THE SECOND CHAPTER THE ADVENTURER'S RETURN
AS we came nearer to the town and the lights about Kingsbridge twinkled at us through the gray mist Polynesia said: “It would be wiser, Doctor, if you sent Tommy in to get the sausages and went around the town yourself. You'll never get home if the children and dogs start recognizing you. You know that.”
“Yes, I think you're right, Polynesia,” said the Doctor. “We can turn off here to the North and get around on to the Oxenthorpe Road by Baldwin's Pool and the Mill Fields.”
So the rest of the party went off with the Doctor, while I went on into the town alone. I was a little sorry not to have been present at John Dolittle's homecoming, I must admit. But I had another thrill which partly made up for it. Swaggering across Kingsbridge, alone, I returned to my native town a conquering adventurer from foreign parts. Oh, my! Christopher Columbus just back from his discovery of the New World could not have felt prouder than I, Tommy Stubbins, the cobbler's son, did that night.
One of the little things that added to the thrill of it was that no one recognized me. I was like some enchanted person in the Arabian Nights who could see without being seen. I was three years older than when I had left, at an age when a boy shoots up and changes like a weed. As I swung along beneath the dim street lamps toward the butcher's in the High Street I knew the faces of more than half the folk who passed me by. And I chuckled to myself to think how surprised they'd be if I told them who I was and all the great things I had seen and done since last I trod these cobble-stones. Then in a flash I saw myself back again on the river wall, where I had so often sat with legs dangling over the water, watching the ships come and go, dreaming of the lands I had never seen.
In the Market Square, before a dimly lighted shop, I saw a figure which I would have known anywhere, seen from the back or the front. It was Matthew Mugg, the Cats'-meat-Man. Just out of mischief, to see if he, too, would be unable to recognize me, I went up the shop front and stood, like him, looking in at the window. Presently he turned and looked at me. No. He didn't know me from Adam. Highly amused, I went on to the butcher's.
I asked for the sausages. They were weighed out, wrapped and handed to me. The butcher was an old acquaintance of mine, but beyond glancing at my old clothes (they were patched and mended and sadly outgrown) he showed no sign of curiosity or recognition. But when I came to pay for my purchases I found to my dismay that the only money I had in my pockets was two large Spanish silver pieces, souvenirs of our stormy visit to the Capa Blanca Islands. The butcher looked at them and shook his head.
“We only take English money here,” he said.
“I'm sorry,” I said apologetically, “but that is all I have. Couldn't you exchange it for me? It is, as you see, good silver. One of these pieces should be worth a crown at least.”
“Maybe it is,” said the butcher. “But I can't take it.”
He seemed sort of suspicious and rather annoyed. While I was wondering what I should do I became aware that there was a third party in the shop interested in what was going on. I turned to look. It was Matthew Mugg. He had followed me.
This time his eye (the one that didn't squint) fixed me with a curious look of half-recognition. Suddenly he rushed at me and grabbed me by the hand.
“It's Tommy!” he squeaked. “As I live it's Tommy Stubbins, grown so tall and handsome his own mother wouldn't know him, and as brown as a berry.”
Matthew was, of course, well known to the tradesmen of the town—especially to the butcher, from whom he bought the bones and odd pieces of meat he fed to the dogs. He turned to the shopkeeper.
“Why, Alfred,” he cried, “this is Tommy Stubbins, Jacob Stubbins's lad, back from furrin parts. No need to be worried about his credit, Alfred. He's shopping for the Doctor, I'll be bound. You brought the Doctor back with you?” he asked, peering at me anxiously. “Don't tell me you come back alone?”
“No,” I said. “The Doctor's here, safe and sound.”
“You're just in, eh?” said he. “To-night—huh? John Dolittle couldn't be in this town long without my knowing it.”
“Yes,” I said. “He's on his way up to the house now. Asked me to do a little shopping for him. But all the money I have is foreign.”
I said this with the superior air of an experienced traveler, raising my eyebrows a little disdainfully at the obstinate butcher, whose stay-at-home mind couldn't be expected to appreciate a real adventurer's difficulties.
“Oh, well, Alfred will let you have the sausages, I'm sure,” said Matthew.
“Why, yes, that's all right, Tommy,” said the butcher, smiling at my airs. “Though we ain't exactly a money exchange, you know. But if you had said at first who you were, and who the sausages were for, I'd have charged them to the Doctor without a word—even though his credit hasn't always been of the best. Take the meat—and tell John Dolittle I'm glad he's back safe.”
“Thank you,” I said, with dignity.
Then, with my package beneath one arm and Matthew Mugg firmly grasping the other, I stepped forth into the street.
“You know, Tommy,” said Matthew, as we set off in the direction of the Oxenthorpe Road, “all the years that John Dolittle's been returning from voyages he ain't never got home once without me to welcome him the first night he got in. Not that he ever tells me he's coming, mind you. No, indeed. As often as not, I fancy, he'd rather no one knew. But somehow or other I always finds out before he's been in the town an hour, and right away I'm up there to welcome him. And once I'm inside the house, he seems to get used to me and be glad I'm there. I suppose you seen an awful lot of adventures and strange sights and things since I saw you last?”
“Yes, Matthew,” I said. “We saw even more than I had thought or hoped we would. We have brought back notebooks by the barrow-load and a collection of wonderful herbs which were gathered by an Indian naturalist—frightfully valuable and important. And—what do you think, Matthew?—we came back inside the shell of a giant sea snail who crawled along the bottom of the ocean with us all the way from the other side of the Atlantic!”
“Oh, well,” said Matthew, “there be no end to the strange things Doctor John Dolittle's seen and gone through. I've given up talking about his voyagings and queer doings. Down in the tap-room of the Red Lion I used to tell about his travels—of an evening like, when folk enjoy a tale. But never no more. It's like this business of his speaking animal languages: people don't believe you; so what's the good?”
We were now some half-mile along the Oxenthorpe Road and within a short distance of the Doctor's house. It was quite dark. But in the hedges and the trees all about us I could hear birds fluttering and chattering. In spite of Polynesia's request, the news had already spread, in that mysterious way it does in the Animal Kingdom. The season was still cold and few more than the winter birds could be found in England now. But round about the famous Little House with the Big Garden they were gathered in thousands—sparrows, robins, blackbirds, crows and starlings—to welcome the great man back, prepared to sit up all night just to see him in the morning.
And it occurred to me, as I walked up the steps and opened the little gate at the top, that such was the great difference between this strange popularity and friendship that the Doctor enjoyed and that of ordinary human society: with some friends, if you were away three years, it would mean you'd find yourself forgotten when you returned. But with John Dolittle and his animal friends, the longer he was gone the greater the welcome and rejoicing when he came home again.