Path of the Tiger

Goode, he had watched Pip, the oldest climbing boy at the time and a strapping young adolescent, succumb to the ravenous hunger of the cancer that had devoured him utterly. David’s death, however, was the first death of a close friend he had experienced in his short years. He and David had slept beneath the same coal sack since the young boy had arrived at Mr Goode’s, and in the rare moments that they were not scrambling up and down chimneys, the two of them had played together, inventing imaginary games in which they were soldiers going off to war, to win glory and renown on the battlefields of Europe. Many times, they had laughed together at the antics of the twins, and at Michael’s hilariously accurate impressions of Mr Goode – only put on, of course, when their cruel master was not in the cellar. David had been a young boy possessed of an indefatigable optimism, and had retained, despite his unfortunate circumstances, a joie de vivre that could neither be crushed nor blotted out, even with the gruelling toil of their work and the suffocating filth of their home and work environments.

Yet here the boy now lay, limp, pallid and lifeless before this ostentatiously decorated fireplace, his body a once-living sculpture that now mirrored the icy stillness of the marble figures that lined the halls. Michael was hugging the little corpse tightly and weeping freely, as were the twins, and amongst the adults there was not a dry eye in the room save for Mr Goode’s, whose distended orbs were now red with rage.

‘This little filth!’ he spat, ‘it was ‘is bleedin’ laziness that got ‘im ended up like this! Now I’ve got to go through the bleedin’ ‘assle of gettin’ another one of these devils ‘an trainin’ ‘im up!’

The lady of the house, her eyes rimmed with tears, walked slowly up to the raging Mr Goode. Her dignity and grandeur added an undeniable physical prowess to her stance, and she locked her eyes into his with the ferocious tenacity of viper fangs.

‘Your attitude towards these poor children is absolutely appalling,’ she hissed through gritted teeth, only barely managing to retain an air of composure through her anger and disgust. ‘And I will be relieving you of the apparent burden of their stewardship with immediate effect.’

Mr Goode stopped in his tracks, his eyes bulging with disbelief, and a throbbing vein of rage threatening to burst through the skin of his temple.

‘Wh-, what?! You, you can’t do that!’ he spluttered through his wrath. ‘I paid good bleedin’ coin for these ‘ere brats, I did!’

‘And I will compensate you in full for your financial loss,’ she replied coldly. ‘But I will also have my husband ensure that you are never, ever again permitted to have children in your care. You, sir, must find another vocation, one that does not involve the care of children in any manner. Now please, gather together your equipment and vacate these premises immediately!’

‘B-, b-, but me boys, you can’t—’

‘I said now, sir!’ she hissed with a scalding force. ‘Albert,’ she said, motioning to the butler, who was standing motionless and silent in the corner, ‘please escort this gentleman off the premises and make arrangements to financially compensate him for his loss.’

The butler nodded and walked over to Mr Goode, who he took by the arm and hauled unceremoniously out of the room.

‘Beatrice,’ the lady said to one of the female servants, ‘please prepare a bath so that these poor boys may cleanse themselves.’

She then turned to another servant.

‘Mary-Anne, please measure up each boy and go out and purchase some more respectable-looking clothes for them so that we may dispose of these dreadful rags in which they are currently attired.’

Now with Mr Goode gone, and nobody but the boys and the lady in the room, the tears started to flow liberally from the children’s eyes. The woman knew that it was not her place to comfort them so she quietly slipped out, leaving them alone with their grief and sorrow, and the still-warm body of their deceased friend. William stared for a while at David’s lifeless form, and then he too started weeping. It began with a sniffling and sobbing at first, but then it progressed to a screaming out of hoarse, guttural cries that were wrenched from the deepest core of his being. And soon all of them had joined in this chorus of primal, unadulterated grieving, and it continued for a many long, sombre moments in the indifferent light of the morning sun.

***

After the boys had been bathed – the first cleansing they had had in months – and had eaten their fill of the roast dinner, which was the first wholesome meal most of them had had in years, the lady of the house entered the servants’ dining room, followed by a portly, impeccably dressed old man, who wore spectacles and sported a pair of mammoth mutton-chop sideburns that burst from his jowls like twin silver hedgerows.

‘Boys,’ the woman said, ‘this is my cousin, Sir Gordon MacTaggart, visiting from the Highlands of Scotland. He has recently purchased a country estate there, and while he was initially intending to enlist some local farm lads to serve as stable hands, I have convinced him to take you boys on, should you wish to undertake this endeavour, of course.’

‘Ye lads are no’ afraid ay a wee bit ay ‘ard toil, are ye?’ MacTaggart asked in his gruff but kindly voice.

‘Gordon,’ the lady replied with a smile, ‘these poor children have been scurrying up and down flues from dawn till dusk for the past few years. I am rather confident that they harbour no aversion to physical labour.’ She then turned to William and his friends. ‘Now boys,’ she continued, ‘if you wish to go with Sir MacTaggart and work on his stud farm, you’ll have to wake up before dawn and labour until sunset, but in exchange you will be provided with a bed and a