Dick Lionheart | Page 3

Dick sat down and took a tattered book from
his pocket and began to read once more the story of Richard the King.
It was the story that he loved best in the history lessons, for his own
name was Richard Hart Crosby, and the fancy had come into his life
like a sunbeam, that he might be Richard Lionheart too.
There were no books in the Fowleys' kitchen, and none of the children
went to Sunday school regularly. Just for a week or two before the
annual treat, or Christmas tree, they would go in great force, but Dick
could not be spared.
But he had one other little book that was kept as a hidden treasure--his
mother's Bible, that she had left to him. And in that he had learned how
to be a true Lionheart and a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And every day
he managed to read a few verses at least.
Now, as the sultry afternoon wore away, and the baby still slept, he
thought again and again of the discovery he had made, that he did not
really belong to the Fowleys.
"I have tried to please them and be brave and do my duty because
they've given me a home," he reasoned to himself, "but perhaps if they
had money when father died, I'm not beholden after all, as they always
say I am. And oh, I would like to find a real relation! And isn't it good
of Paddy to get that dear little Pat for me? I must wait till he is big
enough to go too, and then I can have him for my very, very own."
Dick was thirteen, and small for his age, but his mental powers were
keen, and he knew that if he stayed with the Fowleys he would have no
chance to get on in life.
And looking up into the blue summer sky, he prayed to his heavenly
Father to help him to get away.
CHAPTER II.

FIGHTING FIRE.
A sudden scream of terror from the cottage roused Dick from his
thinking, and laying the baby down he rushed in.
On the doorstep he met little Susy, with her lilac pinafore in flames.
She had been trying to reach something from the mantelpiece, and had
climbed up on the unsteady old fender. There was no guard in front of
the open fire, and the draught had drawn her pinafore towards the bars
and set it on fire, and the flames were mounting around her, and already
her hair was singed.
But Lionheart knew what to do. With a spring and a cry he caught her
just as she was rushing out-of-doors, and flinging her down he fell on
her, and tore and clutched at the burning rags with his bare hands.
She screamed with fright rather than with pain, but Dick did not let go
till the danger was past; and his clothes, being woollen, did not catch.
There was a scuffle of footsteps as Mrs. Fowley and two other women
came in with a great outcry. And the sobbing child was wrapped in a
big shawl, and the doctor sent for.
And her mother, to relieve her own fears, began as usual to upbraid
Dick.
"It's all your fault, you good-for-nothing pauper! Why didn't you look
after the child?"
"I thought you had her, she went out with you," he said, trembling with
dread of more than a scolding, and scarcely able to bear the pain in his
poor burned hands.
"Then you'd no business to think," she screamed. "What you've got to
do is to mind the children, and anything else I've a mind to order you to
do. Three years and better we've kep' you out of charity, and you don't
earn shoe leather yet. Where's the baby?"

"Asleep in the garden, I put her down under the tree when I heard Susy
cry out."
"Then go and fetch her this minute. And a fine hiding you'll get when
Fowley comes home. Susy's his favourite out of 'em all."
Dick looked appealingly at the neighbours and muttered, "I--I can't
carry her--my hands----"
"Bless me, there's work for the doctor here," said one of the women in
consternation, as she looked at his poor scorched fingers.
"Depend upon 't, Mrs. Fowley, he's saved your Susy's life. Best not talk
about hidings."
"What's the matter here?" cried a brisk voice at the door, as the old
doctor entered. He had been visiting in the next street, and was
fortunately met by the messenger.
"Burns. Ah! the old story--open fires and no guard. When will you
women learn wisdom?"
Mrs. Fowley shrank from his stern look, and whined, "How can the
likes of we afford guards, I should like to know?"
"Afford?" he echoed sharply,