Fighting the Flames, R. M. Ballantyne [spiritual books to read .TXT] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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Of course Willie here diverged into a graphic account of the fire in Beverly Square, and, seeing that Ziza listened with intense earnestness, he dilated upon every point, and went with special minuteness into the doings of Frank.
When he concluded, Ziza heaved a very deep sigh and closed her eyes.
“I’ve tired you, Ziza,” exclaimed Willie, jumping up, with a look of anxiety, and removing the tea-board and jacket, as the child slipped down under the clothes. He asked if she wanted to go to sleep.
“Yes, for I’m very tired,” she sighed languidly; then added, “but please read to me a little first.”
“What book am I to read you?” said Willie, looking round the room, where no book of any kind was to be seen.
“Here, it’s under the pillow.”
Willie put his hand under the pillow and pulled out a small pocket-Bible.
“Read the third chapter of Saint John’s Gospel,” said the child, closing her eyes.
Willie read in the monotonous tones of a schoolboy’s voice until he came to the sixteenth verse, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
“Stop at that verse,” whispered Ziza. “I’ll go to sleep now.”
Her deep breathing soon proclaimed that she was in the land of dreams, so Willie removed the candle a little further away from her, and then, resting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, began to read the Bible. He turned over a few pages without much intention of finding any particular place, for he was beginning to feel sleepy.
The first words his eyes fell upon were, “Blessed are they that consider the poor.”
He roused up a little at this, and read the verse again, for he connected it with the fact that the fairy was poor. Then he pondered it for some time, and, falling asleep, dropt his head on the Bible with such force that he woke up for a little and tried to read again, but do what he would he could not get beyond that verse; finally he gave up the attempt, and, laying his forehead down upon it, quickly fell sound asleep.
In this state the couple were discovered an hour or two later by Messrs Cattley senior and junior on their return from the theatre.
“Inscrutable mysteries! say, what is this?” exclaimed the elder clown, advancing into the room on tiptoe.
Apostrophising his eye and one Betty Martin, the younger clown said that it was a “rare go and no mistake,” whereupon his father laid his hand on Willie’s shoulder and gently shook him.
“Eh! another cup, Ziza?” exclaimed the self-accused nurse, as he put out his hand to seize the tea-pot. “Hallo! I thought it was the fairy,” he added, looking up with a sleepy smile; “I do believe I’ve gone and fell asleep.”
“Why, lad, where got ye all those things?” inquired the senior Cattley, laying aside his cloak and cap, and speaking in a low tone, for Ziza was still sleeping soundly.
“Well, I got ’em,” replied Willie in a meditative tone, “from a friend of mine—a very partikler friend o’ mine—as declines to let me mention his name, so you’ll have to be satisfied with the wittles and without the name of the wirtuous giver. P’r’aps it was a dook, or a squire, or a archbishop as did it. Anyway his name warn’t Walker. See now, you’ve bin an’ woke up the fairy.”
The sick child moved as he spoke, but it was only to turn, without awaking, on her side.
“Well, lad,” said the clown, sitting down and looking wistfully in the face of his daughter, “you’ve got your own reasons for not tellin’ me—mayhap I’ve a pretty good guess—anyhow I say God bless him, for I do b’lieve he’s saved the child’s life. I’ve not seen her sleep like that for weeks. Look at her, Jim; ain’t she like her old self?”
“Yes, father, she don’t need no paint and flour to make a fairy on her just now. She’s just like what she was the last time I seed her go up in a gauze cloud to heaven, with red and blue fire blazin’ all round her.”
“I’ll bid ye good-night now,” said Willie, buttoning up his jacket to the chin, and pulling his cap down on his brows with the air of a man who has a long walk before him.
“You’re off, are you—eh?” said the elder clown, rising and taking Willie by the hand, “well, you’re a good lad. Thank’ee for comin’ here an’ takin’ care of Ziza. My subterranean grotto ain’t much to boast of, but such as it is you’re welcome to it at all times. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said Willie; “good-night, Jim.” Jim replied good-night heartily, and then Willie stepped into the dark passage. He glanced back at the fairy before shutting the door, but her eyes were closed, so he said good-night to her in his heart, and went home.
“My dear Miss Tippet, I shall never, no never, get over it.”
So said, and so undoubtedly thought, a thin little old lady with remarkably bright eyes, and a sweet old face, as she sat sipping tea at Miss Tippet’s elbow.
It was in the drawing-room of Miss Deemas that she sat, and the Eagle sat opposite to her.
“It was very dreadful,” responded Miss Tippet with a sigh—“very.”
“It was awful. I know I shall never get over it,—never,” repeated the little old lady, finishing her tea, and asking for another cup in the calmest possible voice, with the sweetest possible smile.
“Oh yes, you will, Mrs Denman,” said Miss Deemas snappishly.
“No, indeed, I won’t,” repeated Mrs Denman; “how can I? Just think of the situation. Sitting in my chair in dishabille, when a man—a Man, Miss Dee—”
“Well, I know what a man is,” said the Eagle bitterly; “why don’t you go on?”
“Burst himself through my bedroom-door,” continued Mrs Denman, “with lime and charcoal and brick-dust and water streaming down his face—f–fo-olded me in his arms, bore me out into the street—the street! Oh! I shall never, never get over it; and so little, so very little clothing on me—”
“How much had you on?” asked Miss Deemas in a deep voice, the calmness of which contrasted forcibly with Mrs Denman’s excited tones.
“Really, Miss Deemas, I see no necessity for going into particulars. It is sufficient to know that I was carried by a man into the street in the face of some thousands of people, for I heard them cheering though I saw them not. I know I shall never get over it—another cup, my love; not quite so much sugar—no, not if I were to live to the age of Methusaleh.”
“I don’t wonder, indeed I don’t,” murmured the sympathetic Miss Tippet. “I think, Julia dear, you are a little too hard on Mrs Denman. How would you like to have been carried out of a burning house in such a way by a big rough man?”
“Oh, my dear,” interposed Mrs Denman, “I did not say he was rough. Big he certainly was, and strong, but I must do him the justice to say that the man li—lif—oh me! lifted me up very tenderly, and carried me as though I had been an infant and he my mother, through smoke and fire and water, into the street, before the eyes of the—whole—oh, it’s too awful to think of!”
“Stuff!” ejaculated Miss Deemas, pecking a piece of cake out of her fingers as she would, metaphorically of course, have pecked the eyes out of the head of Frank Willders, or any other man. “Didn’t you say he put a blanket round you?”
“Of course, Miss Deemas; I should have died otherwise of pure shame.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” retorted the Eagle. “You would probably have been half suffocated and a good deal dirtied, and you might have been singed, but you wouldn’t have died; and what need you care now, for the people saw nothing but a bundle. You might have been a bundle of old clothes for all they knew or cared. All they wanted to see was the bravery, as they call it, of the man; as if there were not hundreds upon hundreds of women who would do the same thing if their muscles were strong enough, and occasion served.”
“But it was a brave act, you know,” said Miss Tippet timidly.
“I don’t know that,” retorted Miss Deemas, helping herself to more cake with as much decision of manner as if she had been carrying it off by force of arms from before the very muzzles of a masculine battery. “I don’t know that. He had to escape, you know, for his own life, and he might as well bring a bundle along with him as not.”
“Yes; but then,” said Miss Tippet, “he first went up the—the thingumy, you know.”
“No, he didn’t,” retorted Miss Deemas smartly; “he was in the house at the time, and only came down the ‘thingumy,’ as you call it!”
It was a peculiarity of Miss Deemas’s character, that she claimed the right to be as rude as she chose to people in her own house, and rather prided herself on this evidence of independence.
“In my opinion,” said Mrs Denman, “his being in the burning house at all of his own accord, was of itself evidence of courage. I think the fireman is a brave young man.”
Thus much Mrs Denman said with dignity to Miss Deemas. The remainder of her speech she addressed to Miss Tippet.
“But, my dear, I feel that although I owe this young man a debt of gratitude which I can never repay, I shall never be able to look my preserver in the face. I know that his mind will always revert, when he sees me, to the fi—fig—the figure that he lifted out of that easy-chair. But there is one thing I have resolved on,” continued the little old lady in more cheerful tones, as she asked for another cup of tea, “and that is, to get a fireman to instruct me as to the best method of saving my own life should fire again break out in my dwelling.”
The Eagle gave a hysterical chuckle at this.
“I have already written to one who has been recommended to me as a shrewd man, and he is coming to call on me this very evening at seven o’clock.”
Mrs Denman started, as if her own remark had recalled something, and pulled out her watch.
“Why, it is almost half-past six!” she exclaimed, rising hastily. “Excuse a hurried departure, Miss Deemas. Your society and sympathy” (she looked pointedly at Miss Tippet here) “have been so agreeable that I did not observe how time was flying. Good-bye, Miss Deemas. Good evening, dear Miss Tippet.”
Miss Deemas bowed.
“Good-bye, my love,” said Miss Tippet, bustling round her friend. “I’m so glad to have met you, and I hope you’ll come and see me soon; 6 Poor-thing Lane, remember. Come whenever you please, dear Mrs Denman. Yes, yes, time does indeed fly, as you say; or as my friend, Sir Archibald What’s-his-name used to remark, ‘Tempit fugus something re-what’s-’is-name.’ Good-bye, dear Mrs Denman.”
While the ladies were thus engaged, one whom the Eagle would have tossed her beak at with supreme contempt was enjoying himself in the bosom of his family. This was none other than Joe Corney himself, who, having received a “stop” for a distant fire, had looked in on his wife to tell her of the note he had received from Mrs Denman.
The family bosom resided in a small portion of a small house in the small street where the fire-engine dwelt.
Joe had laid his helmet on the table, and, having flung himself into a chair, seized his youngest child, a little girl, in his arms, raised her high above his head and laughed in her face; at which the child chuckled and crowed to the best of its ability.
Meanwhile his eldest son, Joe junior, immediately donned the helmet, seized the poker, thrust the
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