Volume One—Chapter Six.
Sawn Off.
Lord Pinemount was seated in his library, biting his nails mentally, as he lay back in his easy chair glaring at his steward, who stood before him wishing he could get another post, where his master would not be a tyrant, and thinking that, if it had not been for the fact that he had a large wife and a small family at home, he would resign at once.
“And you are sure?”
“Oh yes, my lord—quite.”
“Went straight there?”
“Yes, my lord; and I hope your lordship considers I have done my duty in telling you according to your orders.”
“I consider, sir, that you have behaved like a miserable, contemptible sneak.”
“But your lordship told me to—”
“Don’t talk to me, sir. Leave the room.”
The steward left the room, and as he closed the door he turned round, showing his teeth, and shook his fist.
“Old beast!” he said aloud: “I’ll serve you out for this some day.”
Then his countenance changed, his jaw dropped, and he drew to one side to allow Lady Pinemount to pass, fully conscious that she must have heard his words and seen the expression on his face.
“It’s all over,” he groaned, as her ladyship passed into the library. “I’m a ruined man. She’ll tell him, and—oh dear, oh dear! The workhouse stares us all in the face.”
But Lady Pinemount did not tell her husband, for she knew that the unfortunate steward must have been smarting from one of the injuries his lordship knew so well how to inflict. In fact, if she had felt so disposed she would not have had the opportunity, for the moment she had closed the door she was addressed.
“Ah, here you are!” cried her lord. “I hope you are satisfied.”
“Satisfied, dear?”
“Dear? Bah! You’ve encouraged and sided with that scoundrel of a boy, till he is in open rebellion against me; and then you call me dear.”
“I have not encouraged him,” said Lady Pinemount. “I have always tried to set you two at one. What is the matter now?”
“Why, I’ve found out this morning that Denis himself cut down and burned that hoarding.”
“Over whose destruction you insulted Doctor Salado.”
“I made a mistake,” said his lordship. “I daresay even angels make mistakes sometimes.”
“I don’t know,” said her ladyship quietly. “Of course you will apologise to the Doctor?”
“The Doctor? The quack! No, madam, I am not going to stoop to that.”
Lady Pinemount sighed.
“And that’s not the worst of it. I forbade the young scoundrel to go near those people again. Did I, or did I not?”
“You did, dear, emphatically. But if Denis really cares for Miss Salado—”
“He sha’n’t have her—there! I forbade him to go there; and, not content with insulting me by grubbing down and burning the hoarding I erected to keep off obnoxious people, he has gone there again and again, encouraged by the adventurer of a father.”
“I am very sorry, dear.”
“Sorry? What good does that do? And he’s there now.”
“No, my dear,” said Lady Pinemount; “he is just coming across the park.”
“Ah! is he?” cried Lord Pinemount, leaping up and running to the window. “Here,—hi! Denis! Come here!”
The young man came calmly enough up to the window.
“Ah, mamma!” he said. “You want me, sir?”
“Yes. Where the devil have you been?”
“Over to Sandleighs, sir. And have the goodness to remember, in addressing me, that I am not one of the grooms.”
“Denis!”
“All right, mamma. I am not a child now, and if his lordship addresses me in that tone I shall resent it.”
“Ah, indeed!” said the father sarcastically. “May I respectfully inquire, then, why you have been over to Sandleighs?”
“To apologise to Doctor Salado for causing him so much annoyance.”
“Say Don Salado, my dear son,” cried his lordship: “and may I ask how you have annoyed him? By making eyes at the adventurer’s daughter—bah! wench!”
The young man’s eyes flashed, but he spoke quite calmly.
“I apologised for causing him to be suspected of destroying that hoarding which I cut down and burned.”
“Yes, I know you did, sir.”
“I am not surprised, father. I thought one of your spies would be watching me.”
“Oh, Denis, Denis!” cried Lady Pinemount appealingly. “Right, mother dear. I’ll speak and act quite calmly; but I will not be treated as a schoolboy.”
“Then you have apologised to Doctor Salado, the Spanish-American adventurer, and you are going to espouse his daughter, I presume?”
“Yes, father. I love her very dearly, and—”
“That will do, thank you,” said his lordship quietly, though he was pale with suppressed fury. “I have no time to listen to silly sentiment. Good morning: there is the door.”
Lady Pinemount ran to her son’s side.
“Don’t quarrel, Denis, for my sake,” she whispered; and he pressed her hand.
“Did you hear me, Mr Rolleston? Have the goodness to go. Of course you will get the title when I die, and the estate. But not a penny do you have from me beside; and the estate will nearly ruin you, without money to keep it up. You say you are a man: act like one, and go.”
“You wish me to leave your house finally, sir?”
“Wish? I order you to go; and until you come over humbly and ask leave to pay your addresses to the Lady Jenny, never darken my doors again.”
“Very well, sir. I will see you again, mother, before I go.”
“Denis! Husband, pray, pray do not let this trouble come upon us.”
“Mr Rolleston, being angry makes me ill. I wish to behave politely and calmly to you. Please to go.”
Denis caught his mother to his breast, and then hurried out of the room, to go and order the valet to pack up his portmanteau and send it across to the station; and then he went off across the park, to see the Salados and say good-bye.
Volume One—Chapter Seven.
Good-Bye.
“Back again so soon, Mr Rolleston?” said the Doctor, as Denis presented himself before the father and daughter; Veronica having risen from her seat and laid her hand upon her father’s shoulder, reading at once in their visitor’s eyes that something serious was the cause of his visit.
“Yes, sir: I have come to say good-bye to you both.”
“For good?” said the Doctor, taking his child’s hand and pressing it warmly.
“I hope for good,” said Denis, smiling encouragingly at Veronica. “I am going abroad.”
“What for?”
“The same reason that others go for, sir. To make my fortune.”
“You! I thought you were Lord Pinemount’s heir.”
“So I am, sir; but my father may live twenty or thirty years,—I hope he may,—and I have nothing now except what I earn.”
“Humph! then you have come to an open rupture with him?”
“No, sir; he has come to an open rupture with me.”
“Because you come here?”
“Because I refuse to obey him and make matrimonial overtures to a lady I dislike.”
“Overture to a very bad opera, eh?”
“I could not do it, sir. It would be base, contemptible, and—There—you know.”
“Humph! Then you have beggared yourself because you think you care for Veronica?”
“No, sir; I am ordered away till I go and beg pardon and promise to marry as my father orders; so there is a breach that will never be healed.”
“Better go and heal it. This is all very fresh. Very will soon forget you, and you’ll forget her.”
“Doctor Salado!”
“Well, I know the world, sir. Sad thing for a young man like you to sacrifice his prospects.”
“I don’t agree with you, sir. It is the best thing that could have happened, and will make a man of me. I shall go to Canada or Vancouver, I think; and in justice to Miss Salado I have come to say that I bind her by no promise,—I only trust in her faith. Some day I shall return to ask her to be my wife. Till then—”
He could not finish, but stood with his lips compressed.
“Humph! Well, I think you are quite right, sir. Come, Very, be a woman. How much capital have you to take with you?”
“None, sir.”
“Then you’ll want some five hundred or a thousand. I have the latter amount, and no particular use for it. I’ll lend it to you at five per cent.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Denis warmly, “but I must decline. I’ll go and fight the battle for myself, and prove to my father that I am not the weak boy he thinks.”
“Quite right. Go and fight the battle for yourself.”
“Papa!” whispered Veronica, with a look of agony in her eyes.
“Yes, my dear; it’s the best thing he can do. You both feel a bit sore, but you will soon forget the trouble. Good-bye, Denis Rolleston. You’re more of a man than I thought you. Write to me now and then, and let me hear how you are getting on. We shall both be very pleased to hear of your welfare. It’s a pity your father is so severe; but there—all fathers are. I am. Good-bye, my lad. I’d select a good ship, and I wouldn’t go steerage.”
“Why not?” said Denis, through his set teeth. “Better begin at the bottom, sir.”
“Well, yes, my lad, perhaps you had. Now, Very, my dear, say good-bye to him like a woman, and wish him well. Some day in the future you two will meet at dinner and laugh at this rosy-posy boy-and-girl love business. And by the way, Rolleston, my lad, keep your eyes open, and send me any little natural history specimen you find.”
“Good-bye, Veronica,” said Denis, who did not seem to hear the Doctor’s words.
“Good-bye,” she said, giving him a wistful look; and her voice was almost inaudible, while her eyes looked dull and her cheeks ashy pale.
He took her cold limp hand, held it for a few moments in his, then turned and rushed out of the house.
“Papa! Father!”
Only two words; but their tone was enough for the Doctor, who caught her to his heart, then placed her in a chair and turned to the window.
“Hi! Denis!” he roared; and the young man turned, coming back in obedience to the signals the Doctor made, and standing once more in the room.
“Look here, sir, you had better have that money: you’ll want it over yonder.”
“Did you call me back for that, sir?” said the young man bitterly—“to go through this agony again? No: I will make the money I want myself.”
“Bravo!” cried the Doctor, seizing his hand. “But you sha’n’t go!”
Denis stared.
“Do you think I am going to have my little pet here die of a broken heart, for the sake of you, you ugly young scoundrel? No! you sha’n’t go. Here: you stop and comfort Very, and I’ll go over to the Manor and bring my Lord Pinemount to his knees.”
“Doctor Salado!” cried Denis excitedly. “No, no: it is impossible. You must not go. You would be insulted.”
“Then I’ll insult him. Here, Very, my pretty: I’m not to let this boy go, am I?”
For answer the girl flung herself upon Denis’ breast, and clung there sobbing.
“This—this is too hard, sir!” cried Denis passionately.
“I am only man, after all.”
“Well, what do you want to be, boy? There, I don’t like you, and I don’t like your father; but I’m not going to let that stand in the way. I’m going over to the Manor to bring my lord to his knees.”
“You don’t know what you are saying,” cried Denis. “Veronica, he must not go.”
“I do know what I’m saying. Am I not Doctor Salado—a moral magician in my way? Did I not make him give up cutting down the trees?”
“Yes, sir; but you cannot make him retract from driving me off the family tree for a time,” said Denis, with a sad smile. “I am only a beggar now, and I must go.”
“Indeed you will not. And as for being a beggar, Very here will have plenty for you both.”
“Which I could not take.”
“Then, confound you, sir!” cried the Doctor, with mock fury, “I’ll bring an action against you for breach of promise of marriage. There, pet, don’t cry: you shall have your pretty boy.”
“Doctor Salado, you must not go. You don’t know my father.”
“Thoroughly, my lad. There—take heart, both of you. Denis, my lad, you sha’n’t be a pensioner on my bounty. Come, I’ll bet you five pounds that your father and mother dine here with us to-night, and talk to my Very here as if she were their child, as she has to be.”
“Doctor Salado, are you mad?”
“Yes, my lad. I have been all my life, but I’m not at all dangerous. God bless you, my lad! I believe in you, and when I come back you’ll believe in me.”
Volume One—Chapter Eight.
Doctor Salado’s Magic.
“Take the good the gods provide you,” seemed to be Denis Rolleston’s motto, for he was very happy with Veronica, while the Doctor made off across the park, gave the bell at the open door a tremendous tug, and then waited till a serious-looking butler came to the front.
“Tell his lordship I want to see him directly.”
“Not at home, sir,” said the man stolidly.
“Tell his lordship I want to see him directly,” cried the Doctor sternly. “He’s in the library: I heard his laugh as I came up to the house.”
“But—”
“Stand aside, fellow!” cried the Doctor; and he marched in, flung open the library door, and shut it sharply, as Lord Pinemount rose from his chair pale with rage.
“Morning,” said the Doctor. “Sit down. I want a chat with you.”
He took a seat coolly, and looked critically at the angry man before him, who was breathless with passion.
“How dare you!” he said at last—“how dare you force your presence here! Go, sir, before I send for the police.”
“Don’t make a fool of yourself, sir: sit down. You must know that the business is important, or I should not act like this.”
“You are a madman, sir!”
“Yes, perhaps: sit down.”
There was such a tone of authority in the Doctor’s words that his lordship dropped back in his chair wondering at his own action.
“That’s better. Now then, Pinemount, let’s look the state of affairs in the face. Your boy loves my child.”
“I have no son, sir. I have cut him off.”
“Humph! All talk, sir. Can’t be done. He loves my girl, and she loves him. He is up at my house now; and after I have talked to you I want you to bring her ladyship over to the young people, and make things comfortable.”
“Yes, you are mad,” said his lordship, reassuring himself. “How dare you presume like this! Leave my house, sir!”
“Don’t raise your voice, man, and let all the servants know you are in a passion.”
“The insolence—the presumption! Look here, sir: if you are not mad, who and what are you, that you dare to come and make such a proposition to me?”
“Ah!” said the Doctor, as Lady Pinemount entered, looking anxiously from one to the other, while the visitor advanced to meet her, took her hand, kissed it with courtly grace, and led her to a chair.
“I repeat, sir, who and what are you, that you presume to come and sow dissension in my peaceful village—heartburnings in my home? Who are you?”
“Your cousin Richard, who died abroad.”
“What!” roared his lordship. “Impostor, you lie!”
“No, sir: you are the impostor, or rather usurper. I grieve to say, madam—Mrs Rolleston—that I am Lord Pinemount, and that your husband has no right whatever here.”
“I—”
“Silence, sir!” said Lord Pinemount, with dignity. “Accept the position, and hear what I have to say.”
“Is this true, sir?” faltered the lady.
“You will know if you listen, madam. Nay, you both must know, by the inquiries that were made before your husband succeeded to the title and estates. I saw all the papers with the advertisements; but I was happy, was rich, and detested England for an old association, and I preferred to remain dead to all who had known me. When at last I did return to England, for my child’s sake—a widower—I came down here. The Sandleighs was for sale, and I bought it.”
There was something like a groan here, and the lady gazed wildly at her husband.
“Of course I thought of claiming the title; but I met you and your son, and I said to myself, ‘Why should I make his family wretched?’ Then, as you know, while I was in doubt, Love came and cleared away the difficulty and decided me. If I had claimed the title it would have been for Veronica’s sake. Well, Denis loves her; and in due time—a long time hence, if your husband will study his health and not cut his life short by passion and apoplexy—Denis will be My Lord,—my child My Lady. That is enough for me. I am contented to be the Doctor and go on as the naturalist still.”
“But—but—” faltered the lady. “My husband—Mr Rolleston, if what you say is true—”
“He knows it is true. But not Mr Rolleston,—Lord Pinemount still. Madam, I tell you I am very rich, and my wants are very few. The title is nothing to me. Yes, it is—it is my one secret. There, Pinemount, am I an impostor now?”
“I am stunned,” faltered the bearer of the title.
“Bah! that will soon go off. Lady Pinemount, our esteem, I am sure, is mutual, and I believe you like your son’s choice.”
“Indeed, indeed I do!” cried Lady Pinemount eagerly.
“You would not be a woman if you did not,” said the Doctor warmly. “There, Pinemount, you may take my word—the more easily that you see I want nothing from you but your cousinship. Still the family lawyers can see papers that would convince the greatest sceptic living. Let bygones be forgotten. Give me your hand.”
The said hand was raised doubtingly, but it was seized and warmly grasped.
“Now then,” said the Doctor, “I promised your son to bring you up to ask my child to be your son’s wife.”
“Is this some dream?” said Lord Pinemount, in a subdued voice.
“No, sir—the broad sunlight of fact. There, my dear cousin, Lady Pinemount, is eager to take my darling in her arms, and you are as eager to grasp the hand of as true and brave a young fellow as ever stepped. Will you order the carriage, Lady Pinemount?”
“But—but,” faltered Lord Pinemount, “do I understand that you will not ask me to give up the title—the estate?”
“Only when the great end comes, and your son reigns in your stead—and ours, sir. God bless him! for I love him as if he was my son. Lady Pinemount—cousin, sister—you will come on at once?”
She could not speak, but pressed the hand he gave her and held it to her lips.
“But what magic is this?” whispered Denis two hours later, when he had felt the warm grasp of his father’s hand, and seen him kiss and bless Veronica, who was now seated on a couch with Lady Pinemount’s arm round her waist “Doctor Salado’s magic, my dear boy. Some day I will give you the recipe. There—never mind now. You will represent the family tree, and its finest limb is not sawn off.”
Volume Two—Chapter One.
The Gilded Pill—A Homely Comedy.
Dove and Daws.
“Richard Shingle, Shoemaker. Repairs neatly executed.”
This legend was written in yellow letters, shaded with blue, upon an oval red board. Red, blue, and yellow form a pleasing combination to some eyes; but when the yellow is drab, the blue dirty, and the scarlet of a brick-dusty tint, the harmony is not pleasing. Moreover, the literary artist could not be complimented upon his skill in writing in pigment with a camel-hair brush; for, not content to be staid and steadfast in Roman characters, he had indulged in wild flourishes, which gave the signboard the appearance of a battle-field, upon which certain ordinary letters were staggering about, while three or four tyrannical capitals were catching them with lassoes, which twined wildly, round their heads and legs.
For instance, the first “d” was in difficulties, the “g” was pulled out of place, the “h” and “o” tied tightly together, while just below, the “repairs” seemed to be neatly executed indeed, for the “r” had a yellow rope round its neck, having been hung by “Richard,” beneath which word it was suspended, with the rest of the letters kicking frantically because that initial was at its last gasp.
But this idea, probably, did not present itself to the inhabitants of Crowder’s Buildings, a pleasant cul de sac in the neighbourhood of the Angel at Islington. Crowder, once upon a time, bought two houses in a front street, between and under which there was an entrance like a tunnel, leading to the back gardens and back doors of the said houses; and Crowder—now dead and numbered with the just—being a man of frugal mind, gazed at the gardens of his freehold messuage and tenements, and saw that they were useful as cat walks, to make beds growing oyster and other shells, and vegetables of the most melancholy kind. He let the fact dawn upon his understanding that the vegetables grown might be bought better for sixpence per annum, and resolved that he would utilise the space.
To do this, he built up two rows of staring-eyed, four-roomed tenements, sixteen in all, separated by twelve feet of pavement, whitewashed them as they stood staring at one another, and turned the two garden deserts into a busy, thrifty hive, where some twenty or thirty families flourished and grew dirty.
The occupants of the two houses in the street complained, and left; but Crowder let the houses at a higher rent without the gardens—let the little tenements each at ten shillings a week, and turned out those who did not pay; and for the rest of his life collected his own dues, did his own painting and whitewashing—even plastered upon occasion; and at last, while repairing a chimney-stack and putting on a new pot, at the age of seventy-five, like a thrifty soul as he was, he slipped from the ladder, rolled off the roof of Number 10, fell into the open paved space, with his head in the centre gutter, where the soapsuds ran down, and his heels on a scraper—every house had a scraper, to make it complete—and was so much injured that Nature gave him notice to quit his earthly habitation, evicted him, and, save in name, the buildings knew him no more.
For they passed into the hands of Maximilian Shingle, “broker and setrer,” as his brother said—a most worthy member of society: a sticky-fingered man, who, through this last quality, was enabled to lay up honey in store. In fact, he was so well off that, when Crowder’s Buildings were brought to the hammer by Crowder’s heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, the hammer that knocked them down knocked them into Max Shingle’s possession, and they were paid for with Mrs Fraser’s money—a certain amount in thousands which she bestowed, with her two sons Fred and Tom—upon the man who re-won her heart six months after Fred Fraser senior’s death.
It was a retired spot after passing through the tunnel, and hence it became the popular playground of the children of the neighbourhood, who chalked the pavement, broke their knees and heads upon its harsher corners, and made it the scene of the festive dance when a dark-visaged organ-man came down to grind the last new airs of the day.
By a great act of benevolence, Maximilian Shingle, who was a lowly, good man, a shining light at his chapel, where he was deacon, had, though inundated with applications for Number 4 when it became empty, let it to his unlucky brother Richard, who flourished under the sign that heads this chapter, made boots and shoes, and neatly executed the repairs in the dilapidated Oxonians and strong working-men’s bluchers that came to his lot.
It was first-floor front-room cleaning-up day at Richard Shingle’s; and Mrs Shingle—familiarly spoken to as “mother”—was in her glory, having what she called “a good rummage.” Had her home possessed a back yard or a front garden, every article of furniture would have been turned out; but as there was not an inch of back yard, and the front garden was very small, being limited to six flowerpots behind a small green fence on the upstairs window-sill, Mrs Shingle was debarred from that general clearance.
But she did the best she could to get at the floor for a busy scrub while her husband and daughter were away; and the consequence was that the side-table had its petticoats tucked up round its waist, thereby revealing the fact that its legs were not mahogany, but deal; the hearthrug was rolled up, and sitting in the big-armed Windsor chair; the fender had gone to bed in the back room; and the chairs seemed to be playing at being acrobats, and were standing one upon the other; while the chimney ornaments—shepherds and shepherdesses for the most part—were placed as spectators on the top of the little cupboard to look on.
Mrs Shingle finished her task of cleaning up before descending, carrying a pail which had to be emptied and rinsed out before her hands were dried.
Mrs Shingle was a pleasant, plump woman, who had run a good deal to dimple; in fact, the backs of her hands were full of coy little pits, where the water hid when she washed, and her wedding ring lay in a kind of furrow, from not having grown with her hands.
She gave a few touches with a duster to the lower room, which was half sitting, one-fourth kitchen, and one-fourth workshop, inasmuch as there was a low shoemaker’s bench, with its tools, under the window, beneath which, and secured to the wall by a strap, were lasts, knives, awls, pincers, and various other implements of the shoemaker’s art. On a stand close by stood a sewing machine, and on the table were patches of kid and patent leather, evidently awaiting the needle.
Mrs Shingle had finished her hurried cleaning, and the furniture was put back; had been to the glass and arranged her hair, and finished off by taking out three pins, which she stuck in her mouth, as if it were a cushion, giving herself a shake, which caused her dress, that had been round her waist, to fall into its customary folds; and then, sitting down she was busy at work binding boot-tops, when the open door was darkened, and a fashionably dressed young man, of five-and-twenty, tapped on the panel with the end of his stick, entered with a languid walk, said, “How do, aunt?” and seated himself on the edge of the table.
The visitor’s clothes were very good, but they had a slangy cut, and might have been made for some Leviathan of a music-hall, who intended to delineate what he termed “a swell.” For the cuffs of the excessively short coat nearly hid the young fellow’s hands, even as the ends of his trousers almost concealed his feet; his shirt front was ornamented with large crimson zigzag patterns, and his hat was so arranged on the back of his head that it pressed down over his forehead a series of unhappy, greasy-looking little curls, which came down to his eyebrows.
Mrs Shingle nodded, and stabbed a boot-top very viciously as the young man saluted her.
“Old man out?” he said.
“You know he is,” retorted Mrs Shingle, “else you wouldn’t have come.”
“Don’t be hard on a fellow, aunt. You know I can’t help coming. Where’s Jessie?”
“Out,” said Mrs Shingle, sharply.
“She always is out when I come,” drawled the young man, tapping his teeth with his cane. “I believe she is upstairs now.”
“Then you’d better go up and see,” exclaimed Mrs Shingle. “Look here, Fred, I’m sure your father don’t approve of your coming here.”
“I can’t help what the governor likes,” was the reply.
“I’m not going to ask him where I’m to go. Is Jessie out?”
“I told you she was, sir.”
“Don’t be so jolly cross, aunt. It’s all right, you know. The old man will kick a bit, but he’ll soon come round. Don’t you be rusty about it. You ought to be pleased, you know; because she ain’t likely to have a chance to do half so well. I shall go and meet her.”
As he spoke, the young man—to wit, Frederick Fraser, step-son of Maximilian Shingle, Esq, of Oblong Square, Pentonville—slowly descended from the table, glanced at himself in the glass, and made for the door.
“She’s gone down the Goswell Road, I know,” said the young man, turning to show his teeth in a grin.
“No, no,” exclaimed Mrs Shingle hastily.
“Thank ye, I know,” said the young fellow, with a wink, and he passed out.
“Bother the boy!” exclaimed Mrs Shingle petulantly. “Now he’ll meet her, and she’ll be upset, and Dick will be cross, and Tom look hurt. Oh, dear, dear, dear, I wish she’d been as ugly as sin!”
There was an interval of angry stitching, as if the needle was at enmity with the soft leather, and determined to do it to death, and then Mrs Shingle cried, “Here she is!”
“Ah, my precious!” she added, as a trim, neat little figure came hurrying in snatched off her hat and hung it behind the door.
She was only in a dark brown stuff dress, but it was the very pattern of neatness, as it hung in the most graceful of folds; while over all shone as sweet a face as could be seen from east to west, with the bright innocence looking out of dark grey eyes.
“Back again, mother,” accompanied by a hasty kiss, was the reply to Mrs Shingle’s salute.
Then, brushing the crisp fair hair back from her white temples, the girl popped herself into a chair, opened a packet, drew close to the sewing machine, and in response to the pressure of a couple of little feet, that would have made anything but cold crystallised iron thrill, the wheel revolved, and with a clinking rattle the needle darted up and down.
“Have I been long?”
“No, my dear—quick as quick!” said Mrs Shingle, watching her child curiously.
“I wanted to get back and finish this, so as to take it in,” said the girl, making the machine rattle like distant firing.
“Did you meet Mr Fred?”
“Fred? No, mother,” was the reply, as the girl started, coloured, and the consequence was a tangle of the threads and a halt. “Has he been here?” she continued, as with busy fingers she tried to set the work free once more.
“Yes, just now, and set out to meet you. I wonder how you could have missed him.”
There was a busy pause for a few minutes, during which some work was hastily finished; and while Mrs Shingle kept watching her child from time to time uneasily, the latter rose from the machine, and began to double up the jacket upon which she had been at work, and to place it with a couple more lying close by on a black cloth.
“I hope you don’t encourage him, Jessie,” said Mrs Shingle at last.
“Mother!” exclaimed the girl, and her face became like crimson—“how can you?”
“Well, there, there, I’ll say no more,” exclaimed Mrs Shingle—“only it worries me. Now, make haste, there’s a dear, or you’ll be late. Don’t stop about, Jessie; and, whatever you do, don’t come back without the money. Your uncle’d sure to come or send to-day, and it’s so unpleasant not being ready.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can, mother,” said Jessie briskly.
“And you won’t stop, dear?”
“I don’t know what you mean, mother,” said the girl, with a tell-tale blush on her cheek.
“How innocent we are, to be sure!” exclaimed Mrs Shingle, tartly. Then, smiling, she continued, “There, I’m not cross, but I don’t quite like it. Of course, Tom don’t know when you go to the warehouse, and won’t be waiting. There, I suppose young folks will be young folks.”
“I can’t help it, mother, if Mr Fraser meets me by accident,” said Jessie, blushing very rosily, and pouting her lips.
“But he mustn’t meet you by accident; and it oughtn’t to be. Uncle Max would be furious if he knew of it, and those two boys will be playing at Cain and Abel about you, and you mustn’t think anything about either of them.”
“Mother!” exclaimed Jessie.
“I can’t help it, my dear; I must speak, and put a stop to it. Your father would be very angry if he knew.”
“Oh, don’t say so, mother!” pleaded Jessie, with a troubled look.
“But I must say it, my dear, before matters get serious; and I’ve been thinking about it all, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it must all be stopped. There! what impudence, to be sure! I believe that’s him come again.”
“May I come in?” said a voice, after a light tap at the door. And a frank, bearded face appeared in the opening.
“Yes, you can come in,” said Mrs Shingle sharply. But, in spite of her knitted brows, she could not keep back a smile of welcome as the owner of the frank face entered the room, kissed her, and then turned and caught Jessie’s hands in his, with the result that the parcel she was making up slipped off the table to the ground.
“There, how clumsy I am!” he exclaimed, picking up the fallen package, and nearly striking his head against Jessie’s, as, flushed and agitated, she stooped too. “Well, aunt dear, how are you?”
“Oh, I’m well enough,” said Mrs Shingle tartly, as she stretched a piece of silk between her fingers and her teeth, and made it twang like a guitar string. “What do you want here?”
“What do I want, aunt? All right, Jessie—I’ll tie the string. Thought I’d come in and carry Jessie’s parcel.”
“Oh, there!” exclaimed the girl.
“Now, look here, Mr Tom Fraser,” said Mrs Shingle, holding up her needle as if it were a weapon of offence: “you two have been planning this.”
“Mother!” cried Jessie.
“Oh no, we did not, aunt,” cried the young man; “it was all my doing. No, no, Jessie—I’ll carry the parcel.”
“No, no, Tom; indeed you must not.”
“I should think not, indeed!” cried Mrs Shingle, who, as she glanced from one to the other, and thought of her own early days, plainly read the love that was growing up between the young people; but could not see that her first visitor, Fred, had come back, and was standing gazing, with a sallow, vicious look upon his face, at what was going on inside, before going off with his teeth set and an ugly glare in his eyes.
“Tom Fraser,” continued the lady of the house, “I mean Mr Tom—Mr Thomas Fraser—you ought to be ashamed of yourself, to behave in this way. You quite the gentleman, and under Government, and coming to poor peopled houses, and wanting to carry parcels, and all like a poor errand-boy!”
“Stuff and nonsense, aunt!—I’m not a gentleman, and I’m only your nephew; and whilst I’m here I’m not going to see Jessie go through the street carrying a parcel, when I can do it for her.”
“But you must not, indeed, Tom—I mean Mr Fraser,” said Jessie, half-tearful, half-laughing. “I’m going to the warehouse, and I must carry it myself.”
“I know you are going to the warehouse,” said Tom, laughing; “but you must not carry the parcel yourself.”
“But, my dear boy,” said Mrs Shingle, who was evidently softening, “think of what your father would say.”
“I can’t help what he would say, aunt,” said the young man, earnestly; “I only know I can’t help coming here, and I don’t think you want to be cruel and drive me away.”
“No—no—no,” said Mrs Shingle, “but—”
“Do you, Jessie?”
“No, Tom—Mr Fraser,” faltered Jessie. “But—”
“But—but!” exclaimed the young man impatiently. “Bother Mr Fraser! My dear Jessie, why are you turning so cold here before your mother? Are you ashamed of me?”
“No—no, Tom,” she cried eagerly.
“And you know how dearly I love you?”
“Yes, Tom,” faltered Jessie sadly; “but it must be only as cousins.”
“And why?” said the young man sternly.
“Because,” said Jessie, laying her hand upon his arm, “I’m only a very poor girl, Tom, and half educated.”
“What a wicked story, Jessie!” cried Mrs Shingle, who had her apron to her eyes, but now spoke up indignantly—“why, you write beautiful!”
“And,” continued Jessie, “your father—my father would never consent to it; for I’m not a suitable choice for you to make.”
“Why, Jessie,” cried the young man, “you talk like a persecuted young lady in a book. What nonsense! Uncle Richard, if he felt sure that I should make you a good husband, would consent. And, as to my step-father—”
“Now, look here, you two,” said Mrs Shingle, “it’s important that Jessie should get to the warehouse with those things, and you’re stopping idling. It’s late as it is.”
“Come along, then,” cried Tom, seizing the parcel.
“No, no,” cried Jessie, who looked pale, and trembled.
“No, indeed; he must not go with you,” said Mrs Shingle.
“Don’t be cruel, aunt,” said Tom appealingly. “I don’t like Jessie to go by herself.”
“There, then, she’s not going by herself; I’m going with her,” exclaimed Mrs Shingle.
“Then let me go instead.”
“No, no,” cried Jessie, getting agitated; “you must not.”
“You have some reason, Jessie,” said Tom, looking at her suspiciously.
“No, no, Tom. Don’t look at me like that,” she cried.
“Then tell me why,” he said, sternly.
“The man at the warehouse made remarks last time you came,” said Jessie, hesitating.
“I’ll make marks and remarks on him, if he does,” cried Tom. “Aunt,” he continued angrily, “I can’t bear it. It’s not right for Jessie to go alone; and I don’t believe you were going. It makes me half mad to think that she may be insulted by some puppy or another, and I not be there to knock him down.”
“But no one will insult her, my boy,” said Mrs Shingle, looking at him admiringly.
“But people do, and have,” cried Tom, grinding his teeth. “She has told me so. Because she goes with a parcel through the streets, every unmanly rascal seems to consider she is fair game for him; and—hang it, aunt, I can’t help it!—if any scoundrel does it again, I’ll half kill him!”
“Oh, Tom, Tom!” whispered Jessie, as he strode up and down, with the veins in his forehead starting, and then uttered a sob.
“I can’t help it,” he cried; “it’s more than a fellow can bear. I’m not ashamed to own it. I love Jessie dearly; and if she’ll be my little wife I don’t care what anybody says. Poor girl, indeed! Where’s the lady in our set that can stand before her?”
“Not many, I know,” said Mrs Shingle proudly.
“She can’t help uncle being poor, and I can’t help my step-father being rich. Come, aunt, you’ll let me go?”
“I mustn’t.”
“Then it’s because that brother of mine has been here,” cried Tom angrily.
“No, no, no!” cried Mrs Shingle; “indeed it isn’t, my dear boy. But I mustn’t allow it—I mustn’t indeed. Your father will never forgive me.”
“Jessie dear,” cried the young man, taking her hand, “you know I love you.”
“I know you say you do,” she faltered.
“And I think you care for me—a little.”
“Oh no, I don’t think I do—not a bit,” she said, half archly, half with the tears in her sweet eyes, as they would look tenderly at him, and seemed to say how much she would like him to come and protect her.
“I do not believe you, my darling,” he cried impetuously. “I’m quite satisfied about that. Aunt dear, you’ll let me go with her?”
“I don’t like it,” said Mrs Shingle; “and I’m sure it will lead to trouble.”
“Not it. Come, Jessie!”
“No, no, no!” cried Jessie. “Indeed you ought not to come, Tom.”
“Tom! Well, I must come after that,” he cried.
“Oh no: I did not mean it.”
“Well, look here,” said the young fellow. “Listen, both of you. If you will not let me walk with you side by side, I’ll follow like a shadow.”
“Shadows can’t carry parcels,” said Jessie merrily.
“This one can, and will.”
“There, go along, do, both of you,” said Mrs Shingle, whose eyes twinkled with pleasure as she looked on Tom’s eager face. “You’ll be dreadfully late.”
“All right,” cried Tom joyfully; “we’ll make haste, and if we are going to be late we’ll take a cab.”
“Because we are ashamed of the parcel,” said Jessie demurely.
“Ashamed!” cried Tom. “Why, if you’ll come with me I’ll take the parcel under one arm and you under the other, and walk all round the quadrangle at Somerset House when the clerks are leaving, just to make them all envious.”
“Go along, do!” cried Mrs Shingle. And she stood gazing after them as there was a playful struggle for the parcel at the door; while, as they disappeared, the plump little woman took up her shoe-binding, began stitching, and sighed—
“Heigho! I’m afraid I’ve done very wrong.”
Volume Two—Chapter Two.
Hopper—Ship’s Husband.
“Halloa, you sir!” said a snarling voice; “mind where you’re running to.”
“Beg pardon! Halloa, Mr Hopper, is it you?” exclaimed Tom.
“Eh? What? Yes, it is me, you rough, ill-mannered cub. Tom Fraser, if you were my son, hang it, sir, I’d thrash you, sir—trying to knock down a respectable wayfarer who is getting old and infirm.”
The speaker shook the ugly stick he carried at the young man as he spoke, and his great massive head, with its unkempt grizzled hair and untended beard and whiskers, looked anything but pleasant; for from beneath his shaggy, overhanging brows his eyes seemed to flash again.
“I didn’t try to knock you down,” shouted Tom, putting his face close to that of the old fellow, who looked as if his seventy years had been spent in gathering dirt more than in cleaning it off.
“Don’t shout. I’m not so deaf as all that, you ugly ruffian. Pick up those boots.”
Tom stooped, and picked up a very old pair of unpolished boots that the other had been carrying beneath his arm, and had let fall on the pavement in the collision.
“There you are, Mr Hopper, and I beg your pardon, and I’m very sorry,” said Tom, smiling pleasantly. “There you are,” he continued, tucking the boots under his arm. “It’s all right now.”
“What are you halloaing like that for, you ugly young bull-calf?” snarled the old fellow, shaking his stick. “Do you think I want all the people in the Buildings to come out and listen? Don’t I tell you I’m not so deaf as all that, hang you? What are you going to do with that girl?”
“Only going down into the City,” replied Tom.
“Hey?” said the old fellow.
“City!” shouted Tom.
“Oh! Does your father know you’re going with her?” cried the old fellow, with a malevolent grin beginning to overspread his countenance.
“No,” said Tom, flushing slightly; while Jessie began to look troubled.
“Hey?”
“No!” shouted Tom.
“Does her father know you’ve come?” said the old fellow, pointing at Jessie with his stick.
“No!” said Tom stoutly, and beginning to grow indignant.
“Then,” continued the old man, chuckling, and rubbing his hands together, and dropping first his stick and then his boots, which Jessie hastened to pick up, “I’ll go and see Mr Shingle to-night, and tell him; and I’ll wait here till Richard Shingle comes home, and I’ll tell him; and there’ll be the devilishest devil of a row about it that ever was. You’ve no business here, and you know it, you scoundrel. She isn’t good enough for you. You’re to marry the fair Violante—the violent girl. There’ll be a storm for you to-night, young fellow; so look out.”
“I’ll trouble you to mind your own business, Mr Hopper,” exclaimed Tom hotly.
“Hey?” said the old fellow, holding a boot up to his right ear, like a speaking trumpet.
“I say, if you get interfering with my affairs, Mr Hopper,” cried Tom angrily, and paying no heed to a whispered remonstrance from Jessie, “I’ll—”
“I can’t hear a word you say: try the right side.”
As he spoke, he held the other boot to his left ear, and leaned forward in an irritating manner, grinning the while at the speaker.
“I say that if you dare to—”
“Tchsh! I can’t hear a word if you mumble like that. Oh, be off with you: I’ve got no time to waste. I’m seventy, and if I’m lucky I’ve got ten years to live. You’re five-and-twenty, and got fifty-five, so you are wasteful of your time, and spend it in running after girls who don’t want you—like your beautiful brother Fred. Bless him! if I had any money to leave I’d put him down in my will for it—an artful, designing scoundrel!”
“Look here, Mr Hopper,” cried Tom hotly, “you can abuse me as much as you like, and tell tales as much as you like, and play the sneak; but because you’ve known me from a child I won’t stand here and hear my brother maligned.”
“There, it’s no use, I can’t hear a word you say,” grumbled the old fellow; “but it don’t matter,—I can see by your manner that you are abusing a poor helpless old man, the friend of your mother and that girl’s father, and you are keeping her back, so that she’ll be late with her parcel, and make her lose the work, and then you’ll be happy.”
“Confound—” began Tom. “Here, come along, Jessie,” he cried, snatching her arm through his; and the old man stood chuckling to himself as he watched them out through the tunnel, before he made for the door with the red sign, and giving a sharp rap with his stick entered at once, nodding quietly at Mrs Shingle.
“Here, I’ve brought Dick a job,” he said, carrying the old pair of boots to the bench. “He’s to do them directly, and they’re to be sixpence—I won’t pay another penny. Are you listening?”
Mrs Shingle nodded, and went on with her work.
“He’s to put a good big corn on the last of the left-hand foot, and then cut away the leather, well beat a patch and put it on. My left foot hurts me horrid.”
“You ought to have a new pair,” said Mrs Shingle.
“Hey?”
“You ought to have a new pair,” she continued, a trifle more loudly.
“Have a new pair?”
Mrs Shingle nodded.
“Bah! How can I afford a new pair? Times are hard. Ships’ husbands don’t make money like they used. New pair, indeed! They’re good enough for me. Tell him to mend ’em well, and they are to be sixpence, d’yer hear?” Mrs Shingle nodded, with her silk in her mouth, gave it a twang, and went on.
“You’ll break your teeth one of these days,” said the old fellow, taking off his hat, placing it on his stick, and standing it in a corner. Then, going in a slow, bent way to the well waxed and polished Windsor chair, he gave the chintz cushion a punch, took a long clay pipe off the chimney-piece, made it chirrup, reached an old leaden tobacco-box from the same place, set it up on the table, and sat down.
“My teeth are used to it,” said Mrs Shingle, smiling pleasantly, as if she were quite accustomed to the old fellow’s proceedings.
“Hey?”
“I say my teeth are used to it,” repeated Mrs Shingle.
“Oh!—Don’t shout.—I say, this tobacco’s as dry as a chip,” he continued, filling his pipe.
Mrs Shingle sighed.
“Dick’s been going it awfully,” grumbled the old fellow; “there was nearly half an ounce here last night.”
Mrs Shingle rose, took the matches from the chimney-piece, struck a light, and held it to the bowl of the pipe; the visitor puffed the tobacco into a state of incandescence, and then subsided into his chair with a satisfied grunt, and sat staring straight before him, while Mrs Shingle sighed and went on with her stitching.
“I met those two,” said the old fellow, after a pause.
Mrs Shingle looked up sharply.
“Won’t do,” said her visitor.
“What won’t do?”
“Hey?”
“I say, what won’t do?” said Mrs Shingle, colouring, and looking at him anxiously.
“I can hear you—don’t shout,” said the old fellow. “I say that won’t do. Has Tom been here much?”
“No, not much,” said Mrs Shingle.
“I don’t quite understand Tom,” said the old fellow. “But I think he’s a scamp.”
“Indeed, I’m sure he’s not!” cried Mrs Shingle excitedly. “Sure he’s not?” chuckled the old fellow. “Of course. Just like you women. You take a fancy to a man, and the blacker he is the more you say he’s white.”
“I’m sure Tom is a very good, gentlemanly young fellow.”
“Of course. But it won’t do, Polly—it won’t do.”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t do,” said Mrs Shingle, tossing her head. “They’re both young and nice-looking.”
“Bah! will that fill their insides?”
“And they’re getting very fond of each other.”
“More shame for you to let ’em,” said the old man composedly. And his eyes twinkled with malicious glee as he saw the little woman begin to grow ruffled, like a mother hen, and the colour come into her wattles and comb.
“And pray why?” said Mrs Shingle loudly.
“Don’t shout,” said the old fellow. “Why, indeed! What will Max say when he knows of it?”
“Ah!” sighed Mrs Shingle, “what indeed!”
“He’ll boil over in his confounded sanctified way, and kick Tom out of the house without a shilling of his mother’s money.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” said Mrs Shingle, letting her work fall into her lap and wringing her hands; “that’s what I’ve been thinking, and I’ve tried all I could to stop it; but the more I try, the fonder they get of one another.”
“Of course they do. That’s their way—the young fools!” snarled the visitor; “and if you let ’em alone, Jessie will marry the young noodle, fill his house full of children, and make him a poor man all his life.”
“That wouldn’t matter much if they were happy,” sighed Mrs Shingle.
“Same as you’ve kept poor old Dicky?”
“Indeed! and we never had but one little one,” said Mrs Shingle indignantly.
“Hey?”
“I say we never had but one little one—Jessie,” said Mrs Shingle indignantly.
“Gross piece of extravagance, too. You couldn’t afford children.”
“No, indeed,” sighed Mrs Shingle.
“And now you’re encouraging that pretty young baggage, who coaxes and carneys round you, to get herself in the same mess, and then you’ll be happy.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear me! I wish I knew what to do,” sighed Mrs Shingle.
“What to do!” chorused the old fellow. “No business to have married. I didn’t, and I’ve saved just enough to live on with strict economy; and see how happy I am.”
“You don’t seem to be,” said Mrs Shingle tartly; “for you’re always finding fault.”
“Finding fault?”
Mrs Shingle nodded.
“Makes me happy. Then I come and smoke a pipe here one day, and one at Max’s another day; and you’re both so glad to see me that that makes me happy too. Ha! you’ve spoiled that girl of yours, or she wouldn’t go on like she does.”
“I’m sure Jessie couldn’t |be a better behaved girl!” exclaimed Mrs Shingle.
“Stuff! You never whipped her well, and Max never trained those boys. Good thing flogging! Makes the skin soft and elastic. Gives room to grow. Where’s Dick?”
“Gone to his brother’s.”
“Gone to his brother’s?”
Mrs Shingle nodded.
“What’s he gone there for?”
“Take home a pair of new boots.”
“What! did Max give Dick an order for a new pair?” Mrs Shingle nodded.
“Wonderful! Max is getting more virtuous than ever. I’ll praise him next time I go.”
“No, don’t—please,” said Mrs Shingle earnestly. “Every little does help so just now; and we can’t afford to offend Max.”
“So you make traps, and put Jessie in for a bait, and try to catch his wife’s two boys, eh?”
“Indeed I did not,” cried Mrs Shingle; “it was all Tom’s own doing.”
“Ah, I dare say it was; but young Fred’s always hanging about here too; and as soon as-ever Max hears of it, there will be no end of a row. I shall put him on his guard.”
“Pray say nothing!” cried Mrs Shingle imploringly. “Why not? Best for both the young noodles to be brought to their senses.”
“No, no; it would make them so unhappy. Let matters take their course. It will be quite time enough for the trouble to come when Maximilian finds it out for himself. Hush! here’s Dick.”
“Hulloa! What’s that? The old game. Woman all over. Keeping secrets from your husband. Glad I never married!”
Mrs Shingle darted an indignant look at him, and no doubt a sharp retort was on her lips; but it was checked by a voice outside, and Richard Shingle, the occupier of the house, the mechanic who made boots and shoes and neatly executed repairs, entered the room, followed by his boy, with “Hallo, Hoppy, old man, how are you? Glad to see you. Too soon for the B flat yet; but you stop all day, and we’ll polish that bit off to rights.”
“How are you, Dick—how are you?” said the old man quietly. And then refilling his pipe, he lit up, half turned his back, and seemed to ignore that which followed, and to be totally ignored, on account of his deafness.
Richard Shingle was not an ill-looking man of forty; but he had a rather weak, vacillating expression of countenance, over which predominated a curious, puzzled look, which was due to something you could not make out. One moment you felt sure it was his eyes, but the next you said decidedly it was his mouth, while just as likely you set it down to his fair hair or his rather hollow cheeks, or the turn of his chin. The fact was, it was due to all his features, his figure, and his every attitude; for Richard Shingle, as he stood before you, seemed as if he had just taken you by the button-hole and said in full sincerity, as applied to the general scheme of life and man’s position on earth: “I say, what does it all mean?”
For he was one of those men who had never “got on.” He said he wanted to get on, and he worked very hard; but the world was too much for him, and he was always left behind. If he had lived at the equator, where it is hot, and man naturally feels inert, while the world races round at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, it is only natural to suppose that he might have been left behind; but it would have been just the same if Richard Shingle’s existence had been upon the very Pole itself, north or south, where he would only have been called upon to turn once round in twenty-four hours. As he lived in that part of the temperate zone known as Islington, where the medium rate of progress is in force, it remained then, that not only could poor Dick never get ahead, but was always, in spite of his misplaced efforts, getting a little more and a little more behind.
And yet he looked a sharp, animated man, full of action, as on this occasion, when he turned to his wife with “Well, mother, here we are again, boots and all!”
“But you’ve not brought them back again, Dick?” said Mrs Shingle, looking anxiously up from her work.
“What do you call that, then?” said Dick, taking a blue bag from the doleful-looking, thin, white-faced boy with very short hair, and turning the receptacle upside down, so that the contents fell out on the floor with a bang.
“Oh, Dick!”
“He said they were the wussest-made pair of boots he ever see. After all the pains as I took with ’em,” said the speaker, gloomily picking up the freshly polished leather, and examining it.
“Oh, Dick—how tiresome!”
“And swore he couldn’t get his feet into ’em,—leastwise,” he added correctively, “he didn’t swear—Max is too good to swear—he said as he couldn’t get his feet in ’em.”
“Tut—tut—tut!” ejaculated Mrs Shingle, stitching away at her work.
“He blowed me up fine; said I wasn’t fit to shoe a horse, let alone a Christian man. When—look at ’em. Did you ever see a prettier pair—eh, Hoppy?” he shouted.
The old man glanced at the boots and grunted, turning away again directly.
“Look at ’em, mother—rights and lefts, and the soles polished off smooth; and see how prettily they put out their tongues at you, all lined with a bit o’ scarlet basil. Called me a cobbler, too, he did; and after laying myself out on the artistic tack, so as to get his future patronage, and that of Mrs S.’s two boys.”
“Oh, Dick, Dick!”
“Yes, it is ‘Oh, Dick, Dick!’ Bad, too, as we want the money. Wouldn’t fit you, I suppose, Hoppy?”
“Hey?”
“I say they wouldn’t fit you, would they? You should have ’em cheap.”
“Bah, no! I couldn’t wear boots like these. Couldn’t afford it—couldn’t afford it. There’s a pair for you to mend.”
“All right, old man—all right; I’ll do ’em. Of course they wouldn’t do for you,” he continued; “bad, too, as we want the money. Said it was what always came of employing relatives; but he did it out of charitable feeling—so as to give me a lift. Called me a bungler, too, when, look here, mother, how nicely I made a little mountain on that side to hold his bunion, and a little Greenwich-hill on that side to accommodate his favourite corn. That’s working for relations, that is. Dressed up a bit, too, this morning to take ’em home, so as not to disgrace him by looking too shabby, and made Union Jack walk behind to carry the blue bag, same as if I was a sooperior kind of tradesman, and his servants shouldn’t look down on me. Said I was Mr Richard Shingle, too, when the maid opened the door. But it was all no go. Another of my failures, old gal. Tell you what it is, mother, it’ll be what the drapers call a terrific crash if it goes on like this.”
“But, Dick dear, you don’t mean that he won’t have the boots at all?”
“That’s just what I do mean. He’s shied ’em on my hands. ’Taint as if he’d shied ’em on my feet.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs Shingle. “Dear!” said Dick, trying to raise a feeble laugh. “That’s just what they are. I can’t afford to wear a pair of handsome boots like them. Only look at ’em. Leather cost me nine shillings before I put in a stitch.”
“I declare, it’s too bad, Dick,” whimpered Mrs Shingle; “and us so badly off too. Brother, indeed! He’s worse than—”
“There, that’ll do,” said Dick, taking off his coat, “Don’t you get letting on about him, mother, because he is my brother, you know. Blood is thicker than water.”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it, Dick, if it’s ten times as thick,” said Mrs Shingle, stabbing away at her boot-binding as if the kid leather were Maximilian Shingle’s skin.
“No, you don’t,” said Dick, rolling up his sleeves, and tying on his leather apron, before going to the chimney glass, and putting a piece of ribbon round his rather long hair, apparently to embellish his countenance, but really to keep the locks out of his eyes when he bent down over his work. “No, mother; that’s because you’re put out, and cross, and won’t see it; but blood is thicker than water, ain’t it, Hoppy?”
“Hey?” said the old fellow, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“I say blood is thicker than water, ain’t it?”
“Ever so much,” growled the old fellow, going on with his smoking; while Dick, glancing over his shoulder, and seeing that his wife’s attention was taken up with the binding, slipped a half-ounce packet of tobacco into his old friend’s hand, with a nod and a wink, to indicate that the strictest secrecy must be observed.
“Yes,” continued Dick, retiring towards his bench; “that’s what I always say—brothers is brothers, and blood’s thicker than water. And as to Max—well, it’s a way he’s got, and he can’t help it.”
“Stuff!” ejaculated Mrs Shingle sharply.
“No, no, mother, it ain’t stuff neither; so don’t talk like that. Here, you sir,” he cried to the boy, who was standing staring from one to the other, “get to work, you luxurious young rascal. That ain’t the way to improve your shining hours. Wax up and get ready a pair of fine points to mend them old shoes.”
“All right, master,” said the boy. And, slipping off his threadbare jacket, he sat down on a stool, and began to unwind a ball of hemp.
“I don’t believe in such brothers,” said Mrs Shingle bitterly. “Brothers, indeed!”
“No, that’s it, mother; it’s because you are a bit put out. But you’ll see it in the right light soon.”
“Ah!” he continued, rearranging the band round his forehead; and then, catching sight of a letter tucked behind the glass, “Now, if old Uncle Rounce’s money—or present, as he calls it—would drop in now, it would be welcome.”
As he spoke he opened the often-perused letter, which was written on thin paper and bore Australian postmarks, and began to read aloud:
”‘Thinking that a little money might be useful, I have sent you a present’—and so on. Now, I wonder when that money’s coming.”
“Never,” said Mrs Shingle tartly.
“Now, there’s where you are so wrong, mother,” said Dick. “It’s very kind of the old fellow, who must have got on famously to be able to send us a few pounds—it’s sure to be pounds when it does come.”
“And it won’t never come,” said Mrs Shingle; “for you’ve had that letter nine months.”
“Well, if it don’t, mother, it don’t—that’s all; but what I say is, blood is thicker than water, or else old Uncle Eb—as I never see, only heard o—wouldn’t have said he’d send me a present—would he, Hoppy?”
“Hey?”
“I say Uncle Rounce wouldn’t have said he’d send me a present if blood warn’t thicker than water.”
“No. Have you got it yet?” said the old fellow.
“No, not yet. I asked Max about it, and he said he didn’t believe it would come.”
“He said that, did he?”
“Yes, he said that,” replied Dick, doubling the letter again, and replacing it behind the old looking-glass. “I dessay it’ll come, though, some day.”
“You had better try and sell those boots at once,” said Mrs Shingle rather impatiently, and as if she had not much faith in the coming money.
“Sell ’em? Yes; but who’s to buy ’em? There’s only two feet in London as will fit ’em, and they’re Max’s.”
“I declare it’s too bad, Dick dear, and we so pressed for money. The rent’s due, you know. Rolling in riches, as he is, and to behave so to his poor brother, who works so hard.”
“Gently, mother, gently: it’s only a way he’s got. But I do work pretty hard, don’t I?—only I’m so unlucky.”
“Why don’t you make a good dash at something, instead of plodding, then?” said Hopper suddenly.
“Come, now,” cried Dick, with an ill-used look and tone, “don’t you turn round on me, Hoppy, old man. We’re too good friends for that. It’s what Max always says; and I ain’t clever, so how can I?”
Hopper relapsed into silence.
“There, there, I shall get over it,” continued Dick, working away; “and as to rolling in riches, why, Max can’t help rolling in riches, any more than I can help rolling in nothing. It’s his way. But I say, mother, if we had riches, I think I could roll in ’em with the best.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Dick,” said Mrs Shingle, “when we’re so worried too. There,” she added, in a whisper, as their visitor rose, “we’re driving him away.”
“Going, Hoppy, old man?” said Dick, as their visitor rose and laid aside his pipe.
“Yes, going now,” said the old fellow. “I’ll drop in, perhaps, in the evening.”
“We haven’t put you out, have we?” said Dick.
“No, no, my lad; it’s all right. Dick, just lend me sixpence. My money is not due till Monday.”
Dick’s countenance fell, and he glanced at his wife.
“Have you got a sixpence, Polly?” he said.
“Not one,” was the reply.
“I’m very sorry, Hoppy, old man,” said Dick, looking more puzzled than ever, and as if this time he really could not understand why he should be so poor and his brother so rich—“but really I haven’t got it.”
“Never mind,” said the old fellow—“never mind; I dare say I can do without.”
And, grumbling and muttering, he took up his hat and stick, and went off.