Chapter Thirty Three.
How Several Visitors Called at our Lodgings.
Billy arrived punctually as we were dressing next morning in great good-humour.
“What cheer, covies?” cried he before he was well in the room. “She’s come back!”
“Who—your mother?” said Jack.
“Yaas,” said Billy; “worn’t she jolly neither? She give me a wipin’ last night same as I never got.”
And when we came to look at our queer visitor he bore about his face and person undoubted marks of the truth of this story.
“What a shame it is!” I said to Jack. “Can’t anything be done to stop it? He’ll be murdered right out one day.”
“’Taint no concern of yourn!” said Billy. “But I say, governor,” added he, turning to Jack, “she are a rum ’un, she are! She was a-sayin’ you was makin’ a idle young dorg of me, she says, and she’ll wait upon you, she says, and know the reason why, she says. And she says ef she ketches me messin’ about any more with my ABC, she says she’ll knock the ’ed off me. But don’t you mind ’er, she’s on’y a-jawing!”
Jack looked a good deal troubled. He had taken upon himself the welfare of this happy family in the court, and it seemed likely to cost him many an uneasy moment. Only a short time before, he had told me, he had called with Mr Hawkesbury and seen Billy’s mother, just after her release from prison, and tried to plead with her on Billy’s behalf, but, he said, you might as well talk to a griffin.
Billy appeared to be oppressed with no cares on the subject. “It’s that there penny bang,” said he, “as she’s got her back up agin. I told her as I was a shovin’ my coppers in there, and she says she’ll shove you in, governor, she says. She did swear at you, governor! It’s a game to hear her.”
“When you learn better, Billy,” said Jack, quite sternly, “you won’t talk like that of your mother.”
Billy’s face overclouded suddenly. He looked first at me, then at Jack, and finally at the boot in his hand, which he fell-to polishing till it dazzled. But Jack’s tone and look had effectually damped his spirits, and when he spoke again it was with a half whine.
“I are a larning better, governor, do you hear? I knows my letters. You ask this ’ere bloke,” pointing to me with his brush. “And them Aggers, too. I writ ’em all up on my slate, didn’t I? You tell the governor if I didn’t!”
“Yes,” I said; “you did.”
“There you are! Do you hear, governor? I’m larnin’ better. I writ all them there Aggers, I did; and I can say my d-o-g, dorg, proper, can’t I, pal? And I’ve shove my coppers in the bang, and I am larnin’.”
“I know you are,” said Jack, kindly. “Come, it’s time I got on my boots. Are they done?”
Billy in the delight of his heart took one more furious turn at the boots. He breathed hard upon them till he was nearly black in the face, and polished them till it was a wonder any leather at all was left. And, to complete all, he polished up the tags of the laces with the sleeve of his own coat, and then deposited the boots with an air of utmost pride and jubilation.
“I shall be done the examination to-day,” said Jack, as the boy started to go; “I’ll come down and see you in the evening.”
Billy’s face was nearly as bright as the boots he had polished as he grinned his acknowledgments and went on his way rejoicing.
Mr Smith did not put in an appearance before it was time for Jack to start. He had told me he would not. He was afraid of betraying his secret prematurely, and deemed it wisest to stay away. And I was just as glad he did so, for it was all I could do not to show by my manner that something of serious moment was in the wind.
However, by an effort, I tried to appear as if nothing unusual had occurred.
“By the way, Jack,” said I, as we walked down to the examination hall, “you’re a nice fellow to take care of a photograph! Do you know you left this at my mercy all night?”
“What!” he exclaimed, “I thought I put it back in my pocket with the other papers. What a go if I’d lost it!”
“What a go if I’d kept it!” said I. “The next time I will.”
“To prevent which,” said Jack, “take your last look, for you shall never see it again! Good-bye, old man. It will be all over when I see you next.”
“All over!” mused I, as I walked back to the office. “It will be only beginning.”
I never made a more rash promise in all my life than when I under took to Mr Smith to break the news of his discovery to Jack.
It had appeared so simple at the time, but when the moment came the task seemed to be one bristling with difficulties on every hand. All that day the sense of the coming ordeal haunted me, and even the custody of the petty-cash could not wholly divert my mind.
I was therefore quite relieved that evening, on returning to the lodgings, to hear as I ascended the stairs voices speaking in our room, and to find that Jack had a visitor. I should, at least, get some time to recover the wits which the near approach of my ordeal had scattered.
For a moment I wondered whether Jack’s visitor could be Mr Smith himself. It was a man’s voice, and unless it were Mr Smith or Mr Hawkesbury, I was at a loss to guess who it could be.
To my astonishment I found, on entering the room, that the visitor was no other than my uncle!
Whatever had brought him here?
Jack looked as if his tête-à-tête had not been a very cheerful one, for he jumped up at my arrival with evident joy, and cried, “Oh, here you are at last! Here’s your uncle, Fred, come to see you. He was afraid he would have to go before you got back.”
This, at least, was a comfort. My uncle was not going to stay all night.
I went up in a most dutiful manner to my relative, and hoped he was well.
“Yes,” he replied, in his usual frigid way. “You seem surprised to see me. But as I had business in town I found out this place, and came to look you up.”
“It was very kind of you,” said I.
“You shouldn’t say that when you don’t mean it,” said my uncle. “And as I am going in a few minutes you need not look so alarmed.”
“I hope you will have a cup of tea before you go,” said I, hoping to change the subject.
“No, thank you. Your friend here asked me that already. Now, what about your debts, Fred?”
“Oh,” said I, “they are all paid by this time. An old schoolfellow advanced me the money, kindly, and I have all but repaid him out of my weekly allowance.”
“Humph!” said my uncle. “That scrape will be a lesson to you, I hope. Boys who make fools of themselves like that must suffer the consequences.”
“I had been very foolish I know,” I replied, humbly.
“But Fred’s as steady as a judge now,” said Jack, interposing for my relief.
“It’s nearly time he was,” replied my uncle, “unless he has made up his mind to ruin himself. He’s given up all his wild friends, I hope?”
“Oh yes, every one,” said I; “haven’t I, Jack?”
“Yes, he’s nothing to do with them now,” said Jack.
“And he spends his evenings in something better than drinking and gambling and that sort of thing?”
This was pleasant for me. As the question appeared to be addressed to Jack, I allowed him to answer it for me.
“Well,” said my uncle, after a few more similar inquiries had been satisfactorily answered, “I hope what you tell me is true. It may seem as if I did not care much what became of you, Fred. And as long as you went on in the way you did, no more I did. You had chosen your friends, and you might get on the best you could with them. But now, if you have done what you say you have and given them up—”
At that moment there was a sudden tumult on the stairs outside, which made us all start. It was a sound of scuffling and laughter and shouting, in the midst of which my uncle’s voice was drowned. Whoever the visitors were, they appeared not to be quite sure of their quarters, for they were trying every door they came to on their way up. At length they came nearer, and a voice, the tones of which were only too familiar, shouted, “Come on, you fellows. We’ll smoke him out. Batchelor ahoy there! Wonder if he lives on the roof.”
It was Whipcord’s voice, whom I had not seen since my accident, and who now had fixed on this evening of all others to come with his friends and pay me a visit!
“It’s Whipcord,” I said to Jack; “he mustn’t come in! Let’s barricade the door, anything to keep them out.”
Jack, who looked fully as alarmed as I did, was quite ready to agree, but my uncle, who had hitherto been an astounded witness of the interruption, interfered, and said, “No—they shall come in. These are some of your reformed friends, I suppose, Mr Fred. I’d like to see them. Let them come in.”
“Oh no, uncle,” I cried, in agitation, “they mustn’t come in, indeed they mustn’t, they are—”
As I spoke the shouting outside increased twofold, and at the same moment the door was flung open, and Whipcord, Crow, the Field-Marshal, the Twins, Daly, and Masham, burst into the room!
Is it any wonder if, as I looked first at them, then at my uncle, a feeling of utter despair took possession of me?
They were all, evidently, in a highly festive state of mind and ready for any diversion.
“Here he is,” cried Whipcord, who appeared to be leader of the party. “Here you are, Batch, my boy—we got your address at the police-station and came to look you up, and oh, I say, what a glorious old codger!”
This last note of admiration was directed to my uncle, who sat sternly back in his chair, gazing at the intruders with mingled wrath and astonishment.
“I say, introduce us, Batch,” said the Field-Marshal, “and to the other aristocrat, too, will you?”
“Why, that’s Bull’s-eye,” cried Crow. “You know, Twins, the fellow I told you about who’s—”
“Oh, that’s the Botany Bay hero, is it?” cried Masham. “I must shake hands with him. One doesn’t get the chance of saying how d’ye do to a real gaol-bird every day. How are you, Treadmill?”
Jack, whose face was very pale, and whose eyes flashed fiercely, remained motionless, and with an evident effort, as Masham held out his hand.
“What—thinks we aren’t good enough for him, does he?” said Masham.
“So used to the handcuffs,” said Abel, “doesn’t know how to use his hands, that’s it.”
“But we don’t know yet who this old weathercock is,” cried Whipcord, turning again to my uncle. “What do they call you at home, old Stick-in-the-mud?” and he nudged him in the ribs by way of emphasis.
It was time I interposed. Hitherto, in sheer helplessness, I had stood by and watched the invasion with silent despair. Now, however, that my uncle seemed to be in danger of rough handling, something must be done.
“If you fellows have any pretence to be called gentlemen,” I shouted, in tones choked with mingled shame and anger, “you will leave Jack’s room and mine.”
“Jack’s! who’s Jack? Is the old pawnbroker called Jack, then? Oh, I say, you fellows,” cried Whipcord, dropping on a chair, and nearly choking himself with a fit of laughter. “Oh, you fellows, I’ve got it at last. I’ve got it. Jack! I know who it is.”
“Who is it?” cried the others.
“Why, can’t you guess?” yelled Whipcord.
“No! Who?”
“Jack Ketch!”
This new idea was taken up with the utmost rapture, and my uncle was forthwith dubbed with his fresh title.
“Three cheers for Uncle Ketch, you fellows!” shouted Whipcord.
The cheers were given with great hubbub. Then my uncle was called upon for a speech, and, as he declined, a proposal was made to compel him.
Up to this time, protest as well as resistance had seemed worse than useless. Jack and I were only two against seven, and our visitors were hardly in a condition to give us fair play, even if we did come to blows. But our wrath had been gradually approaching boiling-point, and now the time seemed to have come to brave all consequences and assert ourselves.
Whipcord and Masham had each seized one of my uncle’s arms, with a view to carry out their threat, when by a mutual impulse Jack, and I assumed the defensive and rushed into the fray. Both our adversaries were, of course, utterly unprepared for such a demonstration, and in consequence, and before they could either of them take in the state of affairs, they were sprawling at full length on the floor. The whole action was so rapidly executed that it was not for a moment or two that the rest of the party took in the fact that the affair was something more than a joke. When, however, they did so, a general engagement ensued, in which Jack and I, even with the unlooked-for and gallant aid of my uncle, could do very little against superior numbers.
What the upshot might have been—whether we should have been eventually ejected from our own lodgings, or whether the invaders would presently have wearied of their sport and made off of their own accord—I cannot say, but just as things were looking at their worst for us an opportune diversion occurred which turned the tide of battle.
This was none other than the simultaneous arrival of Billy and Flanagan. The latter, I recollected, had promised to look in during the evening, to see how Jack had fared at the examination.
In the general confusion the new-comers entered the room almost unnoticed. The unexpected scene which met their eyes in our usually quiet quarters naturally alarmed them, and it was a second or more before, in the midst of all the riot, they could make out what was the matter.
Billy was the first to recover himself. The sight of Jack Smith being attacked by Masham was quite enough for him, and, with a cry of, “Do you hear, you let him be!” he sprang upon his patron’s assailant like a young tiger.
Poor, gallant Billy! Masham, taken aback to find himself thus attacked by a small boy who seemed to come from nowhere, recoiled for an instant before his vigorous onslaught. But it was only for an instant. Stepping back, and leaving the others to engage Jack and me, he seized the boy by the arm, and, dealing him a blow on the side of the head, flung him savagely to the floor, adding a brutal kick as he lay there, stunned and senseless at his feet.
The sight of this outrage was all that was wanted to rouse us to one desperate effort to rid ourselves of our cowardly invaders. Jack closed in an instant with Masham, and by sheer force carried him to the door and literally flung him from the room. The others, one by one, followed. Some, half ashamed at the whole proceeding, slunk away of their own accord; the others, seeing themselves worsted, lost spirit, and made but a slight resistance to our united assault, now vigorously reinforced by Flanagan.
The last to leave was Whipcord, who endeavoured to carry the thing off with his usual swagger to the last. “Well, ta, ta, Batch,” he said; “we just looked in to see how you were, that’s all. Thanks for the jolly evening. By-bye, old Jack Ketch, and—”
And here, in consequence of a sudden forward movement from Flanagan, he hurriedly withdrew, and left us for the first time that evening with leisure to look about us.
It was no time, however, for asking questions or giving explanations. An exclamation from Jack turned all attention to Billy, who lay still unconscious and as white as a sheet where he had fallen. Jack gently raised him and laid him on the bed. “Open the window, somebody,” said he.
The air seemed to revive the boy somewhat, for he opened his eyes and looked vacantly round. But a fit of sickness followed this partial recovery, and again he swooned.
Jack’s face was nearly as pale as the boy’s as he looked up and said, “Fetch the doctor! Quick!”
Flanagan darted off almost before the words were out of his lips.
There was nothing for us who were left behind to do but to watch with painful anxiety the poor little sufferer, who lay mostly unconscious, and still at intervals violently sick.
Masham’s ruffianly blow and kick had evidently done far more damage than he or any one supposed. As we waited in silence for the doctor to come our alarm increased, and it even seemed doubtful whether, as we stood there, we were not destined to see a terrible end to that evening’s proceedings.
“Has the boy a father or mother?” whispered my uncle to me.
Jack who sat with the sufferer’s head on his arm, heard the question, and said hurriedly, “Yes. You must fetch his mother, Fred!”
There was such a tone of alarm in his voice that had Billy’s mother been a wild beast I could hardly have disobeyed.
I darted off on my unenviable quest, meeting the doctor on the stairs. I knew the house in the court by this time, and was myself well-known to its inmates.
The woman was not at home; she had not been home since the morning, and no one knew where she was. I left a message apprising her of what had happened, and telling her to come at once to the lodgings. Then with much foreboding I hastened back to Drury Lane.
The evening had been a strangely different one from what I had expected. I was to have broken the news to Jack of his father’s discovery, instead of which, here was I rushing frantically about trying to find an unhappy woman and summon her to what, for all I knew, might be the death-bed of her son!
I found when I returned that Billy had somewhat revived. He was lying back, very white still, and apparently unconscious, but they told me the doctor had given some hope of his recovery, and that the fits of sickness had stopped and left him stronger.
My uncle, whose concern for the poor boy was scarcely less than ours, had relieved Jack at the patient’s bedside. Jack, who, now that the imminent anxiety was over, had given way to a natural reaction, was, I could see, in a terrible state of misery and rage.
“If he dies,” muttered he to me, “I’ll—”
What he meant to say I do not know. He stopped short and flung himself in the empty seat by the window, trembling all over. I had never known before how fond he was of the poor boy.
“What about his mother?” he said presently, turning to me.
“I couldn’t find her, or hear of her anywhere,” I said. “But I left a message for her.”
Just then my uncle beckoned with his hand.
Billy had opened his eyes, and was looking about him. He had done so once or twice before, but always in a vacant, stupid sort of way. Now, to our intense joy, there was a glimmer of something like the old life in his pale face, especially when, catching sight of Jack, who sprang to his side in a moment, his features broke into a faint smile.
My uncle came quietly to me across the room.
“I’ll go now,” said he—more kindly than I had ever heard him speak. “I shall stay in town to-night, and will look in in the morning;” and so saying he went.
Mr Smith and I accompanied him to the door. As we were returning up the stairs some one called after us. I turned, and saw that the new-comer was Billy’s mother.