CHAPTER VII.
MR. MARTIN SHANKS: GUARDIAN.
“Did you run against something?” asked Dido, as she felt Richard start.
“It’s only me,” said a deep bass voice, which had such an honest and harmless ring, that Richard’s fear and nervousness dropped from him like a cloak.
“It’s all right,” Dido responded cheerfully, as she stopped and knocked on a door.
Dick knew it was a door from the sound, but he was unable to distinguish door from wall in the darkness.
It was opened by some one inside. Dick saw the outlines of a girlish figure between himself and the light, and heard a surprised exclamation: “Why, Dido!”
They stepped in, and the girl closed the door and hastened to set chairs for her visitors.
“Mr. Treadwell, this is Margaret Williams,” said Dido; then turning to Maggie she added, simply, “Mr. Treadwell has been kind to me.”
“We were frightened about you,” Maggie said, her eyes beaming warmly on Dido. “I heard you got in trouble ’round at the shop. I went out to look you up, but I couldn’t find out anything about you either at the station-house or at your house.”
“I s’pose you know,” she added, “that the girls went in? Yes, the strike is off. They wouldn’t take me back, so I’m doing what I can for Blind Gilbert, and he pays rent and buys what we eat.”
Dido, in a few simple words, frankly told Maggie all that had befallen her since her arrest. She did not omit her rash attempt to commit suicide, and Richard’s timely intervention.
Meanwhile Richard had taken a glance about the little bare room.
A plain, single-board table, covered with a bit of badly worn oilcloth, had been pulled out into the room, and they now sat around it. A little low oil lamp, with a broken chimney—which had been patched with a scrap of paper—was the only light in the room. Dick carefully slipped a paper bill under the newspaper which lay on the table where Margaret had flung it when she came to open the door for them.
A small stove stood close to the wall, and on it was a tin coffee-pot and an iron tea-kettle with a broken spout.
Above the stove was a little shelf, which held some tallow candles in a jar, and some upturned flat-irons.
The bed looked very unsafe and uncomfortable. It was covered with a gayly colored calico patchwork quilt. The patchwork was made in some set pattern, which was unlike anything Richard had ever seen or dreamed of.
Several pieces of as many carpets lay on the floor, and a much worn blanket was hung on two nails over the window, to take the place of a shade or curtain.
Dick’s heart ached at the evident signs of poverty, and a warm instinct of protection possessed him.
“I hope you will allow me to be of some assistance to you,” he said, when the girls, having finished their confessions, became silent. “I think I can, in a few days, assure Miss Dido of a better position than the one she has lost.”
As he spoke, there came a timid knock on the door, and Maggie sprang to open it.
“I jest thought I’d drop in tew see how you wuz gettin’ along, Maggie,” said from the darkness the same deep bass voice that had restored Richard’s courage in the hallway.
It was followed by a tall, lank man, who awkwardly held a black, soft felt hat in his big red hands. His rough clothes seemed to hang on him, and he held one shoulder higher than the other in an apologetic manner, as if to assure the world that his towering above the average height of people was neither his fault nor desire. His bushy and unattractive dust-colored hair seemed determined to maintain the stiffness which its owner lacked. His red mustache and chin-whiskers were resolved to out-bristle his hair. His shaggy eyebrows overhung modest blue eyes that looked as if they fain would draw beneath those brows as a turtle draws its head under its shell.
He bashfully greeted Dido, and she introduced him to Richard as “Mr. Martin Shanks, who boards with some friends upstairs.” He held out his big hand to Dick, saying:
“Glad to make yer acquaintance, sir!” all the while blushing vividly.
“We ran against you in the hall, I think,” ventured Dido.
“Yes, I was standin’ there when you came,” he answered, slowly, shooting a glance from under his brows at Maggie.
Maggie looked down, and Dido was surprised to see her blush. She would have been more surprised if Maggie had told her that this great, big, hulking man had stood guard at her door every night since her mother died.
“I should jedge you don’t belong to this yer neighborhood,” he remarked to Richard, shooting forth a jealous look.
“You are correct,” replied Richard, pleasantly.
“What might yer business be?” he demanded further, nervously turning his hat.
“Down here, or my professional employment?” asked Richard, waking up.
“What do ye do fer a livin?”
“Oh! I see. I’m a lawyer,” Dick replied, glibly.
“A lawyer, eh? An’ I take it as yer not a married man, else ye wouldn’t be payin’ attentions to this ’ere orphan girl.”
“You don’t understand,” Maggie interrupted, startled. “Dido was in trouble and Mr. Treadwell found her and brought her here.”
“Martin should mind his own business,” exclaimed Dido, indignantly. “If this was my house I would show him the door.”
“Not on my account,” interposed Dick, warmly. “If Mr. Shanks is a friend of the family he has a right to know the reason of a stranger being here.”
“These young girls ’ere, sir,” explained frightened Martin Shanks, “have no parints to take care on them, an’ I says to meself, when Mis’ Williams wuz a lyin’ dead here, that I’d see no harm come aninst them while I wuz about.”
“That was very good of you, Mr. Shanks,” cordially replied Dick, and then, bidding the girls good night, he left. Martin Shanks, wishing to see the stranger well out of the neighborhood before he quit his post of guardianship for the remainder of the night, accompanied Dick as far as Broadway, and Dick was not sorry to have his escort.