Fighting the Flames by R. M. Ballantyne (rooftoppers .TXT) 📖

but it’s good enough for a poor clerk in an insurance office.”

“You are right,” continued Auberly; “it is not equal to that mansion, whose upper floors are at this moment a chevaux-de-frise of charcoal beams and rafters depicted on a dark sky, and whose lower floors are a fantastic compound of burned bricks and lime, broken boards, and blackened furniture.”

“You don’t mean to say there’s been a fire?” exclaimed Barret.

“And you don’t mean to tell me, do you, that a clerk in a fire insurance office does not know it?”

“I have been ill for two days,” returned Barret, “and have not seen the papers; but I’m very sorry to hear of it; indeed I am. The house is insured, of course?”

“I believe it is,” replied Fred carelessly; “but that is not what troubles me.”

“No?” exclaimed his friend.

“No,” replied the other. “If the house had not been insured my father has wealth enough in those abominably unpicturesque stores in Tooley Street to rebuild the whole of Beverly Square if it were burnt down. The fire costs me not a thought, although, by the way, it nearly cost me my life, in a vain attempt I made to rescue my poor dear sister Loo—”

“Vain attempt!” exclaimed Barret, with a look of concern.

“Ay, vain, as far as I was concerned; but a noble fireman—a fellow that would make a splendid model for Hercules in the Life Academy—sprang to the rescue after me and saved her. God bless him! Dear Loo has got a severe shake, but the doctors say that we have only to take good care of her, and she will do well. But to return to my woes. Listen, John, and you shall hear.”

Fred Auberly paused, as though meditating how he should commence.

“You know,” said he, “that I am my father’s only son, and Loo his only daughter.”

“Yes.”

“Well, my father has disinherited me and left the whole of his fortune to Loo. As far as dear Loo is concerned I am glad; for myself I am sad, for it is awkward, to say the least of it, to have been brought up with unlimited command of pocket-money, and expectations of considerable wealth, and suddenly to find myself all but penniless, without a profession and without expectations, at the age of twenty-two.”

He paused and looked at his friend, who sat in mute amazement.

“Failing Loo,” continued Fred calmly, “my father’s fortune goes to some distant relative.”

“But why? wherefore?” exclaimed Barret.

“You shall hear,” continued Auberly. “You are aware that ever since I was able to burn the end of a stick and draw faces on the nursery-door, I have had a wild, insatiable passion for drawing; and ever since the memorable day on which I was whipped by my father, and kissed, tearfully, by my beloved mother, for caricaturing our cook on the dining-room window with a diamond-ring, I have had an earnest, unextinguishable desire to become a—a painter, an artist, a dauber, a dirtier of canvas. D’ye understand?”

“Perfectly,” said Barret.

“Well, my father has long been resolved, it seems, to make me a man of business, for which I have no turn whatever. You are aware that for many years I have dutifully slaved and toiled at these heavy books in our office—which have proved so heavy that they have nearly squeezed the soul out of me—and instead of coming to like them better (as I was led to believe I should), I have only come to hate them more. During all this time, too, I have been studying painting late and early, and although I have not gone through the regular academical course, I have studied much in the best of all schools, that of Nature. I have urged upon my father repeatedly and respectfully, that it is possible for me to uphold the credit of the family as a painter; that, as the business can be carried on by subordinates, there is no necessity for me to be at the head of it; and that, as he has made an ample fortune already, the half of which he had told me was to be mine, I would be quite satisfied with my share, and did not want any more. But my father would never listen to my arguments. The last time we got on the subject he called me a mean-spirited fellow, and said he was sorry I had ever been born; whereupon I expressed regret that he had not been blessed with a more congenial and satisfactory son, and tried to point out that it was impossible to change my nature. Then I urged all the old arguments over again, and wound up by saying that even if I were to become possessor of the whole of his business to-morrow, I would sell it off, take to painting as a profession, and become the patron of aspiring young painters from that date forward!

“To my surprise and consternation, this last remark put him in such a towering rage, that he vowed he would disinherit me, if I did not then and there throw my palette and brushes into the fire. Of course, I declined to do such an act, whereupon he dismissed me from his presence for ever. This occurred on the morning of the day of the fire. I thought he might perhaps relent after such an evidence of the mutability of human affairs. I even ventured to remind him that Tooley Street was not made of asbestos, and that an occasional fire occurred there! But this made him worse than ever; so I went the length of saying that I would, at all events, in deference to his wishes, continue to go to the office at least for some time to come. But, alas! I had roused him to such a pitch that he refused to hear of it, unless I should ‘throw my palette and brushes into the fire!’ Flesh and blood, you know, could not do that, so I left him, and walked off twenty miles into the country to relieve my feelings. There I fell in with such a splendid ‘bit;’ a sluice, with a stump of a tree, and a winding bit of water with overhanging willows, and a peep of country beyond! I sat down and sketched, and forgot my woes, and rejoiced in the fresh air and delightful sounds of birds, and cows, and sheep, and hated to think of Tooley Street. Then I slept in a country inn, walked back to London next day, and, voilà! here I am!”

“Don’t you think, Fred, that time will soften your father?”

“No, I don’t think it. On the contrary, I know it won’t. He is a good man; but he has an iron will, which I never saw subdued.”

“Then, my dear Fred, I advise you to consider the propriety of throwing your palette and brushes into—”

“My dear John, I did not come here for your advice. I came for your sympathy.”

“And you have it, Fred,” cried Barret earnestly. “But have you really such an unconquerable love for painting?”

“Have I really!” echoed Fred. “Do you think I would have come to such a pass as this for a trifle? Why, man, you have no idea how my soul longs for the life of a painter, for the free fresh air of the country, for the poetry of the woods, the water, and the sky, for the music of bird and beast and running brook. You know the true proverb, ‘Man made the town; but God made the country!’”

“What,” asked Barret, “would become of the town, if all men thought as you do?”

“Oh! John Barret, has town life so marred your once fine intellect, that you put such a question in earnest? Suppose I answer it by another: What would become of the country if all men thought and acted as you do?”

Barret smiled and smoked.

“And what,” continued Auberly, “would become of the fine arts if all men delighted in dirt, dust, dullness, and desks? Depend upon it, John, that our tastes and tendencies are not the result of accident; they were given to us for a purpose. I hold it as an axiom that when a man or a boy has a strong and decided bias or partiality for any particular work that he knows something about, he has really a certain amount of capacity for that work beyond the average of men, and is led thereto by a higher power than that of man. Do not misunderstand me. I do not say that, when a boy expresses a longing desire to enter the navy or the army, he has necessarily an aptitude for these professions. Far from it. He has only a romantic notion of something about which, experimentally, he knows nothing; but, when man or boy has put his hand to any style of work, and thereafter loves it and longs after it, I hold that that is the work for which he was destined, and for which he is best suited.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Barret, smoking harder than ever. “At all events, I heartily sympathise with you, and—”

At this point the conversation was interrupted by a loud burst of whistling, as the street-door opened and the strains of “Rule Britannia” filled the entire building. The music was interrupted by the sudden opening of another door, and a rough growl from a male voice.

“Don’t get waxy, old feller,” said the performer in a youthful voice, “I ain’t a-goin’ to charge you nothink for it. I always do my music gratis; havin’ a bee-nevolient turn o’ mind.”

The door was slammed violently, and “Rule Britannia” immediately burst forth with renewed and pointed emphasis.

Presently it ceased, and a knock came to Barret’s door.

“Well, what d’ye want, you noisy scamp?” said Barret, flinging the door open, and revealing the small figure of Willie Willders.

“Please, sir,” said Willie, consulting the back of a note; “are you Mister T–Tom—Tupper, Esquire?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Ain’t there sitch a name in the house?”

“No, not that I know of.”

Willie’s face looked blank.

“Well, I was told he lived here,” he muttered, again consulting the note.

“Here, let me look,” said Barret, taking the note from the boy. “This is Tippet, not Tupper. He lives in the top floor. By the way, Auberly,” said Barret, glancing over his shoulder, “Isn’t Tom Tippet a sort of connection of yours?”

“Yes; a distant one,” said Fred carelessly, “too distant to make it worth while our becoming acquainted. He’s rich and eccentric, I’m told. Assuredly, he must be the latter if he lives in such a hole as this. What are you staring at, boy?”

This question was put to Willie.

“Please, sir, are you the Mr Auberly who was a’most skumfished with smoke at the Beverly Square fire t’other day, in tryin’ to git hold o’ yer sister?”

Fred could not but smile as he admitted the fact.

“Please, sir, I hope yer sister ain’t the wuss of it, sir.”

“Not much, I hope; thank you for inquiring; but how come you to know about the fire, and to be interested in my sister?”

“’Cause I was there, sir; an’ it was my brother, sir, Frank Willders, as saved your sister.”

“Was it, indeed!” exclaimed Fred, becoming suddenly interested. “Come, let me hear more about your brother.”

Willie, nothing loth, related every fact he was acquainted with in regard to Frank’s career, and his own family history, in the course of which he revealed the object of his visit to Mr Tippet. When he had finished, Frederick Auberly shook hands with him and said:

“Now, Willie, go and deliver your note. If the application is successful, well; but if it fails, or you don’t like your work, just call upon me, and I’ll see what can be done for you.”

“Yes, sir, and thankee,” said Willie; “where did you say I was to call, sir?”

“Call at—eh—ah—yes, my boy, call here, and let my friend Mr Barret know you want to see me. He will let me know, and you shall hear from me. Just at present—well, never mind, go and deliver your