Chapter 11

"Hello, Hinglish!" he yelled. "We're a Barnardo boy, we h'is, fer all our swell brass buttons."

Buck winced. How he hated Watkins on the box to hear this everlasting taunt cast at him. But a sweet voice from the steps called:

"You are quite right, my boy. He is a Barnardo boy. I wish we were all as great and good as Dr. Barnardo. I am proud to have one of his boys in my household."

The young urchin shrank away, abashed, for it was Miss Connie's voice. Buck pulled himself together, touched his hat, and opened the carriage door. But the girl paused on the steps, and her voice was very sincere as she said: "I mean it, Buckney" (she always called him "Buckney"). "I am very proud to have you here."

Buck touched his hat. "Thank you, madam," was all he said, but his young heart sang with gratitude. Would he _ever_ get the chance to show her how he valued her kindness, he wondered. And then--the chance came.

Buck was never a heavy sleeper; his boyhood had been too bedless for him to attach much importance to sleep now. Too often had the tip of a policeman's boot stirred him gently, as he lay curled up near an alley-way in London. Too often had rude kicks awakened him, when down in the "slums" he huddled, numb with cold and hunger. His ears had grown acute, his legs nimble in that dreadful, faraway life, and listening while he slept became second nature. Thus he sat bolt upright in his comfortable little bed above the carriage house when a soft creeping footstep stole up the gravel walk from the stables to the kitchen. The night was very warm, and the open window at his elbow was shutterless. In the dark he could see nothing at first, then he made out the figure of a man, crouching low, and creeping around the kitchen porch to the doctor's surgery window. Immediately afterwards a low, gentle, rasping sound fell on his ears. He had seen enough of crime in the old days to know the man was filing something. Should he awaken Watkins? What was the use? Watkins would probably jump up, exclaiming aloud. He always did when awakened suddenly. Perhaps, after all, he could alarm the family before the man got in. Then, to his amazement, someone opened the window from the _inside_. By this time Buck had got his "night-sight." The man inside was exactly like the man outside, and he had evidently effected an entrance into the house some time during the day when the maids were upstairs, and had probably concealed himself in the cellar. Both wore masks. Instantly Buck was out of bed, dragging on his trousers. Then, barefooted and shirtless, he slipped downstairs, slid the side door open enough to squeeze through, and peered out. All he could see was the last leg of a man disappearing through the window. They were both inside now. Buck knew every room, hall and door in that house, for every spring and fall he had helped the maids "clean house," taking up and laying carpets. The knowledge stood him in good stead now. What window upstairs would be open, he wondered. The bath-room, of course; it was small, but he could wriggle through it, he told himself, or he would break every bone in his body, at least, trying. All this time he was running and crouching along the shadow of the high stone wall, that, bordered with shrubs, made splendid "cover." He reached the kitchen, and, without waiting to think whether it would bear him or not, seized hold of the twisted vine trunks of the old Virginia creeper that partly covered the house from ground to roof. Fortunately they held, and up he went like a young squirrel, his bare toes clutching like claws in the tangle of the stems and twigs. He gained the roof, crawled rapidly along, and reached the bath-room window, only to find he could barely clutch the sill with the tips of his fingers. Standing on tiptoe, he got a little grip, then his bare toes and knees started to work; inch by inch up they went over the rough stone wall, while his hands slipped further and further over the sill, until they could seize the ledge on the inside. Twice his knees slid back, then his toes refused to clutch. They grew wet, and warm, and he knew the sickening slipping back was because of blood oozing from his skin. But he was in the bath-room now, and didn't care. Then, as he flung the door open, the whole downstairs hall was flooded with light, and a strange choking sound came from below. Then the doctor's voice, smothered but audible, begging, "Go back! Go back, Connie! Lock your door!"

"You say one word aloud and I'll fire!" said a low voice, and Buck reached the head of the stairs only to see Doctor Raymond lying half dressed on the floor, his hands tied behind him, and a grasp of strong, dirty fingers on his throat.

"Oh, you're killing him! You're killing my father!" cried Miss Connie, in a half scream, as, too frightened to move, she stood huddled back in a corner, gripping a large cloak about her.

Buck stared at the scene a fraction of a second. He could understand it all. The doctor had been alarmed and had gone downstairs to investigate. Miss Connie had been awakened and had followed her father, thinking probably that he was ill. All this flashed through the boy's mind as he flung out his weaponless hands in despair, but the gesture was the salvation of the household. His fingers touched something cold, hard, polished. It was a huge, heavy, brass bowl that held a fern. How often his strong young fingers had cleaned that bowl with powder and chamois skin, with never a thought that it would serve him well some time! Now he grasped it, and creeping noiselessly around the large, square "balcony" of the upstairs hall, he stood directly above the ruffian whose fingers yet clutched the doctor's throat.

"Catch that girl!" the other man was saying. "She'll scream! Catch her, I say, and gag her!"

"Oh, my girl, my little girl! Leave her alone, you demons!" gasped the helpless doctor. But just as the fingers loosed their brutal grasp on the father's throat to reach for the frail, delicate flesh of the daughter's, straight as a carpenter's leaden plumb there crashed on to the top of the assailant's head a huge, polished brass bowl. The man fell, limp, senseless as a corpse. His confederate whirled on his heel, and fired his revolver twice rapidly above his head, just missing Buck.

Connie shrieked, and the next moment the big, unclean fingers had locked themselves about her throat, and she was forced to her knees, while a guttural voice said: "Scream, will you! Well, try it! _This_ is what you get!"

For weeks Buck's ears rang with that awful, smothered cry of his young mistress, of the tortured voice of the doctor, helplessly choking, "Oh, my girl! My daughter!" But by this time Buck was three steps from the bottom, and the back of the burglar was toward him as he crouched over the struggling girl, choking the screams in her delicate throat. Like a vampire, Buck sprang from the third stair, landing on the man's back, his legs worked inside the man's elbows, pinioning the scoundrel's arms back like a trussed turkey, his arms went round the bull-like neck, and his tough young fingers closed on a sinewy throat. He clung to the creature's back like an octopus, while they rolled over and over, and the terrified girl struggled up, regaining her breath.

"Quick! quick! Miss Connie! The telephone! The police! Ring! Ring!" Buck managed to shout. Then, "Untie the doctor's hands and feet!"

But the burglar's arms were now gripping behind him, and digging, cruel fingers pierced Buck's flesh. But the boy never relaxed his octopus hold. The tighter the big nails clutched, the tighter his own boyish fingers stiffened on the man's throat.

An eternity seemed to elapse. He saw Miss Connie fly to the telephone, then her weak little hands struggled with the ropes on her father's wrists. But before she could begin to loose them, four gigantic men in blue uniforms were climbing in the open surgery window to encounter a sight not soon to be forgotten. The doctor, bound and bruised, lay on the floor; beside him, a man rapidly regaining consciousness and sitting up in a dazed condition; a young girl, with brutal red marks about her throat; and on the floor at her feet a man with a boy clinging to his back like a barnacle to a boat, his young arms and bare legs binding the fellow like ropes. It took those police officers but the twinkling of an eye to have the two burglars handcuffed and cowed at the point of their revolvers, and to hear the whole story of the rescued doctor.

"But who's this little duffer?" asked the inspector, gazing at Buck. "Why, look at his knees and feet! They're dripping blood!"

"Got that shinning up the creeper and the stone-wall into the bathroom," said Buck, feeling terribly awkward to be seen in such a plight before Miss Connie. So he stammered out his explanation, from the moment he had awakened to this very instant.

"Dropped the Damascus bowl on his head, did you?" gasped the doctor. Then, as he looked at Buck as if he saw him for the first time, he beheld his bleeding feet and torn knees. "Officers," said the great: surgeon, "you asked who he is. He's our boy! He's _my_ boy! I never had a son of my own, but--but--Buckney goes to college next year, and he goes as my adopted son. This night has shown me what he's made of."

Then, for the first time in all that dreadful night, Miss Connie gave out. She sat weakly down, crying like a very little child. "Oh, Buckney!" she sobbed, "they told us not to take a Barnardo boy; that they were, half of them, just street arabs; that we--we couldn't trust them. So, sometimes I've been afraid to hope _you_ were all right; and now you have probably saved my life."

"No 'probably' about it, Miss Connie," said the officer; "he undoubtedly has saved your life, and the doctor's too. But, come, child, don't cry; get to bed--there's a good little girl. You've had a bad night of it." Then, turning to his men, he commanded: "March those two choice specimens to the police station at once. Well, good-night, doctor! Good-night, Miss Connie." And looking at Buck he said, curiously, "Good-night, youngster! So you're a Barnardo boy, eh?"

"Yes, sir," said Buck, lifting his chin a little. "I used to be ashamed of it, but--"

"You needn't be," said the officer. "It's not what a boy _was_, but what he _is_, that counts nowadays. Goodnight! I wish we had more Britishers like you."

Then the door closed and the tramp of the policemen and their prisoners died slowly away in the night.

The Broken String

Archie Anderson was lying on the lounge that was just hidden from the front room by a bend of the folding doors. He was utterly tired out, with that unreasonable weariness that comes from what most of his boy chums called "doing nothing." He had been standing still, practising for two hours steadily, and his throbbing head and weakening knees finally conquered his energy. He flung himself down among the pillows, his violin and bow on a nearby chair. Then a voice jarred on every nerve of his sensitive body; it was a lady's voice in the next room, and she was saying to his mother:

"And how is poor Archie to-day?"

"Poor Archie!" How he hated to be called "poor" Archie!

His mother's voice softened as she replied: "Oh, he's _pretty_ well to-day; his head aches and he seems to be weak, but he has been practising all the morning."

"He must be a great care and anxiety to you," said the caller.

Archie shuddered at the words.

"Only a sweet care," said his mother. "I am always hoping he will outgrow his delicate health."

Archie groaned. How horribly like a girl it was to be "delicate."

"I think," went on the caller, raspingly, "that a frail boy _is_ a care. One depends so on one's sons to be a strength to one in old age; to help in their father's business, and things like that--unless, of course, one has _money_."

The harsh voice ceased, and Archie felt in his soul that the speaker was glancing meaningly about the bare little parlor of his father's house. He could have hugged his mother as he heard her say: "Oh, well, Trig and Dudley will help their father; and none of us grudge Archie his inability to help, or his music lessons either."

"I should think his violin and his books and lessons would be a great expense to you," proceeded the caller.

"Nothing is an expense that fills his life and helps him to forget he is shut away from the other boys and their jolly sports, just because he is not strong enough to participate in them," replied his mother, with a slight chill in her voice at her visitor's impertinence.

Presently the caller left, and Mrs. Anderson, slipping through the folding doors, saw Archie outstretched on the pillows. She bent over him with great concern; her eyes read every expression of his face, every attitude of his languid body.

"Archie, you didn't hear?" she asked, pleadingly.

"I'm afraid I did, motherette," he said, springing up with unusual spirit.

He stood before her, a head taller than herself, his thin form frail as a flower, his long, slim fingers twitching, his wonderful, wistful eyes and sensitive mouth revealing all the artist nature of a man of thirty, instead of a boy of fourteen. He was on the point of flaring out with indignation against the visitor, but his lack of physical strength seemed to crowd upon him just at that moment. He sank upon the lounge again, and with his face against Mrs. Anderson's arm, said: "Thank you, motherette, for fighting for me. Perhaps even with all this miserable ill-health of mine I can fight for you some day."

"Of course you will, dear," she replied cheerily. "Don't you mind what they say; you know 'Hock' always stands by you, and he's as good as your mother to fight for you."

"Dear old 'Hock!' Decent old 'Hock!'" he said admiringly. "He's the best boy in the world, but he is not _you_, motherette."

"There he is now!" said Mrs. Anderson, as a piercing whistle assailed the window, followed by a round, red face, a skinning sunburnt nose, and an assertive voice, saying, "I'll just come in this way, Arch." And a leg was flung over the window sill. "It's easier than goin' 'round by the door."

"Hock" prided himself on being a "sport," and he certainly looked one: thick-knit legs, sturdy ankles, a short, chunky neck, hands with a grip like a vise, a big, good-natured dimpling mouth, eyes that were narrow and twinkling, muscles as hard as nails, and thirteen years old, but imagining himself eighteen. He had been christened "Albert Edward," but fortune smiled upon him, making him the champion junior hockey player of the county, so the royal name was discarded with glee, and henceforth he was known far and wide as "Hock" McHenry.

The friendship between Hock and Archie was the wonder of the town. Some people said, "Hock is so coarse and loud and slangy, I don't see how Archie Anderson can have anything to do with him." Others said: "Archie is so frail and sensitive, and so wrapped up in his music, how _can_ Hock find anything in him that is jolly, and boyish, and congenial?" But Hock's people and Archie's people knew that one supplied what the other lacked. For so often this conversation between the two boys would be overheard. Archie's plaintive voice would say: "Oh, Hock, it is so good to have you around; you make me forget that I can't play hockey and football with the rest of the kids! You play it for me as well as for yourself. I'm such a dub; laid up sick half the time."

And Hock would frequently be heard to remark: "Say, Arch, do you know if it weren't for you I'd grow into a regular tough. You kind of keep me straight, and--oh, well, straight and all that!"

And so the odd friendship went on, Hock attending his school daily--the acknowledged leader of all the sports and mischief that existed; Archie getting to school about two days out of every five, yet managing through his hours of illness to mount week by week, month by month, up, up, up in his music.

"I won't always be an expense at home, and have dad keep me as if I were a girl," Archie would tell himself on his good strong days when he felt he had accomplished something with his violin. "I can feel the music growing right in my fingers. I feel I'll play to thousands yet--thousands of people and thousands of dollars." Then perhaps a fit of coughing would come on, and the boy would grow discouraged again, but only until Hock appeared on his daily round, and plumping his sturdy person into a chair would tell all the news, and finish with, "Say, Arch, fiddle for a fellow, won't you?"

And while Archie played, Hock would sit quietly looking out of the window, vowing to himself he would give up slang, and go to Sunday-school regularly, and not shoot craps any more behind the barn with boys his father had expressed a wish not to have around the place. In after years Hock knew what made him have these good impulses while he listened to Archie's playing. He knew that a great and beautiful art--the art of music--was inborn in his chum; that the wild, melancholy voice of the violin was bringing out the best in them both.

* * * * * * * *

It was summer time. The little Canadian city where they lived, which stretched its length along the borders of the great lake, became a very popular resort for holiday makers, and many Southerners flocked to the two large hotels, seeking the cooler air of the North. Ball and tennis matches and regattas made the little city very gay, and the season was swinging at its height when one night Hock's burly voice heralded his legs through the window of the Anderson parlor. Evidently he was greatly excited, for he shouted at the top of his lungs that the east end factory was on fire, with a dozen operators cut off from the stairs and elevators, and that his father, who was foreman, was begging on all sides for volunteers to rescue the people from the top story. In the twinkling of an eye Hock was off again with crowds of running men and boys; the fire engines went clanging past with the rattle and roar of galloping horses and shouting men. Never had Archie Anderson felt his frailty as he felt it at this moment. The very news made him almost faint, but he started to run with the crowd until his shortening breath and incessant coughing compelled him to return home, where he flung himself down on the doorstep, burying his throbbing forehead in his hands and saying: "Oh! I'm no good! I can never hope to be a man! I'm not even a boy! I seem to myself like a baby!"

Late at night his father and brothers returned, all begrimed with soot and ashes. They had worked valiantly with the firemen and rescuers, saving life after life. But with all their courage and pluck they could not save big Tom Morris, who perished in the flames just because he insisted upon others and weaker ones being saved first.

For days the town was plunged in gloom. Everyone liked Tom Morris, and everyone's heart ached for his little widow and her three small children, left penniless. Then the only pleasant thing in connection with the disaster occurred. The kindly visitors at the summer hotels began getting up a huge benefit concert, the proceeds of which were to be presented to Mrs. Tom and her babies. Hock heard of it first--nothing ever escaped his lynx-like ears. Astride the window-sill he communicated his gossip to Archie something in this fashion:

"Say, Arch, they're going to have the best performance. Miss Van Alstine from New York is going to sing, and some long-haired fellow at one of the hotels is going to play the piano--they say he's great; and, oh! say, Arch, did you ever hear of a great fiddler named Ventnor?"

"Only the world-renowned Ventnor," said Archie. "Why do you ask, Hock?"

"Well, he's the one! 'Greatest on earth,' they say. Gets thousands of dollars every night he fiddles. He's staying at the Lake View Hotel, and--"

"Ventnor _here_!" fairly screamed Archie. "The _great_ Ventnor! Oh, Hock, is he going to play?"

"Yes, he is!" said Hock, smacking his lips together with glee that something had at last taken Archie out of himself and made him forget his frailty, if only for a moment, "Yes, siree," continued Hock. "He's going to play three times. Heard him say so myself when they asked him on the beach this morning. He speaks the tanglest-legged English you ever heard. He said, 'Me, I holiday; me, I not blay when I holiday.' Then a batch of ladies tried to explain things to him, and when his Russian-Italian-French brain got around things, he up with his hands and ran them through his long grey hair and wagged his head, and said, 'Me, I understand! Me, I don't blay money when I holiday, but me, I blay for unfortunate beeples. I blay dree times.' Oh, it was funny, Arch!"

"Funny!" said Archie. "Funny! Hock, I'll knock you down if you call Ventnor 'funny.' Why, it's the most beautiful thing in the world for him to do. Oh, Hock! and to think that at last I will hear him!"

"I never heard tell of him before," observed Hock, with evident pride in his ignorance.

"There's no greater violinist in the world, Hock," replied Archie with enthusiasm. His cheeks were scarlet, his eyes sparkling, his thin hands trembling with excitement.

"Well, I'm not keen on hearing anyone fiddle any better than you do," Hock answered soberly. "Whenever you fiddle you just give me the jim-jams, with the creeps going up and down my back; and what's worse, I always have to blow my nose when you get through."

"What a good chap you are, Hock! You make me believe in myself. Perhaps I really will amount to something some day," replied Archie, warmly.

"Betcherlife!" said the sturdy one. "Well, so-long! I'm glad you'll hear the big violin player, Arch, if you really have been wanting to."

Wanting to! Archie Anderson had longed to hear Ventnor ever since he first drew a bow across the strings. He could hardly wait until the night of the great concert. Owing to the extreme heat of the summer he had been taking his lessons late in the evening, but on this eventful night his teacher, himself anxious to go, told Archie to come at seven o'clock; he could then give him a full hour, and the lesson would be over in plenty of time for them both to attend the concert at half-past eight. The lesson was trying and the excitement was beginning to tell on the boy, so, without returning home, he went straight to the hall, his violin case tucked under his arm. Purposely he had engaged a seat in the very first row; he wanted to watch the great master's marvellous fingers, as well as drink in the music they made. Even at eight o'clock the hall was so packed that he could hardly get through the aisles. The excellence of the programme, as well as the charitable object, had drawn out the entire town, and Archie took his seat fearful that the overpowering summer heat and crowded hall would be his undoing. He did not even hear the opening piano solo by the "long-haired fellow," as Hock had called him, nor did he rhapsodize over handsome Miss Van Alstine, whose wonderful gown and thrilling voice captured the audience. It was only when a slender, dark, elderly man stepped down to the footlights with a violin in his long, thin hands that Archie sat bolt upright, his eyes blazing with excitement, his breath catching in his throat.