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Read books online » Fiction » Fighting the Flames by R. M. Ballantyne (rooftoppers .TXT) 📖

Book online «Fighting the Flames by R. M. Ballantyne (rooftoppers .TXT) 📖». Author R. M. Ballantyne



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among her pupils. Why, Frank, what an absent frame of mind you are in this morning! I declare it is not worth a man’s while consulting you about anything.”

“I beg pardon,” cried Frank quickly, “your words caused my mind to wander a bit. Come, what do you think of doing?”

“What do you think I should do? that is the question.”

“You can offer to assist them,” suggested Frank. “I’ve done so,” said the other, “but Ziza won’t accept of assistance.”

“Could we not manage to get her a situation of some sort with light work and good pay?”

“Ah! a fireman’s, for instance,” cried Willie, with a sarcastic laugh; “did you ever hear of a situation with light work and good pay except under Government? I never did; but we might perhaps find steady work and good pay. It would only be required for a time, because I mean to—ah, well, no matter—but how and where is it to be got? Good Mr Tippet is of no use, because he is mad.”

“Mad, Willie!”

“Ay, mad as a March hare. For years back I have suspected it, but now, I am sure of it; in fact I feel that I have gradually come to be his keeper—but more of that anon. Meanwhile, what is to be done for the Cattleys?”

“Could nothing be done with Mr Auberly?”

Willie shook his head.

“No, I fear not. He was in a soft state once—long ago—six or seven years now, I think—when the dear fairy was ill and he seemed as if he were going to become a man; but his daughter Loo had just begun to be ill at that time. She’s been so long ill now that he has got used to it, and has relapsed again into an oyster.”

“He might be reached through Loo yet,” said Frank.

“Perhaps,” replied Willie, “but I doubt it, for he’s a blunt old fellow in his feelings, however sharp he may be in his business; besides, Loo is so weak now that very few are allowed to see her except Ziza, and Miss Tippet, and Emma Ward.”

The brothers remained silent after this for some time, for neither of them could see his way out of their difficulties; at last Frank suggested that Willie should go home and consult his mother.

“She is wise, Willie, and has never given us bad advice yet.”

“I know what her first advice will be,” said Willie.

“What?” asked Frank.

“To go and pray about it,” answered Willie.

“Well, she might give worse advice than that,” said Frank, with much earnestness. “In fact, I doubt if she could give better.”

“True,” assented Willie, “and now, old fellow, I’m off. Mr Tippet likes punctuality. I’ll look in at the station in passing if anything turns up to clear my mind on these matters; meanwhile good-bye.”

It is a remarkable fact that Frank Willders took an early walk, as frequently as possible, in Kensington Gardens, near the pond, after this conversation with his brother, and it is a still more remarkable fact, that he always felt like a guilty man on these occasions, as if he were taking some mean advantage of some one; yet it was certain that he took advantage of no one, for nobody ever met him there by any chance whatever! A fact even more remarkable still was, that never, after that day, did Emma Ward go to her duties through Kensington Gardens, but always by the Bayswater Road, although the latter was dusty and unpicturesque compared with the former; and it is a circumstance worthy of note, as savouring a little of mystery, that Emma acted as if she too were a guilty creature during her morning walks, and glanced uneasily from side to side as she went along, expecting, apparently, that a policeman or a detective would pounce upon her suddenly and bear her off to prison. But, whether guilty or not guilty, it is plain that no policeman or detective had the heart to do it, for Miss Ward went on her mission daily without molestation.

It is not easy to say what was the cause of these unaccountable proceedings. We might hazard an opinion, but we feel that our duty is accomplished when we have simply recorded them. Perhaps love had something to do with them—perhaps not—who knows?

Chapter Twenty Six. What Drink will do.

Time passed on, as time is wont to do, and Christmas came again. The snow was deep in London streets and thick on the roofs and chimneys. It curled over the eaves of the houses in heavy white folds ready to fall and smother the unwary passengers. It capped the railings everywhere with little white knobs, and rounded off the corners of things so, that wherever the eye alighted, the same impressions were invariably conveyed to it, namely, whiteness and rotundity. Corinthian capitals were rendered, if possible, more ornate than ever by snow; equestrian statues were laden with it so heavily, that the horses appeared to stagger beneath their trappings and the riders, having white tips to their noses, white lumps on their heads and shoulders, and white patches on their cheek-bones and chins, looked ineffably ridiculous, and miserably cold. Everything, in fact, was covered and blocked up with snow, and Londoners felt as if they had muffled drums in their ears.

It was morning. The sky was clear, the air still, and the smoke of chimneys perpendicular. Poulterers’ shops were in their holiday attire; toy-shops were in the ascendant, and all other shops were gayer than usual. So were the people who thronged the streets and beat their hands and stamped their feet—for it was unusually cold.

Street boys were particularly lively, and chaff was flying as thickly as snow-flakes had fallen the night before. Even the roughs—who forsook their dens, and, with shovels and brooms on their shoulders, paraded the streets, intent on clearing door-steps with or without the leave of inhabitants—seemed to be less gruff than usual, and some of them even went the length of cutting jokes with the cabmen and the boys. Perhaps their spirits were elevated by the proud consciousness of being for once in the way of earning an honest penny!

“I say, Ned,” observed one of these roughs (a lively one), who was very rough indeed, to a companion, who was rougher still and gloomy, “look at that there gal cleanin’ of her steps with a fire-shovel! Ain’t that economy gone mad? Hallo, young ’ooman, what’s the use o’ trying to do it with a teaspoon, when there’s Ned and me ready to do it with our shovels for next to nothin’?”

The servant-girl declined the assistance thus liberally offered, so the two men moved slowly on, looking from side to side as they went, in expectation of employment, while a small boy, in a man’s hat, who walked behind them, nodded to the girl, and said she was a “sensible thrifty gal,” and that she might be sure there was “some feller unknown who would bless the day he was born after he’d got her.”

Fifty yards farther on, a stout, red-faced, elderly gentleman was observed to look out at the street door and frown at things in general.

“Have your door-steps cleaned, sir?” asked the lively rough, taking the shovel off his shoulder.

The elderly gentleman being angry, on private and unknown grounds (perhaps bad digestion), vouchsafed no reply, but looked up at the sky and then over the way.

“Do it cheap, sir,” said the lively rough.

“No!” said the elderly gentleman, with a sort of snapping look, as he turned his gaze up the street and then down it.

“Snow’s wery deep on the steps, sir,” said the rough.

“D’you suppose I’m an ass?” exclaimed the elderly gentleman, in a sudden burst.

“Well, sir,” said the lively rough, in the grave tone and manner of one who has had a difficult question in philosophy put to him, “well, sir, I don’t know about that.”

His large mouth expanded gradually from ear to ear after this reply. The elderly gentleman’s face became scarlet and his nose purple, and retreating two paces, he slammed the door violently in the rough’s face.

“Ah, it all comes of over-feedin’, poor feller,” said the lively man, shouldering his shovel and resuming his walk beside his gloomy comrade, who neither smiled nor frowned at these pleasantries.

“A warm old g’n’l’m’n!” remarked the boy in the man’s hat as he passed.

The lively man nodded and winked.

“Might eat his wittles raw an’ cook ’em inside a’most!” continued the boy; “would advise him to keep out of ’yde Park, though, for fear he’d git too near the powder-magazine!”

At this point the gloomy rough—who did not appear, however, to be a genuine rough, but a pretty good imitation of one, made of material that had once seen better days—stopped, and said to his comrade that he was tired of that sort of work, and would bid him good-day. Without waiting for an answer he walked away, and his companion, without vouchsafing a reply, looked after him with a sneer.

“A rum cove!” he remarked to the small boy in the man’s hat, as he continued his progress.

“Rayther,” replied the boy.

With this interchange of sentiment these casual acquaintances parted, to meet probably no more!

Meanwhile the gloomy rough, whom the lively one had called Ned, walked with rapid steps along several streets, as though he had a distinct purpose in view. He turned at last into a narrow, quiet street, and going up to the door of a shabby-genteel house, applied the knocker with considerable vigour.

“Now then, go along with you; we don’t want your services here; we clear off our own snow, we do. Imprence! to knock, too, as if he was a gentleman!”

This was uttered by a servant-girl who had thrust her head out of a second-floor window to take an observation of the visitor before going down to open the door.

“Is he at home, Betsy dear?” inquired the gloomy man, looking up with a leer which proved that he could be the reverse of gloomy when he chose.

“Oh, it’s you, is it? I don’t think he wants to see you; indeed, I’m sure of it,” said the girl.

“Yes he does, dear; at all events I want to see him; and, Betsy, say it’s pressing business, and not beggin’.”

Betsy disappeared, and soon after, reappearing at the door, admitted the man, whom she ushered into a small apartment, which was redolent of tobacco, and in which sat a young man slippered and dressing-gowned, taking breakfast.

“How are you, doctor?” said the visitor, in a tone that did not accord with his soiled and ragged garments, as he laid down his hat and shovel, and flung himself into a chair.

“None the better for seeing you, Hooper,” replied the doctor sternly.

“Well, well!” exclaimed Ned, “what a world we live in, to be sure! It was ‘Hail fellow! well met,’ when I was well off; now,” (he scowled here) “my old familiars give me the cold shoulder because I’m poor.”

“You know that you are unjust,” said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, and speaking less sternly though not less firmly; “you know, Ned, that I have helped you with advice and with money to the utmost extent of my means, and you know that it was a long, long time before I ceased to call you one of my friends; but I do not choose to be annoyed by a man who has deliberately cast himself to the dogs, whose companions are the lowest wretches in London, and whose appearance is dirty and disgusting as well as disreputable.”

“I can’t help it,” pleaded Hooper; “I can get no work.”

“I don’t wonder at that,” replied the doctor; every friend you ever had has got you work of one kind or another during the last few years, and you have drunk yourself out of it every time. Do you imagine that your friends will continue to care for a man who cares not for himself?

Ned did not reply, but hung his head in moody silence.

“Now,” continued the doctor, “my time is a little more valuable than

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