“No, sir.”
“How dare you come wasting my time like this, you insolent young scoundrel! Be off! Get out with you! I never knew such insolence in my life.”
I shrank away, trembling, and began to retreat down the avenue, this time with the men’s faces towards me, ready to gaze in my red and guilty countenance, for I felt as if I had been guilty of some insult to the majesty of the printing-office. To my great relief, though, the men were too busy to notice me; but I heard one say to another, “Old Brimstone’s hot this morning.” Then I passed on, and saw the dark man looking at me silently from beneath his overhanging brows; and the next moment, heartsick and choking with the effects of this rebuff, the swing-door was thrown open by the fat-headed boy coming in, and as I passed out, unaccustomed to its spring, the boy contrived that it would strike me full in the back, just as if the overseer had given me a rude push to drive me away.
I descended the stairs with the spirit for the moment crushed out of me; and with my eyes dim with disappointment, I was passing along the passage, when, as I came to the open door of the carpeted room, a man’s voice exclaimed—
“No, no, Miss Carr, you really shall not. We’ll send it on by one of the boys.”
“Oh, nonsense, Mr. Lister; I can carry it.”
“Yes, yes; of course you can, but I shall not let you. Here, boy, come here.”
I entered the room nervously, to find myself in presence of a handsome, well-dressed man, another who was stout and elderly, and two young ladies, while upon the table lay a parcel of books, probably the subject of the remark.
“Hallo! what boy are you?” said the younger man. “Oh! one of the new ones, I suppose.”
“No, sir,” I said, with voice trembling and my face working, for I was unnerved by the treatment I had just received and the dashing of my hopes; “I came to be engaged, but—but the gentleman upstairs turned me away.”
“Why?” said the elder man sharply.
“Because I had not been in the printing-office, sir.”
“Oh, of course!” he said, nodding. “Of course. We want lads accustomed to the trade, my man.”
“You should teach him the trade, Mr. Ruddle,” said one of the young ladies quickly, and I darted a look of gratitude at her.
“Too busy, Miss Carr,” he said, smiling at her. “We don’t keep a printer’s school.”
“I’ll teach him,” whispered the young man eagerly, though I heard him; “I’ll teach him anything, if you’ll promise not to be so cruel.”
“What a bargain!” she replied, laughing; and she turned away.
“I don’t think we need keep you, my lad,” said the young man bitterly.
“Indeed!” said the other young lady; “why, I thought he was to carry our parcel of books?”
“But he is a strange boy, my dear young ladies,” said the elder man; “I’ll ring for one from the office.”
“No; don’t, pray!” said the lady addressed as Miss Carr quickly. “I don’t think we will carry the parcel. You will carry it for us, will you not?”
“Oh, yes, indeed I will!” I cried eagerly; and I stepped forward, for there was something very winning in the speakers voice.
“Stop a moment, my man,” said the elder gentleman rather sternly, while the younger stood biting his lips; “where do your father and mother live?”
Those words made something rise in my throat, and I looked wildly at him, but could not speak.
He did not see my face, for he had taken up a pen and drawn a memorandum slip towards him.
“Well; why don’t you speak?” he said sharply, and as he raised his eyes I tried, but could not get out a word, only pointed mutely to the shabby band of crape upon my cap.
“Ah!”
There was a deep sigh close by me, and I saw that the young lady addressed as Miss Carr was deadly pale, and for the first time I noticed that she was in deep mourning.
“My dear Miss Carr!” whispered the young man earnestly.
“Don’t speak to me for a minute,” she said in the same tone; and then I saw her face working and lip quivering as she gazed wistfully at me.
“Poor lad!” said the elder man abruptly. Then, “Your friends, my boy, your relatives?”
“I have none, sir,” I said huskily, “only an uncle, and I don’t know for certain where he lives.”
“But you don’t mean that you are alone in the world?” said the young man quickly, and he glanced at the lady as he spoke.
“Yes, sir,” I said quietly, for I had now recovered myself, “I am quite alone, and I want to get a situation to earn my living.”
The elder gentleman turned upon me and seemed to look me through and through.
“Now, look here, young fellow,” he said, “you are either a very unfortunate boy or a designing young impostor.”
“Mr. Ruddle!” exclaimed Miss Carr indignantly; and I saw the young man’s eyes glitter as he gazed at her sweet, sad face, twenty times more attractive now than when she was speaking lightly a minute before.
“I don’t want to be harsh, my dear, but here we are obliged to be firm and business-like. Now, boy, answer me; have you been to a good school?”
“No, sir,” I said, speaking sharply now, for his use of the word “impostor” stung me; “I was educated at home.”
“Humph! where do you come from?”
“Rowford, sir.”
“Town on a tall hill?”
“No, sir,” I said in surprise; “Rowford is quite in a hole; but we lived four miles from Rowford, sir, on the Cawleigh road.”
“Then you know Leydon Wood.”
“Oh yes, sir! that’s where papa used to take me to collect specimens.”
“Humph! Don’t say papa, my boy. Boys who go into the world to get their living don’t speak of their papas. John Lister!”
“Wait a minute, Ruddle,” said the younger man, whose back was towards us; and I saw that he was leaning over Miss Carr and holding her hand. “If you wish it,” he whispered softly, “it shall be done.”
“I do wish it,” she said with an earnest look in her large eyes as she gazed kindly at me; and the young man turned round, flushed and excited.
I was shrinking away towards the door, pained
