“I dare say, you know, at another time I could have hung there some minutes, but now a terrible sort of fear came over me which made me weak; and after looking about as well as I could for help, to see nothing but the dust rising from the heap under me, as I hung over the gap where the house had stood a few minutes before—after looking round once or twice, I seemed to shudder like, and then down I went crash on to the ruins, to be one of the first picked up.
“I lay there, though, for some time, waiting for help; nobody daring to come, till one man crept through the window of the next house on to the heap of rubbish, though he had to dart back once or twice; for now one of the joists left sticking in the wall up above would fall, then a few tiles and some bricks that had been lingering in their places for a few minutes, came down to make matters worse. The end of one joist caught me right on the side of the head, and sent what little sense there was left in flying out; and the next time I opened my eyes it was in the hospital, with some one doing something to my head, and me feeling sick, and dull, and sleepy as could be.
“But it was a terrible sight to see: first one and then another poor bruised and cut creature dragged out of the ruins as fast as they could clear away the rubbish; and there were the poor things half naked, and with the few bits of furniture belonging to them all in one ruinous smash. I did not see it, you know, but plenty of the neighbours did; and I could find you a dozen ready to go over the whole story again and again, up to the finding of Mrs Molloy and her little gal, her as lives now with her father, top of Number 16—pretty little gal she is, and so much like her mother as was killed. They tell me the people on both sides came suddenly out of their houses, as if it was an earthquake; and, you know, really an earthquake would not be much worse so far as one house was concerned. You wouldn’t think it, though, but I saved all my birds as was left hanging against the walls.
“Everybody was very sorry, of course, as soon as it was known; and the papers wrote about it, and people talked of it, and then there were a few pounds put together for the benefit of the sufferers; but you know what a sight of pounds it would take to make it all right for that poor little gal up there as lost her mother. Poor little thing, she don’t feel the loss much; but it’s a sad job for her.
“Hark! don’t you hear? That’s her bird. It’s on’y a finch, but he whistles well, and it pleases her. I give it her, you know; and when her father’s out I goes up and feeds it, and gives it water, because she’s too little to do it. She calls me ‘Uncle Bill,’ and I like to hear her; for, you see, being a cripple, I ain’t like other men, and somehow or other I always was fond of little children.
“Well, then, if you don’t mind, I don’t; so come along, and then p’r’aps we can see her.”
Up flight after flight of groaning stairs, to a landing spun across and across with a string web, upon whose intricacies scraps of white rag took the place of flies; and now came the twittering of many birds, and the restless tap, tap, scraping noise of sharp beaks upon wire and perch. My lame guide opened the attic door, after muttering a warning about my head; and there I stood on the top floor of the house in one of those rooms where fancy brought up visions of stern-faced old Huguenot silk weavers bending over their looms, and sending backwards and forwards the busy shuttle, as bright warp crossed the glistening woof.
But there was no loom here, only the long range of lead casement along one side of the room, filtering the rays of light as they entered dyed of a smoky hue—rays of light, though, so joyous that the dozens of little prisoners ranged about the room grew excited, and fluttered, and sang and twittered loudly.
My guide smiled proudly as I walked from cage to cage, and then, evidently with a thought for the bare shelf in the open cupboard, threw off his coat, unfastened his vest, loosened his collar, and then placed a circlet of greasy old black ribbon round his not too tidy black hair, as he seated himself upon his bench and dived into the mysteries of boot-closing.
“I can talk too, you know,” he said; “that’s the best of my trade. Nice birds some of them, ain’t they? Seems a shame to keep ’em behind wires; but then we all have to work behind wires, more or less, for other folks’s pleasure. They sings—we works; don’t you see?”