Lettice

“There is nothing from Ingram,” he remarked to his wife. “I had hoped for a letter. I am so sorry for him, just at Christmas time again the old disappointment. But what is Daisy saying?” The young girl repeated what she had told her mother, and Ralph just then appearing with a substantial cup and saucer, Mrs Winthrop poured out the tea, and Daisy, carrying it, went off with her father to the kitchen door.

“A gentleman, you say, Daisy?” he repeated.

“Yes, papa, and quite young. Cook says she is sure he is a gentleman.”

“And begging?” added her father.

“Oh no – at least, I don’t think so. He just knocked at the door and asked if he might warm himself at the fire. And she said he looks so ill. I did not quite see him. I just peeped in.”

“Well, wait a moment, I’ll speak to him first,” said her father; for by this time they had traversed the long passage which led to the kitchen and offices – the Rectory at Thorncroft was a large roomy old house, and the Winthrops were rich – and so saying the clergyman went in to have a look at the stranger.

Almost immediately, Daisy, waiting at the door, heard herself called.

“Quick, my child – the hot tea. He is nearly fainting, poor fellow!”

And Daisy, hurrying in, saw her father half lifting on to a chair a tall thin figure with white face and closed eyes; while cook stood by looking very frightened, and perhaps not altogether pleased at this desecration of her spotless kitchen. For the snow, melted by the heat, was running off the stranger in little rivulets.

He was only half-fainting, however. They made him swallow the tea, and sent for another cup, into which Mrs Winthrop put a spoonful of brandy. Then the young man sat up and looked about him confusedly. Recognising that he was among strangers, he thanked them earnestly for their kindness, and struggling to his feet said that he must be going on.

“Going on, my good fellow!” said Mr Winthrop. “You are not fit for it. You must stay here an hour or two at least, and get dried and have something to eat. Have you far to go to-day?”

The young man coloured.

“I wanted to get to Clough,” he said. “It is ten days since I started. I got on well enough, though it has been horribly cold,” and he shivered as he thought of it, “till last night.”

“Were you out in the snow?” asked the rector compassionately.

“Not all night. Oh no; I sheltered in a barn till early this morning. Then it looked as if it were clearing, and I set off again. I was anxious to get on as far as I could before it came on again; but I lost my way, I think; there was moonlight at first, but since daylight I have been wandering about, not able to find the road. Am I far from the high-road to Clough?”

“Not very; you must have taken the wrong turn a couple of miles off. We are accustomed to – people,” – “tramps,” he was going to have said, but he changed the word in time – “making that mistake. Now you had better take off your wet things and get them dried, and have something to eat; and, if you must go on, we will set you on your way. And,” – here the good rector hesitated – “you seem very young,” he went on; “if I can give you any counsel, remember, it is my business to do so.”

The young fellow coloured up again painfully. “You are very kind, sir,” he said.

“Think it over. I will see you again. Peters,” he called, and a man-servant, brimful of curiosity appeared, “this,” – again an instant’s almost imperceptible hesitation – “this young gentleman has lost his way. Take him to Master Tom’s old room and help him to change his things. We must find you a change while they are drying,” he went on. But the young fellow held up a small bag he had been carrying. “I have other things, thank you,” he said. “But I should be most thankful to have these dried.”

Mr Winthrop rejoined Daisy and her mother.

“He is a gentleman, is he not, papa?” said the former eagerly.

“He strikes me as more of a schoolboy than anything else. I hope he has not run away in any sort of disgrace. Still, whatever it is, one must be kind to him, poor boy. He is evidently not accustomed to roughing it, and as far as one could see through the plight he was in, he seemed well dressed. I hope he will tell me something about himself.”

The worst of the weather-prophets’ predictions were realised. Before noon the snow came down again, this time in most sober earnest, and long before dark Mr Winthrop, becoming convinced that they “were in for it,” began to take some necessary precautions. It was out of the question for the young stranger to pursue his foot-journey. His kind host insisted on his remaining where he was for the night, though somewhat embarrassed as to how to treat him.

“I cannot bring a complete stranger in among our own children,” he said to his wife, “and yet it seems impossible to tell him to sit with the servants.”

But the difficulty was solved by the young man’s unfitness to leave his room. He had caught a chill, and was, besides, suffering from exhaustion, both nervous and physical.

“Seems to me to have had a shock of some kind, and evidently very little food for some days past,” said the doctor whom Mr Winthrop was obliged to send for the next morning. “It may go on to rheumatic fever, or he may – being young and healthy enough – fight it off. But any way, you’ve got him on your hands for two or three days, unless you like to get a vehicle of some kind and send him to the hospital at Clough,” said the doctor, pitying the inconvenience to Mrs Winthrop.

“It would be a great risk, would it not?” said the rector.

“Yes, certainly it would be a risk. Still you are not obliged to give house-room to every benighted wanderer,” said the doctor, smiling.

But Mr Winthrop felt certain this was no common case, and his kindness was rewarded. Thanks to the care and nursing he received, the dreaded illness was warded off, and by the fourth day the young stranger was well enough to pursue his journey.

“I can never thank you enough for your goodness to me, an utter stranger,” he said to his host, with the tears in his eyes. “And I feel so ashamed, so – ” But here he broke down altogether.

“My poor boy,” said the rector, “can you not give me your confidence? Why are you wandering about the world alone like this? I cannot believe you have done anything wrong – at least, seriously wrong. If you have left your friends hastily for some half-considered reason, it may not be too late to return. Can I do anything to help you? Can I write to your father so as to put things straight again?”

“I have no father and no mother,” said the lad.

“No, I have done nothing wrong; nothing disgraceful, in the usual sense, I mean. But I have done wrong in another way. I have disappointed every hope and effort that had been made for me, and I cannot face the result I cannot tell you all, for if I did, you would probably think it your duty to interfere – it is all so complicated and confused. All I can tell you is that I am going off like Whittington,” he added with a faint smile, “to seek my fortune. And if I find it, it will not be mine. I owe it to others, that is the worst of it.”

“And where do you think of going in the first place?” asked Mr Winthrop.

“To Hexton,” said the young man, naming the town he had been making for, before his misadventure, “and from there to Liverpool. I thought I would try in Liverpool to get something to do, and if I did not succeed, I thought perhaps I would go to America.”

“And how would you get there? Have you money?”

“I have a little that I left behind me in the charge of a friend to send after me with my clothes when I get to Liverpool. I thought it better not to carry it with me; I might have been robbed, or,” – and here he smiled again the same wintry little smile that seemed so pathetic on his thin young face – “tempted to spend it, perhaps.”

“And have you any one to go to at Liverpool – any introductions of any kind?”

“No one – none, whatever,” answered the poor boy sadly.

Mr Winthrop reflected a moment.

“I may be able to be of a little use to you in that way; at least, I might be if I knew even a little more about you. You cannot tell me your name?”

The young man coloured and looked down.

“I cannot,” he said. “I thought it all over, and I determined that my only chance was to tell nothing. No, sir, you cannot help me; but I thank you as much as if you had.”

And thus Mr Winthrop was forced to let him go. At the last moment an idea struck him. He gave the boy a few words of introduction to an old friend of his in Liverpool – a friend, though in a different rank of life – the son of a farmer in the neighbourhood, now holding a respectable position in a business house there, telling him all, or rather the exceedingly little, he knew of the stranger who had been three days his guest, and asking him if under the circumstances he could do anything to help, to do it.

“At the same time,” he said to the young man, “I really do not know that this will be of any service. I cannot ask Mr Simcox to take any responsibility in the matter. You have not even told me your name.”

“I know that,” replied the youth dejectedly, “but I cannot help it. I cannot expect others to take me on trust as generously as you have done.” And so saying he set off on his lonely journey, with kindly words from Daisy and her mother, the two boys accompanying him to the high-road.

The snow still lay on the ground, and Tom’s wish for a prolonged frost seemed likely to be fulfilled.

“We shall have splendid skating in a day or two,” he remarked to “the gentleman tramp,” as he and Ralph had dubbed the stranger. “Our pond isn’t very big, but it’s very good ice generally. You should see the lake at Uncle Ingram’s; that’s the best place, I know, for skating in England.”

The young man started at the name Tom mentioned.

“Where did you say?” he asked.

“At my uncle Ingram’s – Mr Morison’s,” said Tom. “It’s a long way from here.”