CHAPTER V

DRIVEN FORTH

LIKE one in a bad dream, Tad stood and stared at the placard. There was something very ominous and startling, on coming for the first time into this little town, to find his secret, his story there before him.

"Ay there it is!" he muttered. "My name and my clothes and all, so as the perlice should be sure to catch me. Catch me? Ay, and so they may yet."

At the thought, he shrank into the shadow of the wall.

"Why, here I am, with my big head, and thin body, and I'm wearin' of that very grey suit and cap, and a bobby might just step out and nab me this minute. Now what can I do," Tad asked himself, "to put the bobbies off the scent and make 'em think there's no Edward Poole in the place?"

Musing intently, the lad had moved stealthily away, and turned down a narrow, dark street, where he was less likely to be noticed. Once round the corner, he quickened his pace until he came to a little archway leading into some kind of a court. Here he undid his satchel, produced from it an old snuff-coloured suit that he used to wear when doing dirty work, and proceeded to exchange his tidy grey clothes for the shabby brown, packing the former carefully away in the satchel. He turned his cap inside out, and put it on well forward, shading his eyes; then turning his frayed collar up round his throat, he emerged from the sheltering archway.

The clouds had been gathering for the last hour or two, and now the rain began to fall, the lamps were dim and blurred, and the lad's courage revived. A big cookshop attracted him by its savoury odours, which made the hungry boy's mouth water. While he was gazing in and wondering which of all the good things he should choose if he could afford a hearty supper, two men came up, and also paused for a look.

Tad, feeling fairly safe in his old brown clothes, did not move away at once, and had not indeed taken much notice of them or their conversation, until a sentence—a single sentence—of their talk, turned him faint and sick with fear, and set him trembling all over.

"I say, Bill, they say there's more partic'lars now about that there scoundrel of a boy. You know which I mean—the artful young chap what run off with the baby; disappeared with his poor little half-brother."

Not daring to move lest he should be noticed, afraid almost to breathe, Tad listened intently.

"No, is there, Fred?" said the man Bill.

"Yes," replied Fred; "it 'pears as if this lad Poole was a wonderful jealous, spiteful sort of chap, and they're half afeared he may have got rid of the baby somehow, just out of pure wickedness—and then run away."

"Wouldn't I like to catch the young gallows-bird!" remarked Bill so savagely that Tad would have turned and fled that minute, but that he must have given himself away there and then by so doing. "I've got a dear little un of my own," resumed Bill in a softened voice, "only about eight months old too, and I know just how I'd feel to anyone as tried to treat him unjust and unfair."

"Well," remarked the man Fred, "one comfort is that there's little chance of the boy gettin' clear away. He's safe to be nabbed sooner or later; I only wish I'd the doin' of it."

Then the two men went into the shop, and Tad, with a white, drawn face and quaking limbs, moved away from the shop window.

After wandering about among the darkest and poorest streets in the town, he found his way at last to the harbour, where several small coasters and smacks were about to sail, for the wind was fair, and the tide just on the turn.

"Please, sir, don't you want someone to help on board your boat?" asked Tad of the skipper of the largest vessel.

The man turned, took his pipe out of his mouth, and eyed Tad from head to foot.

The boy winced under the keen scrutiny, and repeated his question.

"Hum!" grunted the skipper. "And what do you know about the sea?"

"Oh, lots!" replied Tad, with vivid recollections of the sea-stories he had read.

"Ever been to sea before?"

"No, but—"

"Is your father a sailor?"

"No, but—"

"But what?" questioned the man roughly.

"I've read lots about it, and always thought I'd like it of all things."

The skipper gave a little short laugh, which emboldened Tad to remark:

"What I'd like best to be, is a pirate."

"A what?" growled the man.

"A pirate, you know, sir; I've read all about them, and they has the jolliest kind of a life, takin' treasure ships and hidin' away the gold and di'monds on desert islands where there's no end of wonderful things, and then I've—"

"Shut up!" roared the skipper. "Of all the precious young fools I ever see, you're the biggest—far away. If them's the sort of yarns you spin, you'd never do no good aboard of the 'Mariar-Ann.' So hold your noise and be off with you. I'll be bound you're a runaway from home, and your mother 'll be comin' along lookin' for you presently."

"I haven't got a mother, but it's true I want to get away out of this. I'll do anything, everything you tell me if you'll take me to sea with you."

"Now look here, youngster," said the man, "I ain't goin' to get myself into a mess, not for nobody. Tell the truth—are you in hidin'?"

"Yes," said poor Tad.

"What have you been up to?"

"It's too long a story to tell here," replied the boy, peering about him distrustfully into the darkness. "Take me on board and I'll tell you all."

"Take you aboard and run the risk of bein' took up myself, for helpin' you away? Not if I know it! And now I think of it—" he added half to himself—"wasn't there some sort of notice up in the town about a lad wanted by the police? Here, Tim," he called to a man who was at work on the vessel. "What did you tell me you see wrote up at the station?" And the skipper turned his head to hear his mate's reply.

"There—you see, you young scamp," said the skipper, when—his suspicions confirmed—he turned once more to address Tad.

But to his surprise, he found himself talking into empty space. The culprit at the bar had not waited for the verdict. Tad was gone.