“Call yourself a man!” exclaimed Mrs Ruggles, with that peculiar bitterness so much used by women of her class. “Ah! I’ve a great mind to!” she exclaimed again, looking sideways at little Pine, and making a dash at the whalebone; “but I don’t know which deserves it most.”
The child set her teeth hard, and shrank towards the wall, while Tim drew a long breath, and clutched the big iron by his side, though without the slightest intention of using it for offence or defence.
Mrs Ruggles again spoke—
“Don’t let me come back again, that’s all,” she exclaimed; and if his looks were a faithful index of Timothy Ruggles’ mind, his heart evidently just then whispered, “I wish to goodness I could take you at your word.”
Then the door was once more closed, the step heard again, the bang down-stairs, and then there was silence in the room, broken only by the half-suppressed sobs of little Pine, and the impatient, restless pecking of the bird in the cage.
Five minutes passed, and still there was silence, when Tim softly took up a yard-measure from the board, stole nimbly off on to his shoeless feet, opened the door, and peered through the crack, and then, reaching out one hand, he touched a bell with the yard-measure, making it ring loudly twice over. Then he softly closed the door, replaced himself and his measure upon the board, before leaping boldly and noisily off to cross the room, open the door loudly, and trot down-stairs to answer the bell, the child earnestly watching his motions the while.
Down the stairs trotted Tim, and along the passage to the front door, to open it, look out, and peer up and down the street, when, apparently satisfied, he closed the door once more, his face wearing an aspect of full belief as he muttered, “A runaway ring.”
Had Tim Ruggles made his descent a minute sooner, he would have seen the graceful form of his lady some half-a-dozen doors lower down, as she stood in conversation with a neighbour; but now, no one being in sight, he hurried up-stairs again, climbed upon his board, placed his work ready to hand, and then, and then only, he held out his arms to the child, who was sobbing the next instant upon his breast.
“Don’t—don’t cry, my pet,” he whispered, puzzling the while a couple of real tears which had escaped from his eyes, and finding no friendly handkerchief at hand, were dodging in and out amongst the main lines and sidings and crossings and switches of the course of life as mapped out in Tim’s face, till one tear was shunted into his left ear, and the other paused by the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t cry, my pet,” said Tim again, caressing the child with all a woman’s tenderness. “But come, I say, you must cheer up, for see what I’ve been making for you. But there, don’t cry, my darling;” and he pressed his cool, soft, womanly hand upon weal and burning sore. “Now look,” he continued, and from under a heap of cloth patches he produced a quaint-looking rag doll, evidently the work of many a stolen five minutes. “Now, then!” he cried, in the tone people adopt towards children, “what do you think of that?”