The Keys of the Kingdom by A. J. Cronin Read Free Book Online Page A

wanted rivets fast, faster than the boys could give them. And the rivets must be heated to the proper incandescence. If they were not malleable the men threw them back at the boys. Up and down the ladder, to and from the fires, scorched, smoky, with inflamed eyes, panting, perspiring. Francis fed the platers all day long.
    In afternoon the work went faster: the men seemed careless, straining every nerve, unsparing of their bodies. The closing hour passed in a swimming daze with ear drums tense for the final hooter.
    At last, at last it sounded. What blessed relief! Francis stood still, moistening his cracked lips, deafened by the cessation of all sound. On the way home, grimed and sweaty, through his tiredness, he thought: Tomorrow … tomorrow. That strange glitter returned to his eye, he squared his shoulders.
    That night he took the wooden box down from its hiding place in the disused oven and changed his hoard of silver and coppers, saved with agonizing slowness, into half a sovereign. The golden coin, clutched deep in his trouser pocket, fevered him. With a queer, exalted flush he asked Mrs Glennie for a needle and thread. She snubbed him, then threw him suddenly a veiled appraising glance.
    ‘Wait! There’s a reel in the top drawer – by that card of needles. You can take it.’ She watched him go out.
    In the privacy of his bare and wretched room above the bakehouse he folded the coin in a square of paper, sewed it firm and tight inside the lining of his coat. He had a sense of glad security as he came down to give her back the thread.
    The following day, Saturday, the Shipyard closed at twelve. The thought that he would never enter these gates again so elated him that at dinner he could scarcely eat; he felt his flushed restlessness more than enough to raise some sharp inquiry from Mrs Glennie. To his relief she made no comment. As soon as he left the table, he edged out of the house, slipped down East Street, then fairly took to his heels.
    Outside the town, he slipped into a brisk walk. His heart was singing within him. It was pathetic, commonplace: the time-worn flight of all unhappy childhood. Yet for him it was the road to freedom. Once he was in Manchester he could find work at the cotton-mills, he was sure, doubly sure. He covered the fifteen miles to the railway Junction in four hours. It was striking six o’clock as he entered Alstead Station.
    Seated under an oil lamp on the draughty deserted platform, he opened his penknife, cut the sewing on his jacket, removed the folded paper, took the shining coin from within. A porter appeared on the platform, some other passengers then the booking office opened.
    He took his place at the grille, demanded his ticket.
    ‘Nine and six,’ the clerk said, punching the green cardboard slip into the machine.
    Francis gasped with relief: he had not, after all, miscalculated the fare. He pushed his money through the grille.
    There was a pause. ‘ What’s the game? I said nine and six.’
    ‘I gave you half a sovereign.’
    ‘Oh, you did! Try that again young feller and I’ll have you run in!’ The clerk indignantly flung the coin back at him.
    It was not a half-sovereign but a bright new farthing.
    In anguished stupor, Francis saw the train tear in, take up its freight, and go whistling into the night. Then his mind groping dully, struck the heart of the enigma. The sewing, when he ripped it open, was not his own clumsy stitching but a close firm seam. In a withering flash he knew who had taken his money: Mrs Glennie.
    At half-past nine, outside the colliery village of Sanderston, in the dank wet mist which blurred his gig-lamps, a man in a dogcart almost ran down the solitary figure keeping the middle of the road. Only one person was likely to be driving in such a place on such a night. Dr Tulloch, holding in his scarlet beast, peered downwards through the fog, his masterly invective suddenly cut short.
    ‘Great Lord Hippocrates! It’s you. Get in. Quick, will