Chapter 8. A Startling Announcement

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_ CHAPTER EIGHT. A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT

That night when I got back to Camberwell, I found that not only had supper been ready above an hour, but Mrs Dean and Esau were both waiting for me to join them.

"I thought we'd make a sort of a party of it," said Esau, "only not ask anybody, so that we could enjoy ourselves, though if that policeman was anywhere near, and old Dingle wasn't so far off, I should like to have had them in."

"Oh, I am glad you've come," cried Mrs Dean, "for Esau has been going on so."

"Only," continued Esau, ignoring his mother's words, "you couldn't ask old Dingle without asking his wife and twelve children, and that would take such a lot of plates, without counting the pie mother's made, and that's only just enough for three."

"But why have you got such a grand hot supper?" I said.

"Because of its being a holiday, and because we're going to make a fresh start in life over there in the woods."

"Esau, my dear, don't, pray don't," whimpered his mother. "It was bad enough sitting up for you all night, and you not coming, but it's far worse when you will go on like that."

"Come, sit down, Mr Gordon. I'm as hungry as can be. Why you know you went to sleep, mother."

"I didn't, my dear. I never had a wink all night for expecting you."

"Well, how could I help it, mother? We should have been home safe enough if we hadn't been locked up in a dun John."

"Yes, and my boy in custody--in prison. Oh dear me! oh dear me!"

"Ah!" shouted Esau, striking the table hard with a spoon. "You dare to cry again, and I won't eat a bit of supper."

"But I can't help it, Esau," sobbed the poor little woman; "I declare I've been seeing nothing but policemen and prison vans ever since you told me where you had been."

"All comes o' getting into bad company, mother," said Esau, cutting the steaming steak pie. "There; that's an extra spoonful o' gravy for you if you promise not to cry."

He passed a plate to where his mother sat, and began to help me.

"Bad company's the ruin of all boys," continued Esau, laughing at me. "Look at Mr Gordon's ear, and that mark on his face."

"Oh, my dear," cried Mrs Dean, "my eyes were so dim, I didn't see. Is it very bad?"

"'Course you couldn't see," cried Esau, "if you keep on crying. Why you ought to laugh for joy to think Mr Gordon and me's got out of bad company, and left old Dempster for good."

"I am glad, my dear, if it's for your good, I'm sure. Let me give you a hot baked potato, Mr Gordon, my dear. But Esau has been going on in the wildest way--says he shall start across the sea to some dreadful place."

"That I didn't, mother; I said it was a lovely place. There you are, master. Mr Esau Dean, may I have the pleasure of helping you to some poy?"

"He says he shall be an emigrant, my dear, and shall go and build himself a house in the woods."

"Well," said Esau, helping himself quickly, "there's no room here in London to build one, and if there was the people wouldn't let me have the ground."

"And it's all madness, and wild as wild."

"Well, you might give your poor son, who has just escaped outer prison, a hot potato," said Esau, grinning at me again.

"Oh, my dear, I beg your pardon. There, let me help you. That's a beauty."

"Then why didn't you give it to Mr Gordon?"

"Do be quiet, my dear. How you do talk. I really think you're half crazy."

"I was, mother, to stop with old 'going, going, gone' so long. Never mind; I'm going to have land of my own, and a house in the woods, where I can go and shoot bears and wolves."

"There, Mr Gordon, my dear, that's how he has been going on ever since he came home."

"Hold your plate for some more gravy," said Esau to me. "That's the worst part of it. I shan't have mother to make hot steak pies and lovely crusts."

"It isn't half so good as I should like to make it, Esau," said the poor little woman sadly; "but do be a good boy, and leave off all that dreadful talk. Mr Gordon don't go on like that."

"No, but he thinks all the more, mother."

"He don't, I'm sure. Now do you, Mr Gordon?"

"I'm afraid I've quite made up my mind to go, Mrs Dean," I said sadly.

"Oh, my dear, don't," she cried. "It's too dreadful. Right on the other side of the world, where there's bears and wolves, and for all we know perhaps savage Red Indians."

"Oh, there are, mother, lots of 'em; and they scallop people and roast 'em."

"Esau!" half shrieked the poor little woman wildly.

"Don't eat 'em afterwards, do they, Mr Gordon?"

"Don't listen to him, Mrs Dean," I cried. "He is saying all this to tease you."

"I thought so," she cried triumphantly. "Then he doesn't mean to go?"

I was silent, and Mrs Dean's knife and fork dropped on the table.

"Tell me--the truth," she cried, rising and laying her hand on my shoulder.

"The truth is, Mrs Dean, that we have both lost our situations, and that I'm afraid Mr Dempster will be so malicious that he will keep us from getting others."

"Yes, I'm afraid of that," she said sadly.

"So as we have heard that any one who likes to try can get on out there, we did think of going."

"And we do think of going, mother dear," said Esau gently. "Come, try and look at it sensibly. I know you will not like me to go, and when it comes to the time, I shan't like to leave you; but I'm such a sleepy-headed chap, I shall never get on here, and if I go over there it will wake me up."

"But I couldn't part with you, my boy," cried Mrs Dean. "I should be all alone. What would become of me?"

"Why you'd go on just as you are, and I should send you home some money sometimes; and when I've made my fortune I shall come back and make a lady of you."

"No, no, no," she said, with the tears running down her cheeks; "I'd rather stop as we are, Esau."

"Yes, but we can't."

"Yes, we can, dear. I've saved a few pounds now, and it only means working a little harder. I can keep you, and I'm sure--"

"Stop!" roared Esau huskily. "I'm ashamed of you, mother. Do you think I'm going to be such a sop of a fellow as to sit down here and let you keep me? I suppose you'll want to keep Mr Gordon next."

"Then you've got nothing to be ashamed of, I'm sure, sir," said the little woman tartly. "What's enough for two's enough for three, and I was going to say, when you went on like that, that if Mr Gordon wouldn't mind, and not be too proud at things not being quite so plentiful, which everything should be clean as clean, it's very, very welcome you'd be, my dear, for you never could have been nicer if you had been my own boy."

"Mrs Dean," I cried, with a curious feeling in my throat, while Esau looked at me searchingly, as if he thought I was going to accept the offer, "that is quite impossible. Neither Esau nor I could do that. Why, I should be ashamed even to think of it."

"Oh no," said Esau, sarcastically, "it's all right. Let mother do the work, and we two will play at tops and marbles all day."

"Be quiet, Esau. I know you're only teasing. But why not, my dear? I know I'm a very little woman, but I'm very strong."

"It's be quiet, mother, I think," cried Esau angrily. "What do you mean by talking like that to Mr Gordon? I often calls him Gordon, 'cause he's always been such a good chap to me; but I don't forget he's a gentleman's son, and his mother was a born lady. I'm ashamed of you, mother, that I am."

"But it's so dreadful, my boy--worse than your being a soldier. I could come down to Woolwich to see you sometimes."

"No, no, Mrs Dean," I said; "don't say that. It really would be wise for us to go. People do get on out there, and those friends of mine, Mr John Dempster and Mrs John, are going."

"That's it then," cried the little lady angrily. "It's their doing, and it's a shame."

"Here, hold hard, mother!" cried Esau. "I say, is that true?"

"Quite."

"And now you're trying to blind me, Esau," cried Mrs Dean; "but you can't cheat me."

"Who's trying to blind you?"

"You, sir. Just as if you didn't know all the time."

"He did not know, neither did I know till I went up there to-day," I said.

"Ah, I never liked those people. They're only Dempsters, and not content with weaning you away from me, they've done the same now with my boy."

"Did you ever hear such an unbelieving old creature," cried Esau excitedly. "Mr and Mrs John D. going! Why you've coaxed 'em into it."

"You don't deceive me; you don't deceive me," said Mrs Dean, sobbing.

"Be quiet, mother!--But how is it they're going?"

"For Mrs John's health. I told you before they said they might go to Canada."

"So you did."

"Of course you did," said Mrs Dean, scornfully.

"They are going to join Mrs John's brother, who is manager out at a Hudson's Bay Company's station."

"Hudson's Bay," said Esau, making a grimace; "that's up at the North Pole. I don't want to go there."

"Nonsense!" I said; "it's somewhere in British Columbia."

"Hudson's Bay, Baffin's Bay, Davis' Straits--all up at the North Pole. Think nobody never learnt jography but you?"

"Ah, well, never mind where it is," I said impatiently; "they're going out there."

"And they've coaxed you two boys away from a poor lone widow woman to go with them," cried Mrs Dean; "and it's a sin and a shame."

"I assure you, Mrs Dean--"

"No, sir, you can't."

"Will you be quiet, mother!" cried Esau angrily, "and go on with your supper, and let us. You're crying right into the salt."

"I'm not, sir! and I will not be put down by a boy like you. I say you shan't go."

"And I say I shall," replied Esau surlily. "If you don't know what's for the best, I do."

"It isn't for the best, and it's cruel of you, Esau."

"Well," said Esau, turning to me, "I've made up my mind, Gordon; she won't care when it's all over, and then she'll see it's for the best for all of us. So once for all, will you stick to it?"

"Yes," I said, "I am quite determined now."

"Hear that, mother?"

"Oh yes, I hear, sir."

"Then don't say sir; and let's finish supper comfortably, for I haven't had half enough. But let's have it all over, and then settle down to it. So once for all, I'm going out to British Columbia to make my fortune."

Mrs Dean had been sitting down for some little time now, and as Esau said these last words she started up, gave the table a sharp slap with her hand, looked defiantly at us both, and exclaimed--

"Then I shall come too."

We two lads sank back in our chairs astonished. Then we looked at each other, and we ended by bursting out laughing.

"Oh, all right," said Esau at last. "That's right, mother.--She's coming to do the shooting for us while we build up the house."

"Ah, you may laugh, sir. But if that's a place that is good for two lads like you to get on in, it's a good place for a respectable hard-working woman who can wash, and cook, and bake bread, whether it's loaves or cakes."

"Well, mother can make cakes," said Esau, "and good ones."

"Of course I can, sir; and very glad you'll be of 'em too when you're thousands of miles from a baker's shop."

"Yes; but the idee of your coming!" cried Esau. "Haw, haw, haw!"

Somehow it did not seem to me such a very preposterous "idee," as Esau called it, for just then I too had an idea. Mrs John was going that long waggon journey; what could be better for her than to have a clever little managing, hard-working woman like Mrs Dean with her?

But I did not say anything about it then, for I had to think the matter over. Only a few hours ago it had seemed as if my connection with Esau was likely to be in the way of my accompanying the Dempsters; now matters were taking a form that looked as if my friendliness with him was to be the reason, not only for my being their companion, but of helping them admirably as well.

But matters were not quite in shape yet, and we all went to bed that night feeling as if Esau's opinion was correct--that the little supper had not been a success. _

Read next: Chapter 9. Difficulties

Read previous: Chapter 7. My Friends' Plans

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