Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Orphans -- Juvenile fiction
Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "PAT RUSHED TO DICK'S FEET."]
DICK LIONHEART
BY
MARY ROWLES JARVIS.
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON
S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO., LTD.
OLD BAILEY.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. SOMETHING TO LOVE
II. FIGHTING FIRE
III. A DASH FOR FREEDOM
IV. IN A CARRIER'S WAGGON
V. PAT LOST AND FOUND
VI. A HOME IN IRONBORO'
VII. PADDY'S RESOLVE
VIII. LIONHEART'S BRAVE STAND
IX. STOPPING A BURGLARY
X. SUCCESS AT LAST
ILLUSTRATIONS
"PAT RUSHED TO DICK'S FEET." . . . _Frontispiece_
"WITHOUT A THOUGHT OF DANGER, LIONHEART DASHED TOWARDS THE HORSE'S
HEAD."
"'TAKE THAT FOR INTERFERING!'"
"'I TELL YOU THERE'S NO DANGER AT ALL!'"
DICK LIONHEART.
CHAPTER I.
SOMETHING TO LOVE.
"There, take that, and be off with you! And no dawdling, mind. It's
ten minutes late, and you'll have to step it to be there by one.
That's _your_ dinner, and more than you deserve."
Dick Crosby took the one thick slice she offered, slipped the handle of
the tin of tea on his arm, and with the big basin, tied up in a blue
handkerchief, in his other hand, marched off in the direction of the
tin works, while slatternly Mrs. Fowley went back into her cottage.
"Only bread and dripping again," he muttered, "while they've all got
cooked dinner. How good it smells! She might have given me at least
some taters and gravy. And I'm so thirsty. Perhaps if he is in a good
mood I shall get a drink of tea. I s'pose nobody would know if I
helped myself in Fell Lane, but I can't be Lionheart and do mean
things, teacher said. Only if ever I grow up and have a little chap in
my house what's only a 'cumbrance, he shall have the same dinner as all
the rest!"
Taking frugal bites at the bread and dripping, to make it last as long
as possible, Dick hurried on to the Works, whose tall chimney sent out
clouds of black smoke.
The hooter sounded for the dinner hour as he reached the last turning,
and a crowd of men and boys passed him, and one of the boys called out,
"Hulloa, Slavey! How much a day for scrubbing floors and minding
babbies?"
Dick's face flushed hotly, and the small hard hand that held the dinner
trembled with a passionate desire to fight the tormentors, among whom
Tim Fowley, his cousin, laughed loudest.
But his uncle was standing at the gate, and he had to hurry up with the
dinner.
His reward for good speed was a surly word from the man and a box on
the ear, that made his head reel.
"Take that for dawdling, and be off with you!"
"Oi don't think he deserved that, mate," said the cheery voice of Paddy
the fireman, as he passed down the yard. "Shure, ye can see by the
sweat of his brow he's been hurrying."
The man turned sulkily away, and Paddy whispered, "Come along of me,
Dick, I've got somethin' to show you--somethin' you'll like almost as
much as engines."
Dick followed eagerly, feeling that he had honestly earned ten minutes
of dinner hour for his own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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