The Rebel of the School by L. T. Meade (best fiction books of all time txt) 📗

which contained the stationery. She pushed it out of sight on the shelf, and sat down again to her book. Her mother ought to be coming in now. Susy would have to do a lot of exercises; these she could not by any possibility do in the shop. She had also some mathematical work to get through or she would never be able to keep her place in class. Why didn't Mrs. Hopkins return? Half-an-hour went by; three-quarters. It was now a quarter to eight. Susy felt quite distracted. With the exception of the two ladies, there had been no customer in the shop up to the present. The fact was, they did not begin to appear until soon after eight on Wednesday evenings. Then the schoolgirls and schoolboys and many other people of the poorer class used to drop in for penn'orths and ha'p'orths of stationery, for pens, for ink, for sealing-wax, &c.

"Mother must be in soon. I know what I will do," said Susy. "I will open the door of the parlor and sit there. If any one appears I can dash out at once."

No sooner had the thought come to her than she resolved to act on it. She turned on the gas in the parlor—it was already brightly lighted in the shop—and sat down to her work.

"An hour and a quarter before the meeting of the Wild Irish Girls," she said to herself. "Strange, is it not, that I should call myself a Wild Irish Girl when I am a Cockney through and through? Well, whatever happens, I shall be at the meeting."

CHAPTER X. THE WILD IRISH GIRLS' SOCIETY IS STARTED.

While Susy sat in the parlor a tramp happened to pass the brightly lighted shop. He was weather-beaten and slipshod, and altogether made a most disreputable appearance. A hand was thrust into each of his pockets, and these pockets were destitute of coin. The tramp was hungry and penniless. The little shop with its gay light and tempting articles of stationery, and books and sealing-wax displayed in the window, were quite to the man's taste. He could not see the parlor beyond, nor the peep-hole where Susy was supposed to be able to watch the shop; he only noticed that no one was within. The tramp was in the humor to do something desperate; he entered the shop under the pretense of begging; made straight for the till, pulled it open, and took out a handful of money. He had no time to count his spoils, but leaving the till-drawer still open, he dashed out of the shop.

Now it so happened that Susy, just when the tramp stole in, had gone upstairs to fetch a fresh exercise-book. She noticed nothing amiss on her return, and went tranquilly on with her work. Eight o'clock struck. Susy was in despair.

"I can't possibly fail Kathleen," she said to herself. "She started this splendid idea in order to help me and give me pleasure. I must be at the quarry whatever happens to-night. Something very unusual is detaining mother. I know what I'll do: I'll shut up the shop at half-past eight, leave a little note for mother, and then go to the quarry as fast as I can. I will tell mother that I am due at an important meeting, and she is sure not to question me; mother is always very kind, and gives me as much liberty as she can."

Susy made a great struggle to keep her mind centered on her books, but with all her efforts her thoughts would wander. They wandered to Kathleen and the Wild Irish Girls' Society; they wandered to her other schoolfellows; they wandered to the hardship of having to take care of the shop when she wished to be otherwise employed; and finally they settled themselves on Ruth Craven. She could not help wondering what Ruth would do—whether she would continue to be a valuable aid to the queen of the new society, or whether she would give them up altogether.

"I'd almost like her not to stay with us," thought Susy; "for then perhaps Kathleen would make me her Prime Minister. I'd like that. Kathleen is the dearest, truest, greatest lady I ever came across. She doesn't think anything of birth, nor of those sort of tiresome distinctions; she thinks of you for what you are worth yourself. And she is so splendid to look at, and has such a gallant sort of way. I do admire her just!"

The shop-bell rang. Susy was out in a moment. A woman had called for a penn'orth of paper and an envelope. She put down her penny on the counter, and Susy supplied her from a special box.

"I was in such a taking," said the woman. "I just remembered at the last moment that all the shops were shut. I don't know what I should have done if I hadn't recalled that Mrs. Hopkins kept hers open until nine o'clock. I am obliged to you, little girl. I have to send this letter to my son in India, and I'd miss the mail if it wasn't posted to-night. You couldn't now, I suppose, oblige me with a stamp."

"Of course I can," said Susy, cheerfully. "Mother always keeps a supply of stamps in the till."

She turned to the till as she spoke, and for the first time noticed that the drawer was open.

"How careless of me not to have shut it!" she thought.

It did not occur to her to examine its contents, or to suppose for a single moment that any one had taken money out of it. She provided the woman with a stamp, and then, shut the drawer of the till. It was now half-past eight, and Susy determined to take the bull by the horns and to close the shop without further ado. She sent for the little maid in the kitchen to put up the shutters, and in a minute or two the shop was in darkness and Susy was racing through the remainder of her lessons. It would take her a quarter of an hour, running most of the way, to reach the old quarry, and she must have three or four minutes to dress. She stood up, therefore, at her work, in order, as she expressed it, to save time. She was so occupied when her mother came in.

"Why have you shut the shop?" said Mrs. Hopkins in an annoyed voice. "It is only a very little past half-past eight, and I saw two poor women outside. They wanted a penn'orth of paper each. They said, 'We thought you always kept open until nine o'clock,' Now it will spread all over the place that I shut at half-past eight. Why did you do it, Susy? It's hard enough to make ends meet without adding any more difficulties."

Mrs. Hopkins stood, looking very pale and perplexed, in the parlor. Susy glanced at her mother, and could not help reflecting that the poor woman was fit to drop.

"Do sit down, mother," she said. "I was so distracted; I have to be a good way from here at nine o'clock, I couldn't think whatever kept you. I was obliged to shut the shop. I am sorry."

"Well, never mind. You didn't tell me that you were going out. I wish you wouldn't go out so much in the evening, Susy; it does make it so hard for me. There's no one now to help me with a bit of mending, and all your things are getting so racketed through."

"What kept you, mother?" said Susy, ignoring her mother's speech.

"Oh, it was your aunt. She's in such a taking about little Peter; she's quite certain he's in for measles or something worse. I'm persuaded that it's nothing but a cold. I never saw such a muddle-headed woman as your aunt Bessie. She hadn't a thing handy in the place. I had to stay and see the doctor, and then to fetch the medicine myself, and then put the child to bed. I assure you I haven't sat down since I left."

"And I suppose she never thought of giving you as much as a cup of tea?" said Susy.

"No," answered her mother; then catching sight of the teapot, she added, "You might have had the tea-things removed, Susy. I will make myself a fresh cup."

Susy stood still for a moment. Temptation tugged at her heart. Her mother certainly required if ever a mother did require a daughter. But the Wild Irish Girls—surely they were pining for her in the distance!

"I wish I could help you, mother. I would if I hadn't promised to go out. If you will give me the latchkey I can let myself in. You needn't wait up; I promise to lock up carefully."

"Very well, dear," said Mrs. Hopkins.

She did not reproach Susy; that was not her way. She put a little kettle on the gas-stove, fetched a clean cup and saucer, and presently sat down to her belated meal.

Susy dashed upstairs. She put on her hat and jacket, snatched up a pair of gloves, and the next moment was out of the house.

"Free at last," she thought. "But, oh, what an evening I have had! I must say it is horrid to be poor. Now, if I was rich like Kathleen, wouldn't I have a gay time of it? Poor dear mother should drive in a carriage, and I'd ride on my pony by her side; and Tom should be a public school boy. There'd be no horrid shop then, and no horrid women coming in for ha'p'orths and penn'orths of paper."

But as she ran through the autumn night-air she felt that, after all, there was something good in life. Her pulses, which had been languid enough in the stuffy little parlor at the back of the shop, now galloped fiercely. She arrived two or three minutes after nine, but still in fairly good time to see a number of dark heads surrounding a bright light. This light was caused by two lamps which had been placed on the ground in the old quarry; Kathleen had brought them herself in a hamper. She had managed to buy them that day, and had smuggled them off without any one being the wiser. A large bottle of crystalline oil accompanied the lamps. Kathleen, who had dressed lamps for pleasure at home, knew quite well how to manage them, and when Susy appeared they stood at each end of a wide patch of light. Kathleen herself was in the midst of the light, and the other girls clustered round the edge.

"Isn't it scrumptious?" said Kate Rourke.—"Oh, is that you, Susy Hopkins? You are late."

"Yes, I know I am. It's a wonder I could come at all," said Susy.

"Ruth Craven hasn't come yet," said another voice.

"Yes, here she is," cried a third, and Ruth came and stood at the edge of the patch of light.

Kathleen flung off her hat, and the light from the lamps lit up her brilliant hair. Her cheeks were flaming with color, and her very dark-blue eyes looked as black as night. She faced her companions.

"Well," she said, "here we are, and we call ourselves the Wild Irish Girls. I really wonder if you English girls who are assembled here in the old quarry to-night have the least idea what it means to be a wild Irish girl. If you don't know, I'd like to tell you."

"Yes, do tell us," cried several.

"The principal thing that it means," continued Kathleen, raising her voice to a slightly theatrical pitch, and extending her arm so that the lamplight fell all over it—"the chief thing that it means is to be free—yes, free as the air, free as the mountain streams, free as the dear, darling, glorious, everlasting mountains themselves. Oh, to know freedom and then to be torn away from it! Girls, I will tell you the truth. I feel in your dull old England as though I were in prison. Yes, that's about it. I don't like England. I want you girls to join me in loving Ireland."

"But we can't hate England," said Kate Rourke; "that is quite impossible. If Ireland is your native land, England is ours, and we cannot help loving her very, very much."

"You have never known Ireland," continued Kathleen. "You are not cramped up in that favored spot; you are allowed to get up when you like and to go to bed when you like, to eat what you like, to read what books you like, to row on the lake, to shoot in the bogs, to gallop on