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Updated: May 31, 2025
Miss Oliver, however, knew no more of 'Biades ways than that on her approach as a rule he either fled precipitately or, if no retreat offered itself, stood stock-still, put a finger in his mouth, and seemed to be calling on some effort of the will to make him invisible. To-day he met her accost easily, familiarly, even with what in a grown male might have been taken for a drunken leer.
There was something queer in this: for the elder children had started a game of tig, down by the bridge that is to say, within earshot and as a rule any such game attracted 'Biades fatally to its periphery, where he would stand with his eyes rounded and his heart sick for the time when he would be grown up and invited to join in. To-day his back was turned to the fun.
"Then what have you done with them?" thundered Mr Pamphlett. "Don't you answer him that," said 'Beida sweetly. "But answer everything else. An' don't you be afraid of him. I ben't." "What d'ee want me to tell?" asked 'Bert, a trifle uneasily. "Everything: 'cept you may leave out 'Biades. He's but a child o' four, an' don't count."
"What's lungs?" asked 'Biades. "There was a boy in the south of Ireland somewhere," his mother answered, collecting a few wash-cloths she had hung to dry on the door of the cooking apparatus, "as took to his bed with nothing the matter at the age o' fourteen. Next day, when his mother called him to get up, he said he wasn't took very well.
As soon as he saw her busy with the clothes-pegs, Master 'Biades crept to a small iron door in the wall, a foot or two from the range, and stealthily lifted the latch. In that cavity lay the treasure. Gold untold gold! He thrust his head into the aperture, and gloated. But it was so deep that even when his eyes became used to the darkness he could see nothing of the hoard. He wanted to gloat more.
"Lor sake!" said he, hastily shutting and pocketing his knife. "What you got there?" "'Biades," answered 'Beida, with a tragical face. "Han't I heard your mother warn 'ee a score o' times, against lettin' that cheeld play loose on the Quay! . . . What's happened to 'en? Broke his tender neck, I shouldn' wonder. . . . Here, let me have a look " "Broke his tender fiddle-stick!" 'Beida retorted.
"He spat upon it, an' rubbed it on his trousers," answered 'Biades with a glibness that astonished himself, 'peeking' between his fingers to make sure that they really held the prize. Inspiration took the child, once started, and he lied as one lifted far above earth. "Mr Nanjivell said as it might help me to forget Father's bein' away at the War.
"If it should turn out to be a case o' suppressed measles, now, I'd hate to go to my grave wi' the thought that I'd banged 'em in." So Mrs Penhaligon, having picked up her clothes, issued forth into the sunlight of the back-yard. 'Biades watched her through the narrow kitchen window. He watched her cunningly.
That same afternoon as Miss Charity Oliver came down the hill on her first errand as Relief Visitor, at the corner by Mrs Pengelly's she happened on young 'Biades, posted solitary before the shop-window.
"Nonsense your tellin'," 'Bert interrupted. "Father's put on his uniform. How can you make it that things ben't differ'nt, after that?" "An' he's here!" 'Biades nodded, over his half-lifted spoon, at Nicky-Nan. "Oh!" said 'Bert, "that isn' because of the War. That's to say Good-bye, because he's turnin' out this week."
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