Life in the Red Brigade by Robert Michael Ballantyne (summer beach reads TXT) 📖

the accident, and sprang towards the place.

"If he's not killed by the fall, he's safe from the fire, for it is burnt out there," he remarked to David Clazie, who accompanied him. Before they reached the place, Joe Dashwood and two other men had rushed in. They found Ned lying on his back in a mixture of charcoal and water, almost buried in a mass of rubbish which the falling beam had dragged down along with it. In a few seconds this was removed, and Ned was carried out and laid on the pavement, with a coat under his head.

"There's no cut anywhere that I can see," said Joe Dashwood examining him.

"His fall must have been broke by goin' through the lath and plaster o' the ceilin' below," suggested Bob Clazie.

At that moment, there was a great crash, followed by a loud cry, and a cheer from the multitude, as the roof fell in, sending up a magnificent burst of sparks and flame, in the midst of which Ned Crashington was borne from the field of battle.

While this scene was going on, Mrs Crashington and her brother were still seated quietly enjoying their tea--at least, enjoying it as much as such characters can be said to enjoy anything.

When Ned had gone out, as before mentioned, Phil remarked:--

"I wouldn't rouse him like that, Mag, if I was you."

"But he's so aggravatin'," pleaded Mrs Crashington.

"He ain't half so aggravatin' as _you_ are," replied Phil, gruffly. "I don't understand your temper at all. You take all the hard words _I_ give you as meek as a lamb, but if _he_ only offers to open his mouth you fly at him like a turkey-cock. However, it's no business o' mine, and now," he added, rising, "I must be off."

"So, you won't tell me before you go, what sort of employment you've got?"

"No," replied Phil, shortly.

"Why not, Phil?"

"Because I don't want you to know, and I don't want your husband to know."

"But I won't tell him, Phil."

"I'll take good care you can't tell him," returned Phil, as he fastened a worsted comforter round his hairy throat. "It's enough for you to know that I ain't starvin' and that the work pays, though it ain't likely to make my fortin'."

Saying this, Mr Sparks condescended to give his sister a brief nod and left the house.

He had not been gone much more than a couple of hours, when Mrs Crashington, having put little Fred to sleep, was roused from a reverie by the sound of several footsteps outside, followed by a loud ring at the bell; she opened the door quickly, and her husband was borne in and laid on his bed.

"Not dead?" exclaimed the woman in a voice of agony.

"No, missus, not dead," said David Clazie, "but hardly better, I fear."

When Maggie looked on the poor bruised form, with garments torn to shreds, and so covered with charcoal, water, lime, and blood, as to be almost an indistinguishable mass, she could not have persuaded herself that he was alive, had not a slight heaving of the broad chest told that life still remained.

"It's a 'orrible sight, that, missus," said David Clazie, with a look that seemed strangely stern.

"It is--oh it is--terrible!" said Mrs Crashington, scarce able to suppress a cry.

"Ah, you'd better take a good look at it," added Clazie, "for it's your own doing, missus."

Maggie looked at him in surprise, but he merely advised her to lend a hand to take the clothes off, as the doctor would be round in a minute; so she silently but actively busied herself in such duties as were necessary.

Meanwhile Phil Sparks went about the streets of London attending to the duties of his own particular business. To judge from appearances, it seemed to be rather an easy occupation, for it consisted mainly in walking at a leisurely pace through the streets and thoroughfares, with his hands in his pockets and a pipe in his mouth.

Meditation also appeared to be an important branch of this business, for Phil frequently paused in front of a large mansion, or a magnificent shop, and gazed at it so intently, that one might have almost fancied he was planning the best method of attempting a burglary, although nothing was farther from Phil's intentions. Still, his meditations were sometimes so prolonged, that more than one policeman advised him, quite in a friendly way, to "move on."

Apparently, however, Phil turned over no profit, on this business, and was about to return home supperless to bed, when he suddenly observed smoke issuing from an upper window. Rare and lucky chance! He was the first to observe it. He knew that the first who should convey the alarm of fire to a fire-station would receive a shilling for his exertions. He dashed off at once, had the firemen brought to the spot in a few minutes, so that the fire was easily and quickly overcome. Thus honest Phil Sparks earned his supper, and the right to go home and lay his head on his pillow, with the happy consciousness of having done a good action to his fellow-men, and performed a duty to the public and himself.


CHAPTER FOUR.

It is probable that there is not in all the wide world a man--no matter how depraved, or ill-favoured, or unattractive--who cannot find some sympathetic soul, some one who will be glad to see him and find more or less pleasure in his society. Coarse in body and mind though Philip Sparks was, there dwelt a young woman, in one of the poorest of the poor streets in the neighbourhood of Thames Street, who loved him, and would have laid down her life for him.

To do Martha Reading justice, she had fallen in love with Sparks before intemperance had rendered his countenance repulsive and his conduct brutal. When, perceiving the power he had over her, he was mean enough to borrow and squander the slender gains she made by the laborious work of dress-making--compared to which coal-heaving must be mere child's play--she experienced a change in her feelings towards him, which she could not easily understand or define. Her thoughts of him were mingled with intense regrets and anxieties, and she looked forward to his visits with alarm. Yet those thoughts were not the result of dying affection; she felt quite certain of that, having learned from experience that, "many waters cannot quench love."

One evening, about eight o'clock, Phil Sparks, having prosecuted his "business" up to that hour without success, tapped at the door of Martha's garret and entered without waiting for permission; indeed, his tapping at all was a rather unwonted piece of politeness.

"Come in, Phil," said Martha, rising and shaking hands, after which she resumed her work.

"You seem busy to-night," remarked Sparks, sitting down on a broken chair beside the fireless grate, and taking out his bosom companion, a short black pipe, which he began to fill.

"I am always busy," said Martha, with a sigh.

"An' it don't seem to agree with you, to judge from your looks," rejoined the man.

This was true. The poor girl's pretty face was thin and very pale and haggard.

"I was up all last night," she said, "and feel tired now, and there's not much chance of my getting to bed to-night either, because the lady for whom I am making this must have it by to-morrow afternoon at latest."

Here Mr Sparks muttered something very like a malediction on ladies in general, and on ladies who "_must_" have dresses in particular.

"Your fire's dead out, Martha," he added, poking among the ashes in search of a live ember.

"Yes, Phil, it's out. I can't afford fire of an evening; besides it ain't cold just now."

"You can afford matches, I suppose," growled Phil; "ah, here they are. Useful things matches, not only for lightin' a feller's pipe with, but also for--well; so she _must_ have it by to-morrow afternoon, must she?"

"Yes, so my employer tells me."

"An' she'll not take no denial, won't she?"

"I believe not," replied Martha, with a faint smile, which, like a gleam of sunshine on a dark landscape, gave indication of the brightness that might have been if grey clouds of sorrow had not overspread her sky.

"What's the lady's name, Martha?"

"Middleton."

"And w'ere abouts may she live?"

"In Conway Street, Knightsbridge."

"The number?"

"Number 6, I believe; but why are you so particular in your inquiries about her?" said Martha, looking up for a moment from her work, while the faint gleam of sunshine again flitted over her face.

"Why, you see, Martha," replied Phil, gazing through the smoke of his pipe with a sinister smile, "it makes a feller feel koorious to hear the partiklers about a lady wot _must_ have things, an' won't take no denial! If I was you, now, I'd disappoint her, an' see how she'd take it."

He wound up his remark, which was made in a bantering tone, with another malediction, which was earnest enough--savagely so.

"Oh! Phil," cried the girl, in an earnest tone of entreaty; "don't, oh, don't swear so. It is awful to think that God hears you, is near you-- at your very elbow--while you thus insult Him to his face."

The man made no reply, but smoked with increasing intensity, while he frowned at the empty fire-place.

"Well, Martha," he said, after a prolonged silence, "I've got work at last."

"Have you?" cried the girl, with a look of interest.

"Yes; it ain't much to boast of, to be sure, but it pays, and, as it ties me to nothin' an' nobody, it suits my taste well. I'm wot you may call a appendage o' the fire-brigade. I hangs about the streets till I sees a fire, w'en, off I goes full split to the nearest fire-station, calls out the engine, and gits the reward for bein' first to give the alarm."

"Indeed," said Martha, whose face, which had kindled up at first with pleasure, assumed a somewhat disappointed look; "I--I fear you won't make much by that, Phil?"

"You don't seem to make much by that," retorted Phil, pointing with the bowl of his pipe to the dress which lay in her lap and streamed in a profusion of rich folds down to the floor.

"Not much," assented Martha, with a sigh. "Well, then," continued Phil, re-lighting his pipe, and pausing occasionally in his remarks to admire the bowl, "that bein' so, you and I are much in the same fix, so if we unites our small incomes, of course that'll make 'em just double the size."

"Phil," said Martha, in a lower voice, as she let her hands and the work on which they were engaged fall on her lap, "I think, now, that it will never be."

"What'll never be?" demanded the man rudely, looking at the girl in surprise.

"Our marriage."

"What! are you going to jilt me?"

"Heaven forbid," said Martha, earnestly. "But you and I are not as we once were, Phil, we differ on many points. I feel sure that our union would make us more miserable than we are."

"Come, come," cried the man, half in jest and half in earnest. "This kind of thing