Johnny had finished his tea, and was lying at his ease in the old easy-chair, whistling, rattling his heels on the hearth, and studying a crack in the ceiling that suggested an angry face.  Mrs. May had put the sixpence the sloes had brought into the cracked teacup that still awaited the return of Uncle Isaac’s half-crown, had washed the tea-things, and was now mending the worn collar of gran’dad’s great-coat, in readiness for the winter.  Bessy had fallen asleep over her book, had been wakened, had fallen asleep again, and in the end had drowsily climbed the stairs to early bed: but still the old man did not return.

“I wonder gran’dad ain’t back yet,” Johnny’s mother said for the third time.  “He said he’d be quick, so’s to finish that case to-night.”  This was a glass-topped mahogany box, in course of setting with specimens of all the Sphinges: a special private order.

“’Spect he can’t find them caterpillars he went for,” Johnny conjectured; “that’s what it is.  He’s forgot all about racin’ me home.”

Mrs. May finished the collar, lifted the coat by the p. 44loop, and turned it about in search of rents.  Finding none, she put it down and stood at the door, listening.

“Think you’re too tired to go an’ look for him, Johnny?” she asked presently.

Johnny thought he was.  “It’s them caterpillars, safe enough,” he said.  “He never saw any before, an’ it was just a chance last night.  To-night he can’t find ’em, and he’s keepin’ on searchin’ all over the Pits and the Slade; that’s about it.”

There was another pause, till Mrs. May remembered something.  “The bit o’ candle he had in the lantern wouldn’t last an hour,” she said.  “He’d ha’ had to come back for more.  Johnny, I’m gettin’ nervous.”

“Why, what for?” asked Johnny, though the circumstance of the short candle startled his confidence.  “He might get a light from somewhere else, ’stead o’ comin’ all the way back.”

“But where?” asked Mrs. May.  “There’s only the Dun Cow, an’ he might almost as well come home—besides, he wouldn’t ask ’em.”

Johnny left the chair, and joined his mother at the door.  As they listened a more regular sound made itself plain, amid the low hum of the trees; footsteps.  “Here he comes,” said Johnny.

But the sound neared and the steps were long and the tread was heavy.  In a few moments Bob Smallpiece’s voice came from the gloom, wishing them good-night.

p. 45Mrs. May called to him.  “Have you seen gran’dad anywhere, Mr. Smallpiece?”

The keeper checked his strides, and came to the garden gate, piebald with the light from the cottage door.  “No,” he said, “I ain’t run across him, nor seen his light anywheres.  Know which way he went?”

“He was just going to Wormleyton Pits an’ back, that’s all.”

“Well, I’ve just come straight across the Pits, an’ as straight here as ever I could go, past the Dun Cow; an’ ain’t seen ne’er a sign of him.  Want him particular?”

“I’m gettin’ nervous about him, Mr. Smallpiece—somehow I’m frightened to-night.  He went out about six, an’ now it don’t want much to nine, an’ he only had a bit o’ candle that wouldn’t burn an hour.  And he never meant stopping long, I know, ’cause of a case he’s got to set.  I thought p’raps you might ha’ seen—”

“No, I see nothin’ of him.  But I’ll go back to the Pits now, if you like, an’ welcome.”

“I’d be sorry to bother you, but I would like someone to go.  Here, Johnny, go along, there’s a good boy.”

“All right, all right,” the keeper exclaimed cheerfully.  “We’ll go together.  I expect he’s invented some new speeches o’ moth, an’ he’s forgot all about his light, thinkin’ out the improvements.  It ain’t the first time he’s been out o’ night about here, anyhow.  Not likely to lose himself, is Mr. May.”

p. 46Johnny had his cap and was at the gate; and in a moment the keeper and he were mounting the slope.

“Mother’s worryin’ herself over nothing to-night,” Johnny grumbled.  “Gran’dad’s been later ’n this many’s a time, an’ she never said a word.  Why, when he gets after caterpillars an’ things he forgets everything.”

They walked on among the trees.  Presently, “How long is it since your father died?” Bob Smallpiece asked abruptly.

“Nine years, now, and more.”

“Mother might ha’ married agen, I s’pose?”

“I dunno.  Very likely.  Never heard her say nothing.”

Bob Smallpiece walked on with no more reply than a grunt.  Soon a light from the Dun Cow twinkled through the bordering coppice, and in a few paces they were up at the wood’s edge.

“No light along the road,” the keeper said, glancing to left and right, and making across the hard gravel.

“There’s somebody,” Johnny exclaimed, pointing up the pale road.

“Drunk,” objected the other.  And truly the indistinct figure staggered and floundered.  “An’ goin’ the wrong way.  Chap just out o’ the Dun Cow.  Come on.”

But Johnny’s gaze did not shift.  “It’s gran’dad!” he cried suddenly, and started running.

p. 47Bob Smallpiece sprang after him, and in twenty paces they were running abreast.  As they neared the old man they could hear him talking rapidly, in a monotonous, high-pitched voice; he was hatless, and though they called he took no heed, but stumbled on as one seeing and hearing nothing; till, as the keeper reached to seize his arm, he trod in a gulley and fell forward.

The shock interrupted his talk, and he breathed heavily, staring still before him, as he regained his uncertain foothold, and reeled a step farther.  Then Bob Smallpiece grasped him above the elbow, and shouted his name.

“What’s the matter, gran’dad?” Johnny demanded.  “Ill?”

The old man glared fixedly, and made as though to resume his course.

“Why, what’s this?” said Bob Smallpiece, retaining the arm, and lifting a hand gently to the old man’s hair.  It was blood, dotted and trickling.  “Lord! he’s had a bad wipe over the head,” said Bob, and with that lifted old May in his arms, as a nurse lifts a child.  “Theydon’s nearest; run, Johnny boy—run like blazes an’ fetch the doctor tantivy!”

“Take him into the Dun Cow?”

“No—home’s best, an’ save shiftin’ him twice.  Run it!”

“Purple Emperors an’ Small Coppers,” began the p. 48old man again in his shrill chatter.  “Small Coppers an’ Marsh Ringlets everywhere, and my bag full o’ letters at the beginning of the round, but I finished my round and now they’re all gone; all gone because o’ London comin’, an’ I give in my empty bag—” and so he tailed off into indistinguishable gabble, while Bob Smallpiece carried him into the wood.

To Johnny, scudding madly toward Theydon, it imparted a grotesque horror, as of some absurd nightmare, this baby-babble of his white-haired grandfather, carried baby-fashion.  He blinked as he ran, and felt his head for his cap, half believing that he ran in a dream in very truth.