Chapter Four The Blackmailing of Tom Moore
After bidding good-bye to the visitor most of the children crowded noisily out of the door, rejoicing at their resumption of freedom, but Patsy, he of the red hair, seated himself deliberately on the front bench and immediately became deeply interested in his arithmetic, his presence for the moment being completely overlooked by Moore, whose attention was attracted by the attempt of a ragged little miss to make an unnoticed exit.
“Little girl,” said Moore, gently, “why are you going without saying good-bye to me? What have I done to deserve such treatment from a young lady?”
The child thus reproached, a tiny blonde-haired maiden, dressed in a faded and ragged frock, looked timidly at her questioner, and flushed to her temples.
“I thought you would n’t want to say good-bye to me, sir,” she answered, shyly.
“And why not, alanna?”
“’Cause I ’m poor,” she whispered.
A tender look came into Moore’s eyes and he crossed to the side of the child, his generous heart full of pity for the little one’s embarrassment.
“I ’m poor, too,” he said, patting her yellow curls. “Where do you live, my dear?”
“Down by the Mill, sir, with my auntie.”
“And is this the best dress she can give you?” he asked, trying the texture of the little gown and finding it threadbare and thin.
The child looked down at her feet, for the moment abashed, then raising her eyes to the young man’s face, read only sympathy and tenderness there, and, thus encouraged, answered bravely:
“It is better than hers.”
“Then we can’t complain, dear, can we? Of course not, but is n’t it very thin?”
“Yes, sir, but I would n’t mind if it was a bit more stylish.”
Moore looked at Bessie, smiling at this characteristic manifestation of femininity.
“The size of her!” he said. “With a woman’s vanity already.”
Then, turning to the child again, he continued:
“Well, we poor people must stick together. I ’ll call on your aunt to-morrow.”
“Will you?” cried the girl in delight. “And you ’ll sing to us?”
“That I will,” said Moore, heartily. “Now run along like a good girl, and mind me, dear, never be ashamed of your honest poverty. Remember that the best man of us all slept in a manger.”
“Yes, sir,” responded the child, happily, “I ’ll not forget.”
As she started for the door Moore called her back and put a shilling in her little pink palm.
“What will you do with it?” he asked, chucking her under the chin.
“Buy a ribbon, sir.”
“A ribbon?” echoed Moore in imitation of her jubilant tone.
“For me auntie.”
“Bless your generous little heart,” said Moore, drawing another coin from his pocket. “There is the like of it for yourself. Buy one for each of you. Now off you go. Good-bye.”
The child ran lightly to the door, but, as she reached the steps, turned, as though struck by a sudden thought, and beckoned to Moore.
“You may kiss me, sir,” she announced with as much dignity as though she were bestowing upon her benefactor some priceless gift, as indeed she was, for certainly she possessed nothing more valuable. Then, after he had availed himself of her offer, she courtesied with childish grace and trotted gayly off, her two precious shillings tightly clutched in her hand. Believing himself to be alone with Bessie, Moore hastened toward her with outstretched arms, but was suddenly made aware of the presence of a third party by Patsy, who discreetly cleared his throat as he sat immersed in his book.
Moore turned to Bessie.
“What is that lad doing there?” he whispered. “Does n’t he know school is over?”
“How should I know?” she answered, though a glint of fun in her eyes showed she was not without her suspicion as to the reason of Patsy’s presence.
“You might ask him what he wants,” she suggested encouragingly.
“I will,” said Moore, approaching the interrupter of his wooing with a disapproving expression upon his face.
“Look here, my son, don’t you know school is dismissed?”
“Yis, sir,” replied Patsy, loudly.
“And yet you are still here?”
“Yis, sir.”
“Bad luck to you, can’t you say anything but ‘Yis, sir’?”
“No, sir,” responded Patsy, not at all intimidated by Moore’s glowering looks.
“That is better,” said Moore. “You are going home now?”
“No, sir.”
“There you go again! Faith, I wish you would say ‘Yes’ and stick to it. What are you doing here at this unseasonable hour?”
“I wish to study me lessons,” replied Patsy, enthusiastically.
Fairly dashed, Moore returned to Bessie.
“I never saw a lad so fond of his books before,” said he.
“It is a new thing for Patsy,” said Bessie with a laugh. “There is no bigger dunce in school.”
“Is that so?” asked Moore. “Faith, I’m beginning to understand.”
Patsy looked sharply over his book at the young poet.
“Can’t you study at home, my lad?”
“No, sir.”
“Will you never say ‘Yes, sir,’ again?”
“No, sir.”
“Now look here, my young friend, if you say ‘Yes, sir,’ or ‘No, sir,’ again I ’ll beat the life out of you.”
“All right, sir,” responded Patsy, plunging his face still deeper into his book.
Moore regarded his small tormentor with a look of dismay.
“You will strain your eyes with so much study, Patsy,” he said, warningly. “That is what you will do,—and go blind and have to be led around by a stick, leaning on a small dog.”
A suppressed giggle from Bessie drew his attention to his mistake.
“It ’s the other way round I mean. Are n’t you afraid of that sad fate, my bucko?”
Patsy shook his head and continued his energetic investigation of his arithmetic, while Moore sought counsel from the schoolmistress, who was keenly enjoying her admirer’s discomfiture.
“What will I say to the little tinker, Bessie?” he asked, ruefully.
“How should I know, Tom? I am his teacher and will have to help him if he wishes it.”
“What is it troubles you?” demanded Moore, looking down on Patsy’s red head.
“A sum, sir,” replied Patsy.
“Show it to me.”
The boy designated an example with his finger.
“‘If a man sold forty eggs at one ha’penny an egg,’” read Moore from the book, “‘how many eggs—’?”
Shutting up the arithmetic, he put his hand in his pocket and jingled its contents merrily.
“Is the answer to this problem sixpence?” he asked.
“Oh, no, sir,” replied Patsy ingenuously.
“What is, then?” demanded Moore, baffled.
“Two shillings,” announced the graceless youth.
“I ’ll give you one,” said Moore, suggesting a compromise, but Patsy was not to be so lowered in his price.
“Two is the answer,” he replied in a determined tone.
Moore yielded without further protest and produced the money.
“There you are, you murdering blackmailer,” said he. “Now get out before I warm your jacket.”
Patsy seized his books, and, dodging a cuff aimed at him by his victim, ran out of the schoolhouse with a derisive yell.
“Bessie,” said Moore, solemnly, “that little spalpeen will surely come to some bad end.”
“And be hanged?” asked the girl, taking a handful of goose-quills from her desk preparatory to sharpening them into pens with an old knife drawn from the same storehouse.
“Or get married, my sweet girl, though they say death is better than torture,” replied Moore, approaching the schoolmistress. “Do you know it cost me two shillings to get a talk with you?”
Bessie smiled and finished a pen with exquisite care.
“Talk is cheap,” she observed, carelessly.
“Whoever said that never called at your school, Bessie Dyke,” said Moore, perching himself upon her desk. “Turn your face a bit the other way, if you please.”
As he spoke he took the girl’s round chin in his hands and moved her head until only a side view of her pretty face could be obtained from his post of vantage.
“Do you like my profile so much, Tom?” she asked, submitting docilely to his direction.
“It’s not that, Bessie,” answered Moore, “it’s because I can’t stand two such eyes at once. Now there is but one of them looking at me. And such an eye! My heart’s jumping under my jacket like a tethered bullfrog with the glance of it. Ah, Bessie, there is only one in the wide world like it.”
“And where is that?” asked the girl, a shade of jealousy perceptible in her inquiry.
“Just around the bend of your nose, mavourneen,” laughed Moore. “Filled with melted moonshine are both of them. Sure, one soft look from those eyes would make a cocked hat out of starlight.”
“Would it?” murmured Bessie, charmed in spite of herself. “Do you really mean all you say?”
“Mean it? It’s poor justice my words do your beauty, Bessie dear. You have the sauciest, darlingest, scornfullest nose, and such a mouth! Why, to look at it makes my lips pucker.”
“A lemon would do the same,” observed Bessie, foiling Moore’s attempt to snatch a kiss by sitting back in her chair. “You need not think I believe all your nonsense, Thomas Moore.”
“Don’t you believe what I have just said, Bessie?”
“Not I. You need n’t flatter yourself.”
“Why needn’t I? Will you do it for me?”
“I have something better to do,” replied Bessie, paring another quill with much vigor.
“That is what I call a cutting remark,” said Moore, looking at the knife.
Bessie sighed, and temporarily abandoned her labors.
“Tom Moore,” she said solemnly, “why will you make such awful puns?”
“Practice makes perfect, my dear. If I keep on, some day I may make a good one.”
“I wonder if there ever was a good pun?”
“Keep on wondering. You look like an angel pondering over the fit of her wings.”
“Tom, that is sacrilegious.”
“You ’re wrong, Bessie, it’s only poetry.”
Bessie frowned. Like all good women, she did not like to hear religion spoken of lightly, so she rebuked the erring Thomas with a glance.
“You are pretty even when you frown, Bessie,” remarked the unregenerate versifier.
Bessie attempted to look doubtful as to the truth of this last statement.
“Why should n’t you believe me? Has n’t your mirror showed you day after day what I am telling you?”
As he spoke Moore took her hand in his, not noticing that one slender finger was wound round by a bandage. Bessie gave a little cry of pain.
“What is the matter?”
“You hurt me,” she answered, exhibiting her finger.
“I ’m more than sorry, Bessie, but what ails your pinkie?”
“I burned my hand.”
“Shall I burn the other for you?” asked Moore, extending his in invitation.
“How could you?” she demanded, suspecting a trap.
“Why,” said Moore, “with a kiss half as warm as my heart.”
Bessie giggled, then tried to resume her dignity, but Moore had no intention of letting such an advantage pass unutilized, and, seizing her uninjured hand, planted a hearty smack in its warm palm.
“Mr. Moore!”
“Mistress Dyke!”
“I shan’t allow you to stay here if you cannot behave in a sensible manner,” she threatened.
“I’m not sensible?”
“Not now.”
“Then, if I am not sensible, I am unconscious, and, if I am unconscious, I am not responsible for what I do.”
Moore with this justification made a sudden attempt to embrace Bessie, who, always prepared for such lawlessness, evaded his outstretched arms and retaliated by pricking him with her knife, a proceeding which resulted in the instant removal of the poet’s person from her desk, accompanied by an ejaculation that sounded suspiciously like profanity.
“What did you say, Tom?” asked Bessie with a gurgle of satisfaction. For once she had the better of her resourceful admirer.
“You will have to guess that, Bessie,” he remarked. “Do you think that is a nice way to treat a young man?”
“Oh, it was only a joke,” said Bessie, quite unrepentant.
“Your jokes are too pointed,” said Moore. “After this please refrain from any that are sharp enough to go clean through doe-skin breeches and I ’ll thank you.”
The door opened suddenly and Dicky, still resplendent in red shirt and golden curls, appeared, carrying a book. He halted on the threshold and looked inquiringly at his teacher.
“Egad, it’s the cherub!” exclaimed Moore.
Taking courage, Dicky toddled in, book in hand, and approached Moore, who gazed wonderingly down at him.
“Well, my lad, what do you want?”
“Please, sir,” piped Dicky, “I wants help wid me lessons,” and he held up his book. Bessie stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to smother her laughter, while a look of understanding came into Moore’s eyes.
“Oh, you want help, do you?” said the latter.
“Yis, sir, wid me aris’metic,” announced Dicky, laboring earnestly to bring forth the big word and catching some of the edges with his teeth in spite of the exertion. “It’s a sum, sir.”
“A sum indeed?” echoed Moore.
“Yis, sir, and the answer is one shillin’, sir.”
Moore looked over at Bessie, who almost choked and had to seek relief in coughing. Then he regarded the recently arrived blackmailer with a glance that he vainly endeavored to make severe, but Dicky perceived the twist of mirth at the sides of his victim’s mouth, and took heart accordingly.
“A shilling, my young Jack Sheppard?” said Moore, feeling in his pocket. “I ’ll give you a six-pence.”
“Patsy said it was a shillin’,” insisted Dicky, stamping his feet by way of emphasis.
Moore yielded in shameful defeat.
“There you are, you highwayman, and you tell Patsy I ’ll flake him when I catch him again,” he said, handing out the desired coin. “You see that door? Well, get through it as quickly as you can, or I may do you bodily injury.”
Dicky fled wildly across the school-room with Moore galloping at his heels, then the door shut with a bang, and the pair were alone again.