Post Haste - Robert Michael Ballantyne (little red riding hood ebook .txt) 📗

and self-contempt, George Aspel stood holding on to the railings and glaring into vacuity. Recovering himself he staggered home and went to bed.


CHAPTER NINE.


MR. BLURT AND GEORGE ASPEL IN PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES.

When a man finds himself in a false position, out of which he sees no way of escape, he is apt to feel a depression of spirits which reveals itself in the expression of his countenance.

One morning Mr Enoch Blurt sat on a high stool in his brother's shop, with his elbows on a screened desk, his chin in his hands, and a grim smile on his lips.

The shop was a peculiar one. It had somewhat the aspect of an old curiosity shop, but the predominance of stuffed birds gave it a distinctly ornithological flavour. Other stuffed creatures were there, however, such as lizards, frogs, monkeys, etcetera, all of which straddled in attitudes more or less unlike nature, while a few wore expressions of astonishment quite in keeping with their circumstances.

"Here am I," soliloquised Mr Blurt with a touch of bitterness, "in the position of a shop-boy, in possession of a shop towards which I entertain feelings of repugnance, seeing that it has twice ruined my poor brother, and in regard to the details of which I know absolutely nothing. I had fancied I had reached the lowest depths of misfortune when I became a ruined diamond-merchant, but this is a profounder deep."

"Here's the doctor a-comin' down-stairs, sir," said an elderly female, protruding her head from the back shop, and speaking in a stage-whisper.

"Very well, Mrs Murridge, let him come," said Mr Blurt recklessly.

He descended from the stool, as the doctor entered the shop looking very grave. Every expression, save that of deep anxiety, vanished from Mr Blurt's face.

"My brother is worse?" he said quickly.

"Not worse," replied the doctor, "but his case is critical. Everything will depend on his mind being kept at ease. He has taken it into his head that his business is going to wreck while he lies there unable to attend to it, and asked me earnestly if the shop had been opened. I told him I'd step down and inquire."

"Poor Fred!" murmured his brother sadly; "he has too good reason to fancy his business is going to wreck, with or without his attendance, for I find that very little is doing, and you can see that the entire stock isn't worth fifty pounds--if so much. The worst of it is that his boy, who used to assist him, absconded yesterday with the contents of the till, and there is no one now to look after it."

"That's awkward. We must open the shop how ever, for it is all-important that his mind should be kept quiet. Do you know how to open it, Mr Blurt?"

Poor Mr Blurt looked helplessly at the closed shutters, through a hole in one of which the morning sun was streaming. Turning round he encountered the deeply solemn gaze of an owl which stood on a shelf at his elbow.

"No, doctor, I know no more how to open it than that idiot there," he said, pointing to the owl, "but I'll make inquiries of Mrs Murridge."

The domestic fortunately knew the mysterious operations relative to the opening of a shop. With her assistance Mr Blurt took off the shutters, stowed them away in their proper niche, and threw open the door to the public with an air of invitation, if not hospitality, which deserved a better return than it received. With this news the doctor went back to the sick man.

"Mrs Murridge," said Mr Blurt, when the doctor had gone, "would you be so good as mind the shop for a few minutes, while I go up-stairs? If any one should come in, just go to the foot of the stair and give two coughs. I shall hear you."

On entering his brother's room, he found him raised on one elbow, with his eyes fixed wildly on the door.

"Dear Fred," he said tenderly, hurrying forward; "you must not give way to anxiety, there's a dear fellow. Lie down. The doctor says you'll get well if you only keep quiet."

"Ay, but I can't keep quiet," replied the poor old man tremulously, while he passed his hand over the few straggling white hairs that lay on but failed to cover his head. "How can you expect me to keep quiet, Enoch, when my business is all going to the dogs for want of attention? And that boy of mine is such a stupid fellow; he loses or mislays the letters somehow--I can't understand how. There's confusion too somewhere, because I have written several times of late to people who owe me money, and sometimes have got no answers, at other times been told that they _had_ replied, and enclosed cheques, and--"

"Come now, dear Fred," said Enoch soothingly, while he arranged the pillows, "do give up thinking about these things just for a little while till you are better, and in the meantime I will look after--"

"And he's such a lazy boy too," interrupted the invalid,--"never gets up in time unless I rouse him.--Has the shop been opened, Enoch?"

"Yes, didn't the doctor tell you? I always open it myself;" returned Enoch, speaking rapidly to prevent his brother, if possible, from asking after the boy, about whose unfaithfulness he was still ignorant. "And now, Fred, I insist on your handing the whole business over to me for a week or two, just as it stands; if you don't I'll go back to Africa. Why, you've no idea what a splendid shopman I shall make. You seem to forget that I have been a successful diamond-merchant."

"I don't see the connection, Enoch," returned the other, with a faint smile.

"That's because you've never been out of London, and can't believe in anybody who hasn't been borne or at least bred, within the sound of Bow Bells. Don't you know that diamond-merchants sometimes keep stores, and that stores mean buying and selling, and corresponding, and all that sort of thing? Come, dear Fred, trust me a little--only a little--for a day or two, or rather, I should say, trust God, and try to sleep. There's a dear fellow--come."

The sick man heaved a deep sigh, turned over on his side, and dropped into a quiet slumber--whether under the influence of a more trustful spirit or of exhaustion we cannot say--probably both.

Returning to the shop, Mr Blurt sat down in his old position on the stool and began to meditate. He was interrupted by the entrance of a woman carrying a stuffed pheasant. She pointed out that one of the glass eyes of the creature had got broken, and wished to know what it would cost to have a new one put in. Poor Mr Blurt had not the faintest idea either as to the manufacture or cost of glass eyes. He wished most fervently that the woman had gone to some other shop. Becoming desperate, and being naturally irascible, as well as humorous, he took a grimly facetious course.

"My good woman," he said, with a bland smile, "I would recommend you to leave the bird as it is. A dead pheasant can see quite as well with one eye as with two, I assure you."

"La! sir, but it don't look so well," said the woman.

"O yes, it does; quite as well, if you turn its blind side to the wall."

"But we keeps it on a table, sir, an' w'en our friends walk round the table they can't 'elp seein' the broken eye."

"Well, then," persisted Mr Blurt, "don't let your friends walk round the table. Shove the bird up against the wall; or tell your friends that it's a humorous bird, an' takes to winking when they go to that side."

The woman received this advice with a smile, but insisted nevertheless that a "noo heye" would be preferable, and wanted to know the price.

"Well, you know," said Mr Blurt, "that depends on the size and character of the eye, and the time required to insert it, for, you see, in our business everything depends on a life-like turn being given to an eye--or a beak--or a toe, and we don't like to put inferior work out of our hands. So you'd better leave the bird and call again."

"Very well, sir, w'en shall I call?"

"Say next week. I am very busy just now, you see--extremely busy, and cannot possibly give proper attention to your affair at present. Stay-- give me your address."

The woman did so, and left the shop while Mr Blurt looked about for a memorandum-book. Opening one, which was composite in its character-- having been used indifferently as day-book, cashbook, and ledger--he headed a fresh page with the words "Memorandum of Transactions by Enoch Blurt," and made the following entry:--

"A woman--I should have said an idiot--came in and left a pheasant, _minus_ an eye, to be repaired and called for next week."

"There!" exclaimed the unfortunate man, shutting the book with emphasis.

"Please, sir," said a very small sweet voice.

Mr Blurt looked over the top of his desk in surprise, for the owner of the voice was not visible. Getting down from his stool, and coming out of his den, he observed the pretty face and dishevelled head of a little girl not much higher than the counter.

"Please, sir," she said, "can you change 'alf a sov?"

"No, I can't," said Mr Blurt, so gruffly that the small girl retired in haste.

"Stay! come here," cried the repentant shopman. The child returned with some hesitation.

"Who trusted you with half a sov?"

"Miss Lillycrop, sir."

"And who's Miss Lillycrop?"

"My missis, sir."

"Does your missis think that I'm a banker?" demanded Mr Blurt sternly.

"I dun know, sir."

"Then why did she send you here?"

"Please, sir, because the gentleman wot keeps this shop is a friend o' missis, an' always gives 'er change w'en she wants it. He stuffs her birds for her too, for nothink, an' once he stuffed a tom-cat for 'er, w'ich she was uncommon fond of, but he couldn't make much of a job of it, 'cause it died through a kittle o' boilin' water tumblin' on its back, which took off most of the 'air."

While the child was speaking Mr Blurt drew a handful of silver from his pocket, and counted out ten shillings.

"There," he said, putting the money into the child's hand, "and tell Miss Lillycrop, with my compliments--Mr Enoch Blurt's compliments--that my brother has been very ill, but is a little--a very little--better; and see, there is a sixpence for yourself."

"Oh, _thank_ you, sir!" exclaimed the child, opening her eyes with such a look of surprised joy that Mr Blurt felt comforted in his difficulties, and resolved to face them like a man, do his duty, and take the consequences.

He was a good deal relieved, however, to find that no one else came into the shop during the remainder of that day. As he sat and watched the never-ceasing stream of people pass the windows, almost without casting a glance at the ornithological specimens that stood rampant there, he required no further evidence that the business had already gone to that figurative state