Harding’s Luck

Dickie lived at New Cross. At least the address was New Cross, but really the house where he lived was one of a row of horrid little houses built on the slope where once green fields ran down the hill to the river, and the old houses of the Deptford merchants stood stately in their pleasant gardens and fruitful orchards. All those good fields and happy gardens are built over now. It is as though some wicked giant had taken a big brush full of yellow ochre paint, and another full of mud color, and had painted out the green in streaks of dull yellow and filthy brown; and the brown is the roads and the yellow is the houses. Miles and miles and miles of them, and not a green thing to be seen except the cabbages in the greengrocers’ shops, and here and there some poor trails of creeping-jenny drooping from a dirty windowsill. There is a little yard at the back of each house; this is called “the garden,” and some of these show green⁠—but they only show it to the houses’ back windows. You cannot see it from the street. These gardens are green, because green is the color that most pleases and soothes men’s eyes; and however you may shut people up between bars of yellow and mud color, and however hard you may make them work, and however little wage you may pay them for working, there will always be found among those people some men who are willing to work a little longer, and for no wages at all, so that they may have green things growing near them.

The two crossed triangles of white seeds, in the midst Tinkler and the white seal, lay on the floor of the little empty house, grew dim and faint before Dickie’s eyes, and his eyes suddenly smarted and felt tired so that he was very glad to shut them. He had an absurd fancy that he could see, through his closed eyelids, something moving in the middle of the star that the two triangles made. But he knew that this must be nonsense, because, of course, you cannot see through your eyelids. His eyelids felt so heavy that he could not take the trouble to lift them even when a voice spoke quite near him. He had no doubt but that it was the policeman come to “take him up” for being in a house that was not his.

“Let him,” said Dickie to himself. He was too sleepy to be afraid.

But for a policeman, who is usually of quite a large pattern, the voice was unusually soft and small. It said briskly⁠—

“Now, then, where do you want to go to?”

“I ain’t particular,” said Dickie, who supposed himself to be listening to an offer of a choice of police-stations.

There were whispers⁠—two small and soft voices. They made a sleepy music.

“He’s more yours than mine,” said one.

“You’re more his than I am,” said the other.

“You’re older than I am,” said the first.

“You’re stronger than I am,” said the second.

And then came the day when the nurse, having dressed him, bade him walk to the window, instead of being carried, as, so far, he had been.

“Where⁠ ⁠…” he asked, hesitatingly, “where’s my⁠ ⁠… ? Where have you put the crutch?”

Then the old nurse laughed.

“Crutch?” she said. “Come out of thy dreams. Thou silly boy! Thou wants no crutch with two fine, straight, strong legs like thou’s got. Come, use them and walk.”

Dickie looked down at his feet. In the old New Cross days he had not liked to look at his feet. He had not looked at them in these new days. Now he looked. Hesitated.

“Come,” said the nurse encouragingly.

He slid from the high bed. One might as well try. Nurse seemed to think⁠ ⁠… He touched the ground with both feet, felt the floor firm and even under them⁠—as firm and even under the one foot as under the other. He stood up straight, moved the foot that he had been used to move⁠—then the other, the one that he had never moved. He took two steps, three, four⁠—and then he turned suddenly and flung himself against the side of the bed and hid his face in his arms.

“What, weeping, my lamb?” the nurse said, and came to him.

“Oh, Nurse,” he cried, clinging to her with all his might. “I dreamed that I was lame! And I thought it was true. And it isn’t!⁠—it isn’t!⁠—it isn’t!”

And just as he was thinking this a twig cracked sharply in the hedge. Then a dozen twigs rustled and broke, and something like a great black bird seemed to fly out at him and fold him in its wings.

It was not a bird⁠—he knew that the next moment⁠—but a big, dark cloak, that someone had thrown over his head and shoulders, and through it strong hands were holding him.

“Hold yer noise!” said a voice; “if you so much as squeak it’ll be the worse for you.”

“Help!” shouted Dickie instantly.

He was thrown on to the ground. Hands fumbled, his face was cleared of the cloak, and a handkerchief with a round pebble in it was stuffed into his mouth so that he could not speak. Then he was dragged behind a hedge and held there, while two voices whispered above him. The cloak was over his head again now, and he could see nothing, but he could hear. He heard one of the voices say, “Hush! they’re coming.” And then he heard the sound of hoofs and wheels, and Lord Arden’s jolly voice saying, “He must have walked on; we shall catch him up all right.” Then the sound of wheels and hoofs died away, and hard hands pulled him to his feet and thrust the crutch under his arm.

“Step out!” said one of the voices, “and step out sharp⁠—see?⁠—or I’ll l’arn you! There’s a carriage awaiting for you.”

He stepped out; there was nothing else to be done. They had taken the cloak from his eyes now, and he saw presently that they were nearing a coster’s barrow.