Читать книгу For John's Sake, and Other Stories - Annie Frances Perram - Страница 8

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UTH, I'm going to spend the evening at home; my brother Dick's just returned from Australia, and mother's sent up for me to see him. You'll come with me, of course," said John, a few evenings after.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I can't even ask to be spared. It's Jane's evening out, and we've got company, and there's hot supper ordered."

"What a nuisance! Ask Jane to give up for once; you're always obliging her."

"No, I can't do that, John, for cook is not best pleased, and Jane doesn't go the way to manage her."

"I'll go and give cook the length of my tongue, I declare," said John, angrily.

"Now you'll do nothing of the sort. You'll go and spend the evening with your brother, and give him my kind regards, and be sure and bring me back all the news." So saying, Ruth gave John a bright decided nod, and whisked back into the kitchen.

"What do you think of that, cook? the unreasonableness of men!"

"What's up now?" asked cook, who was bending with a gloomy face over preparations for an elaborate supper.

"Why, John wanted me to go home with him to-night, and didn't see why I couldn't, though I told him how busy we should be."

"It's quite enough to have one of you gadding out and filling my hands with your work," growled cook.

"Yes, it's too bad, but we'll manage well enough without Jane; let me help you mix that, now," and Ruth took the basin, and with deft fingers, which cook secretly admired, beat the compound it contained till it was pronounced "just the thing."

Notwithstanding her brightness and ready surrender of an evening's pleasure, Ruth watched John go off with a keen feeling of disappointment, and for some minutes there was silence in the room.

"She's worth a dozen Janes," said cook to herself, for she was not so wholly engrossed with her own pursuits as to be quite unobservant of Ruth's disappointment.

"I don't know how it is," thought Ruth, as the busy evening wore away; "cook and I do get on well together; she's quite pleasant to-night, and wasn't cross, though I took the wrong sauce in just now."

Ah, Ruth, if there were more sunny tempers and unclouded faces like yours in the world, there would oftener come to clouded minds and gloomy moods just such brightness as you have brought to your fellow-servant to-night!

John's brother Dick was several years older than John. Some ten years previously he had taken to a seafaring life, but soon tiring of it, he had settled in Australia. We say settled, but Dick Greenwood was one of those men who could never be truly said to settle to anything. He had tried farming, but the work was too hard; then he had joined a party going into the bush, their free and easy life having an attraction for him. After that, he went into a city store, and just as he had mastered the details of the business and might have succeeded in it, he was charmed by the performances of a band of travelling actors, and not being without natural ability in that direction, he had induced them to accept his services, and now, with little money, and a great deal of shady experience, he had worked his passage back to England, that he might just see how things were looking in the old country.

"Well, Jack, my boy, how are you?" he said in a loud, hoarse voice, as John entered the room, which was redolent of tobacco and brandy.

"All right, Dick; glad to see you, though I shouldn't have known you again. My word, you're a little different to the thin lath of a fellow you were when you left home."

"You may say so," cried Dick; "I was a poor milksop then, and no mistake; but I've improved, and, you bet, I've learned a thing or two."

John was not quite so sure of the improvement. At least the stripling who had left his father's home was fresh and pure looking, but the man who had returned in his place was bloated and pimpled, and his once frank eyes now wandered furtively about.

"John's grown a fine fellow, hasn't he, Dick?" asked the mother, proudly.

"He ain't bad-looking, if that's what you mean, but he don't look up to snuff. No offence, Jack. I'll teach you a few wrinkles. Have a pipe, boy."

"Thanks," said John, replenishing his own.

"Take a glass," and Dick made a bumper of hot spirit and pushed it towards his brother.

"I don't take spirit, Dick. A glass of ale now and then is enough for me."

"Stuff and nonsense, Jack. Take it like a man. There's nothing like a glass of brandy and water for putting life into a fellow."

John took the glass, with a twinge of conscience as he thought of Ruth. But in the excitement of his brother's stirring accounts of bush life everything else was forgotten, and he not only drained the spirit before him, but finished a second glass with which Dick slyly supplied him.

"I tell you, Jack," said his brother, at the close of the evening, "life in England is a slow-going, humbugging sort of thing; hard work and little pay; you've got to bow and scrape to those who've got the brass, and they lord it over you as they don't dare to do anywhere else. Now, where I've come from, Jack's as good as his master, and in as fair a way of making his fortune too. Take my advice, boy, and come back with me. In a year or two you'll have made a home for that bonny lass I've been hearing of, and you can send for her. What do you say, eh?"

For a minute John was too surprised to speak. "Really, Dick, you've taken me unawares. I'd like to get on faster than I have been doing, and make a better home for my little woman than I've any prospect of doing here; but for all that, what you propose is too serious a step to think of taking without a deal of thought, and I don't know what Ruth would say."

"If the girl's got any grit in her, she'll say, 'go, by all means, and send for me as quick as you can.' You can work your passage out, and I could get you into a store at Melbourne, and you're such a sticker, you'd be sure to get on. Now I never expect to be a rich man; I can't plod, and I must have change; but you're different, and would soon make your fortune."

John bade his parents and brother good-night, and walked home revolving the new idea. It was surrounded by a halo of romance that rendered it increasingly attractive to him. Success and happiness seemed to lay within his easy reach, and by the time that he arrived at his master's house he had quite decided to accompany his brother back to Australia, if Ruth would only consent to follow him.

"And she's such a loving, sensible little thing; she wouldn't wish to stand in my way for a moment, especially when she knows it is for her own sake I want to go."

So thinking, John let himself in through the garden door, and was not surprised to find a dark figure, with white cap and apron, standing on the kitchen doorstep waiting for him.

"You are late, John; cook and Jane have gone to bed."

"Well, Ruthie, I'm glad of that, because if you're not too tired, I want a chat with you."

Too tired, indeed! When all the evening Ruth had been looking forward to that few minutes as her ample compensation for the disappointments and worries she had borne so patiently.