JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN

by Dinah Maria Mulock (Mrs. Craik)




CHAPTER I

"Get out o' Mr. Fletcher's road, ye idle, lounging, little--"

"Vagabond," I think the woman (Sally Watkins, once my nurse), was
going to say, but she changed her mind.

My father and I both glanced round, surprised at her unusual
reticence of epithets: but when the lad addressed turned, fixed his
eyes on each of us for a moment, and made way for us, we ceased to
wonder. Ragged, muddy, and miserable as he was, the poor boy looked
anything but a "vagabond."

"Thee need not go into the wet, my lad. Keep close to the wall, and
there will be shelter enough both for us and thee," said my father,
as he pulled my little hand-carriage into the alley, under cover,
from the pelting rain. The lad, with a grateful look, put out a hand
likewise, and pushed me further in. A strong hand it was--roughened
and browned with labour--though he was scarcely as old as I. What
would I not have given to have been so stalwart and so tall!

Sally called from her house-door, "Wouldn't Master Phineas come in
and sit by the fire a bit?"--But it was always a trouble to me to