“Innkeeper?” hazarded John.
“Ay.”
“Does your dad keep a horse?”
The wary look came back into Ben’s face. “No.” He eyed John sideways. “That horse-cloth ain’t me dad’s. It—it belongs to a friend. He comes here sometimes. Maybe he wouldn’t like you using of it, so—so you don’t want to go saying anything about it, please, sir! Nor about him, acos he don’t like meeting no strangers!”
“Shy, is he? I won’t say anything,” promised John, wondering if this were perhaps the man of whom Ben was afraid. He was by this time convinced that some mystery hung about the toll-house, with which, no doubt, the disappearance of its custodian was connected; but he was wise enough to keep this reflection to himself, since it was plain that Ben, in the manner of a colt, was uncertain of him, ready to shy off in a panic.
When Beau had been covered with the blanket, and left to lip over an armful of hay, Ben led the Captain up the garden to the back of the toll-house, where a central door opened into a small kitchen. The house, as John quickly saw, was of the usual pattern. It consisted of two tolerable rooms with another between them, which had been divided into two by a wooden partition. The rear half was the kitchen, and the front the toll-office. The kitchen was small, over-warm, and extremely untidy. Since it was lit by a couple of dip-candles in tin holders, an unpleasant aroma of hot tallow hung about it. But the Captain knew from past experiences in the more primitive parts of Portugal that the human nose could rapidly accustom itself to even worse smells, and he entered the room without misgiving. Ben shut and bolted the door, set down the lantern, and produced from the cupboard a black bottle, and a thick tumbler. “I’ll mix you a bumper,” he offered.
The Captain, who had seated himself in the Windsor chair by the fire, grinned, but said: “Much obliged to you, but I think I’ll mix it myself. If you want to make yourself useful, see if you can pull off these boots of mine!”
This operation, which took time, and all Ben’s strength, did much to break the ice. It seemed to Ben exquisitely humorous that he should tumble nearly heels over head, clasping a muddied topboot to his chest. He began to giggle, forgetting his awe, and looked all at once much younger than John had at first supposed him to be. He disclosed, upon enquiry, that he was going on for eleven.
Having found a pair of pumps in his saddle-bag, John mixed himself a glass of hot rum and water, and sat down again with his legs stretched out before him, and his boots standing beside the hearth to dry. “That’s better,” he said, leaning his fair head against the high-back of the chair, and smiling sleepily across at his host. “Tell me, are we likely to be called out very often to open that gate?”
Ben shook his head. “No one don’t come this way after dark much,” he said. “ ’Sides, it’s raining fit to bust itself.”
“Good!” said John. “Where am I going to sleep?”
“You could have me dad’s bed,” suggested Ben doubtfully.
“Thank you, I will. Where do you think your dad may have gone to?”
“I dunno,” said Ben simply.
“Does he often go away like this?”
“No. He never done it afore—not like this. And he ain’t gone on the mop, because he ain’t no fuddlecap, not me dad. And if he don’t come back, they’ll put me on the Parish.”
“I expect he’ll come back,” said John soothingly. “Have you got any other relations? Brothers? Uncles?”
“I got a brother. Leastways, unless he’s been drownded, I have. He was pressed. I shouldn’t wonder if I was never to see him no more.”
“Lord, yes, of course you will!”
“Well, I don’t want to,” said Ben frankly. “He’s a proper jobbernoll, that’s what he is. Else they wouldn’t never have snabbled him. Me dad says so.”
If Ben possessed other relatives, he did not know of them. His mother seemed to have died some years before; and it soon became apparent that he clung to his father less from affection than from a lively dread of being thrown on the Parish. He was convinced that if this should befall him he would be sent to work at one of the foundries in Sheffield. He lived near enough to Sheffield to know what miseries were endured by the swarms of stunted children who were employed from the age of seven in the big manufacturing towns; and it was not surprising that this fate should seem so terrible to him. There was only one worse fate known to him, and this, before long, he was to confide to John.
While he talked, and John sat sipping his rum, the wind had risen a little, bringing with it other sounds than the steady dripping of the rain. The wicket-gate for the use of travellers on foot creaked and banged gently once or twice, and when this happened Ben’s face seemed to sharpen, and he broke off what he was saying to listen intently. John noticed that his eyes wandered continually towards the backdoor, and that the noises coming from the rear of the house seemed to worry him more than the creak of the gate. A gust of wind blew something over with a clatter. It sounded to John as though a broom, or a rake, had fallen, but it brought Ben to his feet in a flash, and drove him instinctively to John’s side.
“What is it?” John said quietly.
“Him!” breathed Ben, his gaze riveted to the door.
John got up, and trod over to the door, ignoring a whimper of protest. He shot back the bolts, and opened it, stepping out into the garden. “There’s no one here,” he said, over his shoulder. “You left a broom propped against the wall, and the wind blew it over, that’s all. Come and see for yourself!” He waited for a moment, and then repeated, on a note of authority: “Come!”
Ben approached reluctantly.
“Weather’s fairing up,” remarked John, leaning his shoulders against the door-frame, and looking up at the sky. “Getting lighter. We shall have a fine day tomorrow. Well? Can you see anyone?”
“N-no,” Ben acknowledged, with a little shiver. He looked up at John, and added hopefully: “He couldn’t get me, could he? Not with a big cove like you here.”
“Of course not. No one could get you,” John replied, shutting the door again, and going back to the fire. “You may bolt it if you choose, but there’s no need.”
“Yes, ’cos he might come to see me dad, and I mustn’t see him, nor him me,” explained Ben.
“Lord, is he as shy as all that? What’s the matter with him? Is he so ugly?”
“I dunno. I never seen him. Only his shadder—onct!”
“But you’ve rubbed his horse down for him, haven’t you?”
“No!” Ben said, staring.
“Wasn’t that his blanket that you brought me for Beau?”
“No.’ That’s Mr. Chirk’s!” said Ben. “He’s a—” He stopped, gave a gasp, and added quickly: “He’s as good as ever twanged, he is! You don’t want to go telling nobody about him! Please, sir—”
“Oh, I won’t breathe a word about him! Are all your friends so shy?”
“He ain’t shy. He just don’t like strangers.”
“I see. And does this other man—the one you’re afraid of—dislike strangers too?”
“I dunno. He can’t abide boys. Me dad says if he was to catch me looking at him he’d have me took off to work in the pits.” His voice sank on the word, and he gave so convulsive a shudder that it was easy to see that coal-pits were to him a worse horror than foundries.
John laughed. “That’s a fine Banbury story! Your dad’s been hoaxing you, my son!”
Ben looked incredulous. “He could have me took off. He’d put a sack over me head, and—”
“Oh, would he? And what do you suppose I should do if anyone walked in and tried to put a sack over your head?”
“What?” asked Ben, round-eyed.
“Put a sack over his head, of course, and hand him to the nearest constable.”
“You would!” Ben drew an audible breath.
“Certainly I would. Does he come here often?”
“N-no. Leastways, I dunno. After it’s dark, he comes. I dunno how many times. Onct, there was two on ’em. I woke up, and heard them, talking to me dad.”
“What were they talking about?”
Ben shook his head. “I didn’t hear nothing but just voices. I got right under me blanket, ’cos I knew it was Kirn.”