Hide and Seek

'A crop of leaves! What a jolly old Jack-in-the-Green you must have looked like! Which of those scars on your face is the arrow-wound, eh? Oh, that's it—is it? I say, old boy, you've got a black eye! Did any of those fellows in the Snuggery hit hard enough to hurt you?'

'Hurt me? Chaps like them hurt Me!!' Tickled by the extravagance of the idea which Zack's question suggested to him, Mat shook his sturdy shoulders, and indulged himself in a gruff chuckle, which seemed to claim some sort of barbarous relationship with a laugh.

'Ah! of course they haven't hurt you;—I didn't think they had,' said Zack, whose pugilistic sympathies were deeply touched by the contempt with which his new friend treated the bumps and bruises received in the fight. 'Go on, Mat, I like adventures of your sort. What did you do after your head healed up?'

'Well, I got tired of dodging about the Amazon, and went south, and learnt to throw a lasso, and took a turn at the wild horses. Galloping did my head good.'

'It's just what would do my head good too. Yours is the sort of life, Mat, for me! How did you first come to lead it? Did you run away from home?'

'No. I served aboard ship, where I was put out, being too idle a vagabond to be kep' at home. I always wanted to run wild somewheres for a change; but I didn't really go to do it, till I picked up a letter which was waiting for me in port, at the Brazils. There was news in that letter which sickened me of going home again; so I deserted, and went off on the tramp. And I've been mostly on the tramp ever since, till I got here last Sunday.'

'What! have you only been in England since Sunday?'

'That's all. I made a good time of it in California, where I've been last, digging gold. My mate, as was with me, got a talking about the old country, and wrought on me so that I went back with him to see it again. So, instead of gambling away all my money over there' (Mat carelessly jerked his hand in a westerly direction), 'I've come to spend it over here; and I'm going down into the country to-morrow, to see if anybody lives to own me at the old place.'

'And suppose nobody does? What then?'

'Then I shall go back again. After twenty years among the savages, or little better, I'm not fit for the sort of thing as goes on among you here. I can't sleep in a bed; I can't stop in a room; I can't be comfortable in decent clothes; I can't stray into a singing-shop, as I did to-night, without a dust being kicked up all round me, because I haven't got a proper head of hair like everybody else. I can't shake up along with the rest of you, nohow; I'm used to hard lines and a wild country; and I shall go back and die over there among the lonesome places where there's plenty of room for me.' And again Mat jerked his hand carelessly in the direction of the American continent.

'Oh, don't talk about going back!' cried Zack; 'you're sure to find somebody left at home—don't you think so yourself, old fellow?'

Mat made no answer. He suddenly slackened; then, as suddenly, increased his pace; dragging young Thorpe with him at a headlong rate.

'You're sure to find somebody,' continued Zack, in his offhand, familiar way. 'I don't know—gently! we're not walking for a wager—I don't know whether you're married or not?' (Mat still made no answer, and walked faster than ever.) 'But if you havn't got wife or child, every fellow's got a father and mother, you know; and most fellows have got brothers or sisters—'

'Good night,' said Mat, stopping short, and abruptly holding out his hand.

'Why! what's the matter now?' asked Zack, in astonishment. 'What do you want to part company for already? We are not near the end of the streets yet. Have I said anything that's offended you?'

'No, you havn't. You can come and talk to me if you like, the day after to-morrow. I shall be back then, whatever happens. I said I'd be like a brother to you; and that means, in my lingo, doing anything you ask. Come and smoke a pipe along with me, as soon as I'm back again. Do you know Kirk Street? It's nigh on the Market. Do you know a 'bacco shop in Kirk Street? It's got a green door, and Fourteen written on it in yaller paint. When I am shut up in a room of my own, which isn't often, I'm shut up there. I can't give you the key of the house, because I want it myself.'

'Kirk Street? That's my way. Why can't we go on together? What do you want to say good-night here for?'

'Because I want to be left by myself. It's not your fault; but you've set me thinking of something that don't make me easy in my mind. I've led a lonesome life of it, young 'un; straying away months and months out in the wilderness, without a human being to speak to, I dare say that wasn't a right sort of life for a man to take up with; but I did take up with it; and I can't get over liking it sometimes still. When I'm not easy in my mind, I want to be left lonesome as I used to be. I want it now. Good night.'

Before Zack could enter his new friend's address in his pocket-book, Mat had crossed the road, and had disappeared in the dark distance dotted with gaslights. In another moment, the last thump of his steady footstep died away on the pavement, in the morning stillness of the street.

'That's rather an odd fellow'—thought Zack as he pursued his own road—'and we have got acquainted with each other in rather an odd way. I shall certainly go and see him though, on Thursday; something may come of it, one of these days.'

Zack was a careless guesser; but, in this case, he guessed right. Something did come of it.

CHAPTER II. THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.

When Zack reached Baregrove Square, it was four in the morning. The neighboring church clock struck the hour as he approached his own door.

Immediately after parting with Mat, malicious Fate so ordained it that he passed one of those late—or, to speak more correctly, early—public-houses, which are open to customers during the 'small hours' of the morning. He was parched with thirst; and the hiccuping fit which had seized him in the company of his new friend had not yet subsided. 'Suppose I try what a drop of brandy will do for me,' thought Zack, stopping at the fatal entrance of the public-house.

He went in easily enough—but he came out with no little difficulty. However, he had achieved his purpose of curing the hiccups. The remedy employed acted, to be sure, on his legs as well as his stomach—but that was a trifling physiological eccentricity quite unworthy of notice.