China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

that the patient was clearly on the mend, that the doctor allowed her, in his presence, to tell the old man about John.

Adalbert received the news coldly. “The child is evil,” he remarked, his voice suggesting that if the boy disappeared permanently it would be no bad thing. “The answer, however,” he added with a sniff, “is simple.”

When the governess heard it, she gave a cry of dismay, for it sounded barbaric. But the doctor was entirely in agreement. “I know where they can be procured,” he said, “but they may not be here before tomorrow.” And kindly Miss Grant could only pray that they would not be needed.

—

At first, the little boy had been very much afraid. He’d heard Miss Grant calling him, even caught sight of her from his hiding place, and he had wanted so much to run into her arms, for the kindly Scotswoman was the nearest thing he had to a mother. But he knew that he must not, for if he did, she would take him back to the house and then he would be hanged for murder. After she had gone, he walked on until he came to a tiny stream, tinkling through the bracken, where he drank some water.

The July night was warm, but it was very dark. He listened for any sound of creatures and heard a soft footfall that, he supposed, might have come from a fox. But after a time he was so tired that he curled up and fell asleep.

At dawn, he realized that he was very hungry. He wondered whether, if he kept on, he might come to any cottages where he could beg some food. But that would be no good. They’d want to know who he was. They might even have been told to look out for him. Could he steal some food? Little chance of that. Most cottagers kept a dog. If he walked for long enough and came to a town where no one would notice him, he could buy something to eat, if he had any money. But he had no money.

All logic told him he must go home. But then, suddenly forced to grow beyond his years, the determined little boy came to a decision. He would rather die out here in the woods, free and on his own terms, than be thrown in prison and hanged by people who had control over him.

So it was, at the age of six, and based upon a childish misunderstanding, that John Trader became the man he would be for the rest of his life.

But he was still very hungry. Hoping that something might turn up, he wandered through the woods, farther and farther from Miss Grant and the gabled house. Early in the afternoon, he came to an orchard where apples were growing, some of which were ripe enough to eat. That put something in his stomach, at least. A little later, he found wild blackberries and gorged himself upon them. By the time he fell asleep that evening, he was seven miles away from his great-uncle’s house.

They found him at ten o’clock the next morning. The bloodhounds, that is. He was walking across open ground by a big wheat field, and he was very tired. The baying sound the bloodhounds made as they approached was frightening, but when they reached him, he found himself bowled over by two friendly, floppy-jowled dogs who seemed just as pleased to see him as their handler, a burly fellow with big brown whiskers who told the hounds repeatedly that they were good boys.

Only minutes later he was clasped in the arms of Miss Grant, who hugged him as closely as if she really had been his mother.

—

He wasn’t punished. For several weeks his life resumed exactly as usual, except that Uncle Adalbert was away a good deal and spoke to him little when he was there, and that Miss Grant sometimes looked sad.

Then in September, after parting tearfully from Miss Grant, he was sent away to the little boarding school in the country.

Uncle Adalbert never came to see him there, but parents did not come to see their children in those days, so he felt no deprivation. Nor did he see the old lawyer in the holidays, for Adalbert had found a family with whom he could live in a big house near Blackheath. At least he always supposed that Adalbert had found them, and if the local doctor had obtained their name and if Miss Grant had been sent to inspect them, he never knew of it. They were a jolly family, with a lot of children, and he was happy spending the school holidays there. By the time, at the age of twelve, he went to the big boys school at Rugby, he thought of the Blackheath family as almost his own.

He would have liked to see Miss Grant again, but he never did, though his memory of her remained quite vivid. He did not forget the incident with Uncle Adalbert, either, but he thought about it less each year. As for his parents, they became, in his mind, more like the memory of a memory. And if sometimes, in his bed at night at school, he would have liked to weep, he never did so, even silently, but let his mind drift down into a dark subterranean world, whose hidden streams did service for his tears.

He kept his promise to his first headmaster and never lost his temper again. Sometimes a black mood came over him and he found it difficult to work, but he kept these moods under control.

Uncle Adalbert might still consider that his niece’s son was a potential murderer, but he died just before John completed his schooldays, so that young Trader entered the adult world believing, along with everyone else, that he was a pretty decent sort of fellow on the whole.

He also came of age with a tidy fortune. Uncle Adalbert had tended his inheritance with