It was a knife of strong but by no means elegant make, shorter in the handle, and squarer in the joints, than the rising generation of knives. Very likely Sheffield of the present day would laugh at it; but like most who laugh, it could not produce the fellow. My father himself had owned it for nearly thirty years, and had treated it with the high respect which an honest knife deserves. From this due regard his daughter had not derogated, and the knife was now as good as when it left the maker's hand. It had never been honed in utter ignorance of proper plane and angle, as nearly all knives are, and by none so often as the professional knife-grinder. I never dared to meddle with it, except on a very mild razor-strap; and all it was allowed to do was to mend my pens--I, Clara Vaughan, hate steel paper-stabbers--and sometimes to cut my pencils.
Now, this true and worshipful knife was to cut bricks and mortar! In my natural affection for it, I hesitated and trembled, and knowing what was to come it closed upon my fingers. Oh, ruthless Atta Nævia! trusty knife, fall to!
Meanwhile old Cora showed at the heavy grating her countenance demiss; to all my eager adjurations, promises, and prayers, she answered not a word, but grimly smiled, like an ancient bird, beyond the reach of chaff. She handed me in a pint of milk, and a loaf of the variety termed in London a "twopenny brick." A red herring on the toasting-fork, dripping with its own unction, was hastily shown, and then withdrawn, and the gordit appeared in its stead; which being done, the experienced dame winked, and regarded me deeply. This meant, "Surrender your legal right in Our Lady's heart, without which I shall have no luck, and I will give you this beautiful fish, hard-roed, and done to a nicety." Ah no, sweet Cora, a good red herring is not to be despised; but who could eat in a reeking hole like this? Once I went, for Judy's sake, being rash and light of step, into the back premises of a highly respectable butcher. Woe is me, what I saw and smelt there was Muscat grapes compared to this.
When Cora had departed, after handing me in a pillow and a blanket of the true work-house texture, and crossing herself with a strange expression, meaning, as I interpreted, "Now keep alive if possible till breakfast time, young woman," I sat me down upon the floor at one end of the room, and began my labours. First. I put on a pair of tan-leather gloves; for small as my vanity is, I do not like my hands to look altogether like a hodman's. Then I removed a strip of the felt with which the wall was covered. It was nearly dark, but I could easily feel the joints between the bricks. The mortar was not very good, but my work was rendered doubly difficult by the bricks being all set cross-wise to the line of the wall; this, I suppose, is what he meant when he described them as "headers." By reason of this arrangement, I had to dig and dig for hours, before I could loosen a single brick; and working all in the dark as I was, I feared every moment to break the stick-blade of my knife. The fingers of my gloves were very soon worn away, and even the palm where the heel of the knife was chafing; nor was it long before my skin was full of weals, and raspy, like the knobs I have seen inside the legs of a horse. At last, to my wonderful delight, one brick began to tremble. In another half-hour, I eased it out most carefully, kissed my trusty blade, now worn almost to a skewer, and with stiff and aching muscles, and the trophy brick upon my lap, fell off into as sound a sleep as ever I was blest with.
CHAPTER X.
When I awoke, the summer dawn was stealing faintly through the barricaded windows. Oh! how I longed for one draught of air, even as London imports it! My head was burning and my eyes distended from the tainted stuff around me, and my hands, and arms, and even shoulders were stiff from over exertion. Languidly regarding the brick I had worked so hard for, and commiserating much the plight of my tender hands, I felt inclined to give it up, till I thought of all at stake. My poor Uncle in deadly peril through my desperate folly; Conrad too, as that murderer implied, in a critical position. My own life also--it might be a week before the monster returned; and I felt sure that I could not live more than three days in that corruption. The oppression was so horrible, especially when I stood up, that I resolved at all hazards to break one of the windows. I had tried to do so the night before, but they were beyond my reach, and I had no stick, for I durst not touch the poles that propped the unlucky porpoise. Now, I had a good missile, and after two or three vain attempts from the closeness of the bars, I hurled the brick-bat through the glass; and, as it raised the sacks a little, I obtained more light, as well as a breath of air. The taint upon the glass, the reek of the deadly gases, even cleared away for a short distance round the fracture.
Cora was fast asleep no doubt, and the crash of the glass did not disturb her; so I fell to again, and worked very hard till breakfast time. If I could only get out by noon, in time for the two o'clock train! When I expected my jailor, I hid away under the porpoise the seven bricks I had removed since daylight--for I could work much faster as the aperture increased--and then I fastened my blanket over the hole. After drinking the milk with some relish--eat I could not in that pestilential den--I returned to my labour, and prepared to attack the second course in the thickness of the wall. By this time I had contrived, with the help of a brick, to extract the hold-fast from the bench, which I could not do the night before; and very useful I found it, both as a hammer and lever. So with rising hopes, I resumed.
Oh, cruel disappointment! The second course was bedded in cement harder than the bricks themselves. Most likely they had formed the outside of the wall, until Lepardo added the nine-inch lining of headers. I was utterly dismayed; and now my beloved knife, which had stood like a hero-martyr all its grinding indignities, broke off short at the haft, and left me helpless and hopeless. And I was getting on so well, and so proud of all I had done. There was nothing for it but a storm of crying. It served me right for ill-treating my dear father's knife so shockingly.
I cried for at least a quarter of an hour, before it occurred to me what a great baby I was. Then, with the tears in my swollen eyes, and sobs that made my net-pressed bosom sore, I began to grope and peer again along the sides of my prison. There was more light now than had hitherto entered, since Cora dropped the curtain. This was partly owing to the position of the sun, and partly to the interposition of the brick. Just opposite that window, on a shelf where lay an old Penguin looking very bilious, I spied the corner of a little box, half covered with tow and moth-eaten feathers. Snatching it eagerly, I found it to be a match-box. But alas, how light! With trembling fingers I pulled it open, for it was one of those that slide. There were three, and only three, fine stout lucifer matches, with the precious blue still on them. But even if they should prove dry enough to kindle, what good would they be to me?
"All the good in the world," said hope, looking towards the door, "if you had shown sense enough, Clara, to fall to at that door, before your knife was broken, you might have cut through it by this time. Now you can't, that is certain; but why shouldn't you burn it down?"