Fighting the Flames

by R. M. Ballantyne

“Because I thought it best,” said Mrs Willders, “to leave you to tell her yourself, Frank.”

“Well, mother, I depute you to tell her now, and pray do it without delay. I offered to give her up a short time ago, but she refused to listen to me.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” replied the widow with a smile. “I always thought her a good, sensible girl.”

“Hm! so did I,” said Frank, “and something more.”

Once again he became silent, and, as an inevitable consequence, fell fast asleep. In which satisfactory state we will leave him while we run briefly over the events of his subsequent history.

In direct opposition to the opinion of all his doctors, Frank not only recovered the use of all his limbs, but became as well and strong as ever—and the great fire in Tooley Street left no worse marks upon him than a few honourable scars.

His recovery, however, was tedious. The state of his health, coupled with the state of his fortune, rendered it advisable that he should seek the benefit of country air, so he resigned his situation in the London Fire Brigade—resigned it, we may add, with deep regret, for some of his happiest days had been spent in connection with that gallant corps.

Rambling and fishing among the glorious mountains of Wales with his brother Willie, he speedily regained health and strength. While wandering with delight through one of the most picturesque scenes of that wild and beautiful region, he came suddenly one day on a large white umbrella, under which sat a romantic-looking man, something between an Italian bandit and an English sportsman, who was deeply engrossed with a sheet of paper on which he was depicting one of the grandest views in the splendid pass of Llanberis. At this man Willie rushed with a shout of surprise, and found that he answered at once to the name of Fred Auberly! Fred was thrown into such a state of delight at the sight of his old friends that he capsized the white umbrella, packed up his paints, and accompanied them to their inn. Here, on being questioned, he related how that, while in Rome he had been seized with a fever which laid him prostrate for many weeks; that, on his recovery, he wrote to Loo and his father, but received no reply from either of them; that he afterwards spent some months in Switzerland, making more than enough of money with his brush to “keep the pot boiling,” and that, finally, he returned home to find that dear Loo was dead, and that the great Tooley Street fire had swept away his father’s premises and ruined him. As this blow had, however, been the means of softening his father, and effecting a reconciliation between them, he was rather glad than otherwise, he said, that the fire had taken place. Fred did not say—although he might have said it with truth—that stiff and stately Mr Auberly had been reduced almost to beggary, and that he was now dependent for a livelihood on the very palette and brushes which once he had so ruthlessly condemned to the flames!

After this trip to Wales, Frank returned home and told his mother abruptly that he meant to marry Emma Ward without delay, to which Mrs Willders replied that she thought he was quite right. As Emma appeared to be of the same mind the marriage took place in due course. That is to say, Miss Tippet and Emma managed to put it off as long as possible and to create as much delay as they could. When they had not the shadow of an excuse for further delay—not so much as a forgotten band or an omitted hook of the voluminous trousseau—the great event was allowed to go on—or, “to come off.”

Many and varied were the faces that appeared at the church on that auspicious occasion. Mr Auberly was there to give away the bride, and wonderfully cheerful he looked, too, considering that he gave her to the man whom he once thought so very unworthy of her. Willie was groomsman, of course, and among the bridesmaids there was a little graceful, dark-eyed and dark-haired creature, whom he regarded as an angel or a fairy, or something of that sort, and whom everybody else, except Frank and Mrs Willders, thought the most beautiful girl in the church. In the front gallery, just above this dark-eyed girl, sat an elderly man who gazed at her with an expression of intense affection. His countenance was careworn and, had a somewhat dissipated look upon it. Yet there was a healthy glow on it, too, as if the dissipation were a thing of the distant past. The dark-eyed girl once or twice stole a glance at the elderly man and smiled on him with a look of affection quite as fervent as his own. There was a rather stylish youth at this man’s elbow whose muscles were so highly developed that they appeared about to burst his superfine black coat. He was observed to nod familiarly to the dark-eyed girl more than once, and appeared to be in a state of considerable excitement—ready, as it were, to throw a somersault over the gallery on the slightest provocation.