very desperate hurry to get off, are you? For I’m frightfully hungry. You don’t mind waiting while I have some breakfast, do you? I’ll look you out your train for that place as soon as I’ve had some.”

“All right, sir,” said the stranger. “If it wouldn’t be making too free, I’d be pleased to join you. But I suppose you’ll be going into the first-class?”

“Oh no,” said Geoff. “I don’t mind the second-class.”

And into the second-class refreshment-room they went. They grew very friendly over hot coffee and a rasher of bacon, and then Geoff laid out threepence on a railway guide, and proceeded to hunt up Shalecray.

“Here you are!” he exclaimed. “And upon my word, that’s a good joke. This place-Shalecray-is on the very line I’m going by. I wonder I never noticed it. I came up that way not long ago, from Entlefield.”

“Indeed, sir; that’s really curious,” said the countryman. “And are you going to Entlefield to-day?”

“Well,” said Geoff, “I fancy so. I’ve not quite made up my mind, to tell the truth. I know the country about there. I want to find some-some farmhouse.”

“Oh, exactly-I understand,” interrupted the young man. “You want somewhere where they’ll put you up tidily for a few days-just for a breath of country air.”

“Well, no; not exactly,” said Geoffrey. “The fact is, I’m looking out for-for some sort of situation about a farm. I’m very fond of country life. I don’t care what I do. I’m not a fine gentleman!”

The countryman looked at him with interest.

“I see,” he said. “You’re tired of town, I take it, sir. But what do your friends say to it, sir? At sixteen, or even seventeen, you have still to ask leave, I suppose?”

“Not always,” said Geoff. “I’ve made no secret of it. I’ve no father, and-I’m pretty much my own master.”

“‘I care for nobody, and nobody cares for me,’ eh?” quoted the young man, laughing.

“Something like it, I suppose,” said Geoff, laughing too, though rather forcedly. For a vision of Vicky, sobbing, perhaps, over her lonely breakfast, would come before him-of Elsa and Frances trying how to break to their mother the news that Geoff had really run away. “They’ll soon get over it,” he said to himself. “They’ve got that old curmudgeon to console them, and I don’t want to live on his money.”

“Do you think I can easily find a place of some kind?” he went on, after a pause.

The countryman this time did scratch his head, while he considered.

“How old may you be, sir? Sixteen or seventeen, maybe?” he inquired.

“I’m not so much; I’m only fourteen,” said Geoff, rather reluctantly.

“Really! now, who’d ‘a’ thought it?” said his new friend, admiringly. “You’ll be just the man for a country life when you’re full-grown. Not afraid of roughing it? Fond of riding, I dare say?”

“Oh yes,” said Geoff. “At least, in town of course I haven’t had as much of it as I’d like.” He had never ridden in his life, except the previous summer, on a peculiarly gentle old pony of Mrs. Colethorne’s.

“No, in course not. Well now, sir, if you’d no objection to stopping at Shalecray with me, it strikes me my friend there, Farmer Eames, might likely enough know of something to suit you. He’s a very decent fellow-a bit rough-spoken, maybe. But you’re used to country ways-you’d not mind that.”

“Oh, not a bit!” said Geoff. “I’m much obliged to you for thinking of it. And you say it’s possible-that this Farmer Eames may perhaps have a place that I should do for?”

“Nay, sir, I can’t say that. It’s just a chance. I only said he’d maybe know of something.”

“Well, I don’t see that it will do any harm to ask him. I’ll only take a ticket to Shalecray, then. I can go on farther later in the day if I don’t find anything to suit me there. We’d better take the first train-a quarter to nine. We’ve still twenty minutes or so to wait.”

“Yes, there’s plenty of time-time for a pipe. You don’t object, sir? But, bless me”-and he felt in his pockets one after the other-“if I haven’t forgotten my ’bacca! With your leave, sir, I’ll run across the street to fetch some. I saw a shop as we came in.”

“Very well,” said Geoff; “I’ll wait here. Don’t be too late.”

He had no particular fancy for going to buy cheap tobacco in the company of the very rustic-looking stranger. Besides, he thought it safer to remain quiet in a dark corner of the waiting-room.

It was curious that, though the countryman came back with a well-filled tobacco-pouch, he had not left the station! He only disappeared for a minute or two into the telegraph office, and the message he there indited was as follows:-

“Got him all safe. Will report further this evening.”

And ten minutes later the two were ensconced in a third-class carriage, with tickets for Shalecray.

Geoff had often travelled second, but rarely third. He did not, truth to tell, particularly like it. Yet he could not have proposed anything else to his companion, unless he had undertaken to pay the difference. And as it was, the breakfast and his own third-class ticket had made a considerable hole in his thirty shillings. He must be careful, for even with all his inexperience he knew it was possible he might have to pay his own way for some little time to come.

“Still, the chances are I shall find what I want very easily,” he reflected. “It is evidently not difficult, by what this fellow tells me.”

It did not even strike him as in any way a very remarkable coincidence that almost on the doorstep of his own home he should have lighted upon the very person he needed to give him the particular information he was in want of. For in many ways, in spite of his boasted independence, poor Geoff was as innocent and unsuspicious as a baby.