Mr. Matthew Shandler had sold everything in the house, and the house
itself was to let. There had been no mercy about the man, nor any
suggestion of mercy; these people were nothing to him, and they must be
got rid of. So that there came a day when the few possessions of
Patience were packed ready to be taken away, and when an old battered
tin trunk--such a small pitiful little tin trunk!--that had come with
Moira years before, when Old Paul had first brought her to the house,
was fished out of a garret and stuffed with what clothes the girl
possessed; some parcels held the rest. Patience--brave, strong old
woman--was going out into the world to-morrow, and Moira was going with
her. Mr. Baffall had done pulling his beard over them; he realised that
the woman and the child must be left alone. Anthony Ditchburn had sent
off a box of books to some unknown destination, and then had followed
too--going away as mysteriously as, years before, he had come.
On the morrow Jimmy was to start; he was going quite early in the
morning, consigned to a lodging and to his new business by the Baffalls.
They had been very good to the boy, and he was starting fairly well;
more than that, he was filled with awe and wonder and delight at the
prospect of entering that wonderful place--that London to which Old Paul
had gone now and again to fetch treasure. He had said "good-bye" easily
enough to Alice; Alice who, in the future, was to live comfortably, and
who had not paid her calls upon the Baffalls for nothing. And now it had
come to the point when he must say "good-bye" to Moira.
His small luggage had been sent on to the station, and he was to walk.
He came with Moira out of the dismantled house, and through the old
garden; she would walk to the top of the hill with him, she said, and
see him on his way. She choked down the heart that was rising in her as
she went with him; she touched his hand casually as they walked side by
side; and he let it linger there, so that they went hand in hand. It was
a miserable morning--fitted appropriately enough to the occasion--and a
drizzle of rain was all about them as they went, and made a mist over
the familiar road and the fields.
They got to the top of the hill, and Jimmy turned his bright eyes upon
her. "I shall see you again--soon and often," he said. "Who knows?--you
may be coming to London, too. That'll be splendid--won't it?"
"Yes," she responded soberly. "We're bound to meet again, Jimmy--because
London isn't so far off, after all, and we ought to be able to find each
other easily. They say it's a big place; but we can easily meet. When I
come to London I'll look for you."
"Good-bye!" he said, a little huskily. "You're not crying?"
"Only a little," she whispered; and with a boyish gesture he put his arm
about her neck, and kissed her.
"I'm going to do big things in London," he said. "And then I'll do big
things for you. Good-bye!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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