The Garret and the Garden; Or, Low Life High Up by R. M. Ballantyne (free biff chip and kipper ebooks TXT) 📖

“Mrs Blathers,” remarked Mrs Rampy, in a soft sarcastic tone which she was wont to assume when stung to the quick, and which her friend knew from experience was the prelude to a burst of passion, “I may be wrong as usual, but as you have never seen or conwersed with this Scotsman, an’ don’t know nothink about ’im, perhaps you will condescend to give me an’ Liz the kreckt wershion.”

“Now, Mrs Rampy,” interposed old Liz, grasping her teapot, “don’t be angry, for Mrs Blathers is right. Scotsmen are no better than they should be. Neither are English nor Irish nor Welshmen. In fact, there’s none of us—men or women—nearly as good as we should be. Now, I am sure it won’t be denied,” continued Liz, in an argumentative tone, “that Mrs Blathers might be better—”

“Ha! I won’t deny it,” said Mrs Rampy, with emphasis.

“Nor,” continued Liz, hastening to equalise her illustration, “nor that Mrs Rampy might be better—”

“Right you are,” said Mrs Blathers, with sarcasm. “And I’m still surer,” said Liz hurriedly—a little put out at the ready reception of her propositions—“that I might be better—”

“Not at all,” interrupted both ladies at once; “you’re a trump, Liz, you’re a dear creetur!”

“Come, then,” cried old Liz, with a laugh that set the fang wobbling, “you are at all events agreed upon that point so—have another cup, Mrs Rampy.”

“Thankee, Liz, and plenty of sugar.”

“H’m! you need it!” muttered Mrs Blathers; “no sugar at all for me, Liz.”

“Well, now,” cried Liz, rendered bold by desperation, “I do wonder that two such strong, warm-hearted women as you should so often fall out. Each of you loves some one—don’t I know!—with powerful affection, so, why couldn’t you love each other?”

This tribute to their feelings so tickled the women that they set down their tea-cups and laughed prodigiously.

“Now, do,—there’s a couple of dears!—shake hands over your tea, an’ let’s have a pleasant talk,” said old Liz, following up her advantage.

The mollified women did not shake hands, but each raised her tea-cup to her lips and winked.

“Your ’ealth, Blathers.”

“Same to you, Rampy.”

“And now, Liz,” said the latter, as she pushed in her cup for more, “let’s ’ear all about it.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Blathers also pushing in her cup, “let’s ’ave your wersion, Liz.”

While Liz gives her version of Laidlaw’s misfortunes we will return to the garden, where, being Sunday afternoon, Susy Blake was busy with a small class of the most disreputable little ragged boys that the neighbourhood produced.

The boys were emphatically bad boys. They feared neither God nor man. The property of other people was their chief source of livelihood, and the streets, or the jails, were their homes. Nevertheless, when in the garden class, those boys were patterns of good behaviour, because each boy knew that if he did not behave and keep quiet he would infallibly be dismissed from the class, and this was a punishment which none of them could endure. Unlike many other teachers, Susy had not to go about enticing boys to her Sabbath class. Her chief difficulty was to prevent them coming in such numbers as would have overflowed the garden altogether.

And the secret of this was that Susy Blake possessed much of an unconscious influence called loving-kindness. No weapon of the spiritual armoury is equal to this. In the hands of a man it is tremendous. In those of a pretty girl it is irresistible. By means of it she brought the fiercest little arabs of the slums to listen to the story of Jesus and His love. She afterwards asked God, the Holy Spirit, to water the good seed sown, and the result was success.

But loving-kindness was not her only weapon. She had in addition quite a glittering little armoury in which were such weapons as play of fancy, lively imagination, fervent enthusiasm, resolute purpose, fund of anecdote, sparkling humour, intense earnestness, and the like, all of which she kept flashing around the heads of her devoted worshippers until they were almost beside themselves with astonishment, repentance, and good resolves. Of course, when away from her influence the astonishment was apt to diminish, the repentance to cease, and the good resolves to vanish away; but resolute purpose had kept Susy at them until in the course of time there was a perceptible improvement in the environment of Cherub Court, and a percentage of souls rescued from the ranks of the ragamuffins.

On this particular Sunday Tommy Splint, who was a regular attendant at the garden class, arrived late.

“Why, Tommy,” said the teacher, turning herself from a little boy on whom she had been trying specially to impress some grand eternal truth, “this is not like you. Has anything happened to detain you?”

“No, Susy,” answered the boy, slipping into his place—with a compound expression in which the spirit of fun, whom no one doubted, gave the lie to the spirit of penitence, in whom no one believed—“but I’ve bin to a sort o’ Sunday class a’ready.”

“Indeed, where have you been?”

“At Mrs Rampy’s, w’ere I see’d a most hedifyin’ spectacle—granny tryin’ to bring Mrs Rampy an’ Mrs Blathers to a ’eavenly state of mind over a cup of tea, an’ them both resistin’ of ’er like one o’clock!”

“Ah! my boy,” said Susy, shaking her head and a finger at the urchin, “you’ve been eavesdropping again!”

“No, indeed, Susy, I ha’n’t,” returned the boy quite earnestly, “not since the time you nabbed me with my ear to the key-’ole of quarrelsome Tim’s door. I was a-sittin’ at Mrs Rampy’s open door quite openly like—though not quite in sight, I dessay—an’ they was pitchin’ into each other quite openly too, an’ granny a-tryin’ to pour ile on the troubled waters! It was as good as a play. But w’en Mrs Rampy takes up her cup to drink the ’ealth of Mrs B an’ says, with sitch a look, ‘Your ’ealth, Blathers,’ I could ’old on no longer. I split and bolted! That’s wot brought me ’ere a little sooner than I might ’ave bin.”

There was a tendency to laugh at this explanation, which Susy did not check, but after a few moments she held up a finger, which produced instant silence, while she drew a letter from her pocket.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you to-day, Tommy,” she said, handing him the letter, “but I must send you with this to my father. Mr Brentwood called with it not half an hour since, saying it was of importance to have it delivered soon, as it was connected with the case of Mr Laidlaw. So be off with it as fast as you can. You know where to find father—on board the Seacow.”

Tommy Splint was indeed disappointed at having to leave the garden class thus abruptly. He consoled himself, however, with the reflection that he was perhaps doing important service to his friend Da-a-a-vid Laidlaw. He further consoled himself, on reaching the court below, by uttering a shriek which sent a cat that chanced to be reposing there in rampant alarm into the depths of a convenient cellar. Thereafter he went into a contemplative frame of mind to the docks, and found Sam Blake as usual in his bunk.

“I say, Sam, d’ee spend all yer time—night and day—in yer bunk?”

“Not exactly, lad,” answered the seaman, with a smile, but without showing any intention to rise. “You see we sea-dogs have a hard time of it. What with bein’ liable to be routed out at all hours, an’ expected to work at any hour, we git into a way of making a grab at sleep when an where we gits the chance. I’m makin’ up lee-way just now. Bin to church in the forenoon though. I ain’t a heathen, Tommy.”

“You looks uncommon like one, anyhow—with your ’air an’ ’ead an’ beard an’ blankits mixed up together all of a mush. There’s a letter for ’ee, old man.”

Without a word the sailor took the epistle, read it slowly, while the boy watched him keenly, then thrust it under his pillow.

“You ain’t agoin’ to clear for action at once, then?” said the boy.

“No, not just yet.”

“Any message for me?” asked Tommy.

“None wotsomedever.”

Seeing that his friend did not intend to be communicative the boy wisely changed the subject.

“Now, Sam, about them pirits. W’ere was it they fust got ’old of you?”

“Down somewheres among the Philippine Islands,” replied Sam, drawing the blankets more comfortably round him, “but to tell you the truth, lad, after they’d taken our ship an’ made every man o’ the crew walk the plank except me an’ the skipper, they putt us in the hold, tied up hand an’ futt so as we could scarce move. Why they spared us was a puzzle to me at the time, but I afterwards found out it was because somehow they’d got it into their heads that the skipper an’ mate of our ship knew somethin’ about where some treasure that they were after had been buried. Hand me that there pipe, Tommy—not the noo one; the short black fellow wi’ the Turk’s head on the bowl. Thankee.”

“An’ did you know about the treasure?” asked Tommy, handing the pipe in question.

“Bless you, no,” returned the seaman, proceeding to render the confined air of the bunk still more unbearable; “we know’d of no treasure. If we had we’d have bin arter it ourselves, double quick. As it was, they burnt us wi’ hot irons an’ tortered us in various ways to make us confess, but we had nothin’ to confess, so had to grin an’ bear it—sometimes to yell an’ bear it! You see, lad, they mistook me for the mate, so that’s how I came to escape. He was a fine man was that mate,” continued the seaman in a lower tone, “a strong, handsome, kind young officer, an’ a great favourite. I’ve often wondered why he was taken an’ me spared.”

“P’raps it was for Susy’s sake!” suggested Tommy.

Sam looked at the boy—a quick half-surprised glance. “Not a bad notion that, my lad. I shouldn’t wonder if it was for Susy’s sake. I never thought o’ that before. Anyhow I comfort myself sometimes when I think o’ the poor mate that he was saved a deal o’ torterin’; which, let me tell you, ain’t easy to bear.”

“But go a’ead, Sam, with more about the pirits,” said Tommy.

“No, lad, no—not just now. I wants to snooze. So—you clap on all sail an’ you’ll be in time yet for the tail end o’ Susy’s lesson.”