Life in the Red Brigade: London Fire Brigade by R. M. Ballantyne (adult books to read TXT) 📗

“Will you not consent to give up a thorough scoundrel, who every one condemns?” demanded Mrs Dashwood, with sudden indignation.

“Well, that depends—”

“Bloater,” said Mary, with increasing earnestness, “I cannot bribe you—I have not the means even if I had the will; but I would not if I could. I scorn bribery. If you will not aid me for the sake of a poor, helpless, infatuated girl, who is on the brink of ruin—”

“Missis Dashwood,” said the Bloater, with a look of serio-comic dignity, “I scorns bribery as much as you does. ‘No bribery, no c’rupt’ons, no Popery,’ them’s my mottoes—besides a few more that there’s no occasion to mention. W’ether or not I gives ’im up depends on circumstances. Now, I s’pose you want’s ’im took an’ bagged, ’cause ’e ain’t fit for your friend Martha Reading—we’ll drop the ‘Miss’ if you please. Well, wot I want to know is, does Martha think as you does?”

“Of course not, boy. No doubt she knows that he is an unworthy scoundrel, but she can’t prevail on herself to forsake him; so, you see, I want to help her a little.”

“Ah, I see—yes—I see. Well, missis, I’ll take it into consideration. Come along, Jim.”

Without waiting for a reply, the Bloater quitted the house abruptly, followed by his friend. He walked very fast towards the City—so fast that Jim was compelled to trot—and was unusually silent. He went straight to the abode of Martha Reading, and found her sewing and weeping.

“Ha! he’s bin with you, I see,” said the Bloater. “Did ’e ask you to let ’im ’ide ’ere?”

“Ye–es;” said Martha, hesitating; “but I refused to do it. God knows how willing—how willing—I would be to shelter and save him if I could!”

“Would you shelter a guilty man?” demanded the Bloater, sternly.

“I don’t know that he is guilty,” said Martha, evasively. “But, tell me, what did Mrs Dashwood want with you?”

“That’s a private matter,” said the Bloater, frowning. “You can’t turn me off the scent like that. I ask you, ain’t it right to ’and a guilty man over to justice?”

“It is,” replied Martha, wiping her eyes, “but it is also right to temper justice with mercy.”

“I say, that’s drawin’ it rather fine, ain’t it?” said the Bloater, screwing up one eyebrow and turning towards Little Jim; but that small youth was so touched with the poor girl’s sorrow and so attracted by her countenance, that he had quite forgotten his patron for the moment. Going towards her, he laid his dirty little hand on her knee, and looked up in her face.

“God bless you, dear boy,” she said, patting him on the head, “you are the first that has given me a look of sympathy for many—”

She broke down suddenly, burst into a flood of tears, and, seizing the child in her arms, absolutely hugged him!

“Hallo! hallo!” cried the Bloater, when Little Jim was released. “I say, you know, come, this sort o’ thing will never do. W’y, its houtrageous. Come along with you.”

Saying which he seized Little Jim by the collar, dragged him out into the street, and hurried him along. Presently he released him, but without slackening his pace, and said, “Now, Jim, you an’ I shall go and pay another wisit.”

They traversed several small streets, which seemed to be influenced by a tendency to gravitate towards the Thames; while the river, as if in sympathy, appeared to meet them more than half way in the shape of mud. As they proceeded, huge warehouses frowned above, having doors high up on their blank faces where windows ought to have been, with no steps leading thereto, but in some cases with huge block tackles pendent therefrom, suggestive of the idea that the owners were wont to drop the enormous hooks and fish for passers-by. These streets naturally became more nautical in some respects as they neared the river. Old bits of timber lay here and there among old cordage in little yards, where the owners appeared to deal in small-coal and miscellaneous filth. Elsewhere, worn-out anchors held tenaciously to the mud, as if afraid of being again pressed into service and carried off to sea. Everything was cold, dismal, dreary, disreputable; and here, in the dirtiest corner of the smallest possible yard, the Bloater found a half-concealed door that might have been the portal to a dog-kennel or pig-sty. Opening it he entered, and Little Jim followed.

The aspect of things inside was not attractive. Dirt, damp, and rubbish prevailed in the room, which was just big enough to permit of a tall man lying down, but not high enough to admit of his standing up. An uncommonly small four-post bed almost filled the apartment, at the foot of which, on the floor and half-reclining against one of the posts, lay Phil Sparks, either dead-drunk or asleep, or both.

The Bloater glanced back at Little Jim with a look of satisfaction, and held up his finger to enjoin silence. Peering round the room, which was lighted by a farthing candle stuck in the neck of a pint bottle, he observed a piece of rope lying among some rubbish.

“Ha! this’ll do,” he whispered, as he took it up, and, with wonderful rapidity, made a loop on it.

“Now, Jim, you be ready to cut and run if he should waken before I ’ave ’im fast. Don’t mind me; I’ll look arter myself. An’ wotever you do, don’t holler for the bobbies. Mind that, else I’ll strangle you.”

With this advice and caution, the Bloater advanced toward the recumbent man, and passed the rope softly round his body, including his arms and the bedpost in the coil. Drawing it suddenly tight, he hastily made it fast; but there was no occasion for haste, for the sleep of the man was so profound that the action did not awake him.

“Hall right—fus’ rate,” said the Bloater aloud, as he wound the rope round and round Sparks, so as to make him doubly secure. “Nothin’ could be better. Now, Jim, I’m goin’ for to preach a sermon to-night—a sort o’ discoorse. You never heard me preach, did you?”

Little Jim, who, despite his love of mischief, was somewhat alarmed at the strange proceedings of his friend and patron, looked at him with a mingled expression of fear and glee, and shook his head.

“Well, you shall ’ear. Moreover, I ’ope that you’ll profit by wot you ’ears.”

Saying this, he advanced his hand towards the sleeping man’s face, and, causing his thumb to act as a trigger to his middle finger, gave him such a flip on the point of his nose, that he awoke with a tremendous roar. Suddenly he became pale as death—supposing, no doubt, that he had betrayed himself—and glanced towards the door with a bewildered stare.

“Oh, you needn’t alarm yourself,” said the Bloater, placing a stool in front of his victim, and sitting down thereon, with a hand on each knee, “it ain’t the bobbies. If you keep quiet, there’s no fear of them in this neighbourhood. I can call ’em w’en I wants ’em. There’s nobody but me and Little Jim ’ere—your friends, you know.”

Becoming suddenly convinced of the truth of this, Phil Sparks, who was very drunk, made so desperate an effort to free himself that he nearly overturned the bed.

“Oh, you are anxious to see the bobbies, are you? Well, go an’ call ’em in, Jim.”

Jim rose to obey, and the man became instantly quiet.

“Ho! you’re reasonable now, are you? That’s well. You needn’t call ’em in yet, Jim. We’ll grant ’im a reprieve. Fetch that stool, an’ sit down beside me—there. Now, Mr Sparks, alias Blazes, no doubt you’re a precious specimen of hinnocent ’unmanity, ain’t you?”

Sparks made no reply, but scowled at the boy with a look of deadly hatred.

“Well, upon my word,” resumed the Bloater, with a smile, “if I kep’ a menagerie, I’d offer you five ’undred a year to represent a Tasmanian devil. But look ’ere, now, I’ve no time to waste with you; I come ’ere to give you a bit of my mind. You’re a fire-raiser, you are. Ah! you may well wince an’ grow w’ite. You’d grow w’iter still, with a rope round your neck, if you wos left to my tender mercies, you w’ite livered villain! for I knows you; I’ve watched you; I’ve found you hout; an’ I’ve only got to ’old up my little finger to cut your pretty little career prematoorly short. You don’t seem to like that? No, I didn’t expect you would. This young man, whose ’art is big, if ’is body’s small, knows as much about you as I do. Two witnesses, you see; but you ain’t left to our tender mercies; and if you wants to know who delivered you from us, and from the maginstrates, and Jack Ketch, alias Calcraft, I replies, Martha Reading. Ha! you look surprised. Quite nat’ral. You’ve deserved very different treatment from that young ooman, an’ didn’t expect that she’d return good for evil, I s’pose. That’s because you don’t know ’er; you don’t understand ’er, you miserable lump of selfish stoopidity. ’Ows’ever, as I said before, I ain’t a-goin’ to waste no more time with you. But let me, before biddin’ you adoo, give you a caution. Remember, that I’ve got my eye on you. Just one word more. W’en you thinks of me, don’t think of one as ’as got any tender mercies, for I ain’t got none; not a scrap of ’em, nor nothin’ of the sort. W’en you wants to know the true cause of your bein’ let off, just think of two words—Martha Reading! She knows nothin’ o’ wot I’m doin’, nevertheless, she’s done it! Let ’er name ring in your ears, an’ thunder in your brain, and burn in your ’art, till it consooms your witals or your willany! Now, Jim,” concluded the Bloater, rising and opening a large clasp-knife, “you go to the door, open it wide, an’ stan’ by to cut, and run. This gen’lm’n ain’t to be trusted w’en free. Are you ready?”

“Hall ready,” replied Jim.

The Bloater cut the cord that bound Phil Sparks, and darted from the room. Before the man could disentangle himself from its coils, the boys were safe from pursuit, quietly wending their way through the crowded thoroughfares of the great city.