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

With some such thoughts in his brain, and a fixed resolve in his heart, he presented himself in the garden on the roof, where he found old Liz, Susy, and Sam Blake assembled. They all seemed as if oppressed by some disappointment, but their looks changed instantly on the entrance of the visitor. Susy, especially, sprang up with a bright smile, but observing the readiness and the look with which Laidlaw advanced to meet her, she checked herself, blushed, and looked as well as felt confused.

“My poor little girl is greatly put about” said Sam Blake in explanation, “because she’s just heard from Samson and Son that they’ve too many hands already, an’ don’t want her.”

“Don’t want her?” exclaimed the Scot; “they’re born eediots!”

The emphasis with which this was said caused Susy to laugh, and to discover that her skirt had been caught by a nail in one of the flower-boxes. At the same time a vague suspicion for the first time entered the head of old Liz, causing her to wobble the fang with vigour and look at Laidlaw with some anxiety.

At this critical moment feet were heard clattering and stumbling up the stair as if in tremendous haste. Next moment Tommy burst upon their vision in a full suit of superfine blue with brass buttons!

“Tommy!” exclaimed Susy in amazement.

“No, madam—no. Tummas, if you please,” said the boy with dignity, though almost bursting with suppressed excitement. “I’m man-servant to Colonel John Brentwood, Esquire, M.P., F.R.Z.Q.T., Feller of the Royal Society—an’ good society, an’ every other society. Salary not yet fixed; lodgin’, washin’, an’ wittles found. Parkisites warious.”

“But why didn’t you tell us of this before?” asked Liz, patting the urchin’s head and smiling benignantly.

“’Cause I wanted to screw you up vith surprise, an’ I’ve done it too! But I’ve on’y jest entered on my dooties, and ’ave bin sent immedingtly with a message that you an Susy are expected to pay us a wisit, which is now doo, an’ Mr Da-a-a-vid Laidlaw is to go there right away—vithout delay—as we say in the poetical vest end.”

“And when are Susy and I expected?” asked Liz.

“To-morrer.”

“But what are you, Tommy? What are you engaged to do?” asked Susy.

“Play wi’ the knives, amoose myself wi’ the boots and shoes of a mornin’, entertain wisitors at the door with brief conversations, take occasional strolls with messages, be a sorter companion to Miss Rosa, wots to be married in a veek or two, and, ginerally, to enjoy myself. I’m a tiger, I is, but I don’t growl—oh no! I only purr. My name is Tummas, an’ my ’ome is marble ’alls!”

Our Scotsman went off without delay in response to the message, and was thus prevented from carrying out his “fixed resolve” just then. However, he wouldn’t give in, not he! he would soon find a more convenient opportunity.

Meanwhile Tommy Splint having particularly requested and obtained leave to spend the night—his last night before going to service—with his “granny,” he and Sam set to work in the garden to rig up temporary sleeping arrangements à la Robinson Crusoe, for it was arranged that they should have a grand supper in the garret in honour of the rescue of Laidlaw—the returned convict, alias ticket-of-leave man, as Tommy called him—and that the males of the party should thereafter sleep in the garden.

Need we say that the supper-party was jovial? We think not. The “ticket-of-leave man” and the “tiger” were inimitable in their own lines, and Sam came out so strong on the “pirits” of the Philippine Islands that the tiger even declared himself to be satiated with blood! As for Susy—she would have been an amply sufficient audience for each of the party, had all the others been away, and the fang of old Liz became riotously demonstrative, though she herself remained silent gazing from one face to another with her glittering black eyes.

Finally the ladies retired to rest in the garret, and the gentlemen went to sleep in the garden.

Ah! how very old, yet ever new, is the word that man “knows not what an hour may bring forth!” Forces unseen, unthought of, are ever at work around us, from the effects of which, it may be, human strength is powerless to deliver.

That night, late—or rather, about the early hours of morning—a spark, which earlier in the night had fallen from the pipe of a drunkard in the public-house below, began to work its deadly way through the boarding of the floor. For a long time there was little smoke and no flame. Gradually, however, the spark grew to a burning mass, which created the draught of air that fanned it.

It chanced that night that, under the influence of some irresistible impulse or antagonistic affinity like a musical discord, Mrs Rampy and Mrs Blathers were discussing their friends and neighbours in the abode of the former, without the softening influence of the teapot and old Liz.

“I smells a smell!” exclaimed Mrs Rampy, sniffing.

“Wery likely,” remarked Mrs Blathers; “your ’ouse ain’t over-clean.”

But the insinuation was lost on Mrs Rampy, who was naturally keen of scent. She rose, ran to the window, opened it, thrust out her dishevelled head, and exclaimed “Fire!”

“No, it ain’t,” said her friend; “it’s on’y smoke.”

Unfortunately the two women wondered for a few precious minutes and ran out to the court, into which, from a back window of the public-house, smoke was slowly streaming. Just then a slight glimmer was seen in the same window.

“Fire! fire!” yelled Mrs Rampy, now thoroughly alarmed.

“Smoke! smo-o-o-oke!” shrieked Mrs Blathers. The two women were gifted with eminently persuasive lungs. All the surrounding courts and streets were roused in a few minutes, and poured into the lanes and alleys which led to Cherub Court.

That extremely vigilant body, the London Fire Brigade, had their nearest engines out in two minutes. Many of the more distant men were roused by telegraph. Though in bed, partially clad and asleep, at one moment, the next moment they were leaping into boots and pantaloons which stood agape for them. Brass-helmeted, and like comets with a stream of fire behind them, they were flying to the rescue five minutes after the yell and shriek of “Fi-i-ire!” and “Smo-o-o-oke!”

Owing to the great elevation of the garden, and its being surrounded by stacks of chimneys, it was some minutes before the sleepers there were aroused. Then, like giants refreshed, David and Sam leapt from their bunks, and, like Jack-in-the-box, Tommy Splint shot from his kennel. There was no occasion to dress. In the circumstances the three had turned in, as Sam expressed it, “all standing.”

They rushed at the door of the garret, but it was bolted on the inside. Susy, who had been awake, had heard the alarm and drawn the bolt so as to give time for hastily throwing on a few garments. The men thundered violently and tried to force the door, but the door was strong, and an instinctive feeling of delicacy restrained them for a few seconds from bursting it open.

“Susy! Susy!” roared the father; “open! Quick! Fire!”

“One moment, father. I’m dressing granny, and—”

A loud shriek terminated the sentence, for the flames, gathering headway with wild rapidity, had burst-up some part of the liquor den at the basement and went roaring up the staircase, sending dense clouds of smoke in advance.

This was enough. Laidlaw threw his heavy bulk against the door, burst lock and hinge, and sent it flat on the garret floor. Blinding smoke met and almost choked him as he fell, and Sam, tumbling over him, caught up the first person his hands touched and bore her out. It was old Liz—half dressed, and wrapped in a blanket! Susy, also half dressed, and with a shawl wrapped round her shoulders, was carried out by Laidlaw. Both were unhurt, though half stifled by smoke, and greatly alarmed.

“Ye ken the hoose, Tammy; hoo shall we gang?”

“There’s no way to escape!” cried the poor boy, with a distracted look.

One glance at the staircase convinced Laidlaw that escape in that direction was impossible. Plunging into the garret again he seized the door and jammed it into its place, thus stopping the gush of black smoke, and giving them a few minutes breathing space.

“Is there a rope in the garret?” asked Sam eagerly.

“No—nothink o’ the kind,” gasped Tommy.

“No sheets,—blankets?” asked the Scot.

“Only two or three,” replied Susan, who supported Liz in the rustic chair. “They’re much worn, and not enough to reach near the ground.”

It was no time for useless talk. The two men said no more, but sprang on the parapet outside the garden, to find, if possible, a way of escape by the roofs of the neighbouring houses. The sight they beheld was sufficiently appalling. The fire which raged below them cast a noonday glare over the wilderness of chimney-stacks around, revealing the awful nature of their position, and, in one direction, thousands of upturned faces. The men were observed as they ran along the parapet, and a deep hoarse cry from the sympathetic multitude rose for a few moments above the roaring of the flames.

On two sides the walls of the building went sheer down, sixty feet or more, without a break, into a yard which bristled with broken wood and old lumber. Evidently death faced them in that direction. The third side was the gable-end of the garret. On the fourth side there was a descent of twelve feet or so on to the roof of the next block, which happened to be lower—but that block was already in flames.

“There is our chief hope,” said the sailor, pointing to it.

“Nay,” responded Laidlaw in a low voice, pointing upwards—“oor main hope is there! I thocht they had fire-escapes here,” he added, turning to Tommy, who had joined them.

“So they ’ave, but no escape can be got down the yards ’ere. The halleys is too narrer.”

“Come, I’ll git a blankit to lower Susan and auld Liz,” said Laidlaw, hastening back to the garden, where the trembling women awaited the result of their inspection.

While the Scotsman removed the door and dashed once again into the smoke-filled garret, the sailor hurriedly explained to the women what they were going to attempt, and impressed upon them the necessity of submitting entirely to whatever was required of them, “which will be,” he said, “chiefly to shut your eyes an’ keep quiet.”

Laidlaw quickly returned with a couple of sheets and a blanket. Sam knotted the sheets together in sailor-like fashion, while his friend made a secure bundle of old Liz with the blanket. Sam was lowered first to the roof of the tenement which we have said was already on fire, and stood ready to receive Liz. She was safely let down and the sheet-rope was detached.

“We’ll no mak’ a bundle o’ you,” said David, turning to Susy; “jist putt it roond yer waist.”

When she was safely lowered, Tommy was grasped by an arm and let down till his feet rested on Sam’s head, whence he easily leaped to the roof, and then David let himself drop. To reach a place of temporary safety they had now to walk on the top of a partition of old brick, about eight inches wide, a fall from which, on one side, meant death, on the other side, broken bones at the least. They knew that a loose brick or a false step might be fatal, but there was no alternative.

Sam turned to his daughter: “Ye could never cross that, Susy?” he said.

Although no coward, the poor girl shrank from the giddy ledge, which was rendered more dangerous and terrible by being now surrounded by occasional puffs of smoke and clouds of steam from the water of a dozen hydrants which by that time were playing into the raging flames. To add to the horrors of the situation, beams and masses of masonry were heard occasionally crashing in the interior of the building.

Sam advanced to take Susy in his arms, but Laidlaw stepped between them.

“Leave her t’