Fighting the Flames, Robert Michael Ballantyne [ebook audio reader .txt] 📗

one among the unusually wise ones of the earth, and is conveniently safe, inasmuch as it is more or less true of every person, place, and thing in this sad world of loose screws.


CHAPTER TWENTY.


A LITTLE MORE HATCHING.

One night Edward Hooper, having consulted his watch frequently, and compared it with the clock of slow notoriety in the warehouse in Tooley Street, until his patience was almost gone, at last received the warning hiss, and had his books shut and put away before the minute-gun began to boom. He was out at the door and half-way up the lane, with his hat a good deal on one side of his head and very much over one eye, before the last shot was fired.

"It's a jolly time of day this--the jolliest hour of the twenty-four," muttered Ned to himself, with a smile.

His speech was thick, and his smile was rather idiotic, by reason of his having drunk more than his usual allowance at dinner that day.

By way of mending matters, Ned resolved to renew his potations immediately, and announced his intentions to himself in the following words:

"Com--mi--boy--y-you'll go--ave an--urrer por-o-porer--thash yer sort!"

At a certain point in the drunkard's downward career he ceases to have any control over himself, and increases his speed from the usual staggering jog-trot to a brisk zigzag gallop that generally terminates abruptly in the grave.

Ned Hooper, a kind-hearted fellow enough, and thinking himself not so bad as he seemed because of that same kind-heartedness, had reached the galloping point, and was travelling unusually fast along the high road to ruin.

Being of a generous nature, Ned was in the habit of extending his patronage to various beer-shops, among others to that one near London Bridge which has been described as the property of Gorman. Business, pleasure, or fancy led him to that shop on the evening in question. He was standing at the counter steadying himself with his left hand and holding a pewter-pot in his right, when the door of the inner room opened, and Gorman crossed the floor. He was in a thoughtful mood, and was about to pass out without raising his eyes, when Ned arrested him with:

"Good ev-n'in', Misher Gorm'n."

Gorman glanced back, and then turned away as if in contempt, but, suddenly checking himself, returned, and going up to Hooper with as affable a smile as his countenance would admit of, said that he was delighted to shake hands with him, and that he was the very man he wanted to see, as he wished to have a word of conversation with him.

"Conv'shas'n wi' me?" said Ned, swaying himself to and fro as he endeavoured to look steadily in the face of his friend; "fire away, shen. I'm sh' man f'r conv'shash'n, grave or gay, comic--'r--shublime, 's all the shame to me!"

He finished the pot, and laid it, with an immense assumption of care, on the counter.

"Come out, we'll walk as we talk," said Gorman.

"Ha! to b'shure; 'at's poetical--very good, very good, we'll wa-alk as we talk--ha! ha! very good. Didn't know you wash a poet--eh? don't look like 'un."

"Come along, then," said Gorman, taking him by the arm.

"Shtop!" said Ned, drawing himself up with an air of drivelling dignity, and thrusting his hand into his trouser-pocket.

"What for?" asked the other.

"I haven't p-paid for my b-beer."

"Never mind the beer. I'll stand that," said Gorman, dragging his friend away.

Ned consented to be dragged, and said something to the effect that he hoped to have the pleasure of standing treat on some future occasion.

"Now, then," said Gorman, somewhat firmly, though not sternly, for he knew that Ned Hooper was not to be browbeat; "are you sober enough to attend to what I've got to say?"

"Shober as a dudge," answered Ned.

Gorman looked earnestly in his face for a few moments, and then began to talk to him in a continuous strain by way of testing him.

"C'found these cabs an' b-busseses; a feller c-can't hear a word," said Ned.

"Your lodgin's an't far off, are they?"

"Close 't 'and," answered Ned.

"Let's go to 'em," said Gorman.

In silence Ned Hooper led the way, and, conducting his friend into his "chamber," as he styled his poor abode, begged him to be seated, and threw himself into an armchair beside the little fire. There was a pipe on the chimney-piece, which Ned began to fill, while Gorman opened the conversation.

"You're hard up, rather, just now?" said the latter.

"'Xactly so, that's my c'ndition to a tee."

Ned smiled as he said this, as though it were the most satisfactory state of things possible, and lighted his pipe.

"Of course you've no objection to make a fifty pound note or so?" asked Gorman.

"None in sh' wo'ld; always," he became very earnest here, "_always_ sh'posin' that I make it honestly."

"Of course, of course," rejoined the other; "I would never propose anything that would lead you into a scrape. You don't suppose I would do that, I hope?"

"Shertenly not," replied Ned with a smile; "fire away."

"Well, then, I'm anxious just now to procure a dead corpse."

Ned Hooper, drunk as he was, felt somewhat startled by this, but, being a man of wandering and lively imagination, turned from the point in question to an idea suggested by it.

"I sh'pose a living corpse wouldn't do, would it? It must be a dead one--eh?"

"Be serious if you can," said Gorman angrily. "I want a corpse."

Ned Hooper, who, like many good-humoured men, was easily roused when in a state of intoxication, fired at the tone of Gorman's voice, and looked at him as sternly as he could, while he replied:

"What have _I_ got to do with yer wants an' yer co'pses--eh? You don't sh'pose I keep a stock of 'em on hand ready-made, do you--eh?" Then relapsing into a placid frame, he smiled, and added, "But fire away, ol' feller, I'm yer man for conv'sashin, specially w'en it's in the comic line."

"That's right," said Gorman, clapping Ned on the shoulder and endeavouring to conciliate him; "now, then, the question is, how am I to get 'un?"

"Ah, thash the question, if Shakspr's to be b'lieved."

"Well, but couldn't you think?" said Gorman.

"Think!" exclaimed the other, "what am I paid a salary for? What are my brains doin' night an day--eh? Of course I can think; thash's my pr'feshion, is thinking."

Gorman cast a scornful look at his friend, but he deemed it prudent to admit the truth of what he said, and suggested that he might perhaps remember a certain medical student with whom he had once held pleasant converse in his (Gorman's) house of entertainment.

"R'member him, of course," hiccuped Ned.

"Well, then, he could get us a corpse, you know--couldn't he?"

Ned looked uncommonly knowing at this point, and admitted that he rather thought he could--a dozen of them, if necessary.

"Well, I want one, and I'll pay well for it if it's of the right sort. It must be at least six-foot two, thin about the jaws, with lanky black hair, and a yellow complexion."

Ned smiled facetiously, but at the same time shook his head.

"Six f't two," said he, "an't a common height; it won't be easy to get 'un so tall; but--but," he pondered here with a grave expression of countenance, "but it might be stretched a bit, you know--eh? As to thin jaws, most of 'em is thin about sh' jaws, an' black hair ain't un-- uncommon."

Ned yawned at this point, and looked very sleepy.

"Well, you'll speak to him, won't you, and I'll make it worth while for both of you?"

"Oh yesh, I'll shpeak to him," said Ned, as his head fell on the table and his senses utterly forsook him.

"Bah! you beast," muttered Gorman, casting a glance of scorn on his friend as he rose to leave. He had the sense, before going, to extinguish the candle, lest Ned should overturn it and set the house on fire; not that he cared either for Ned or the house, but as the former happened to be necessary to him just then, he did not wish him to be burned too soon. Then he went out, closing the door softly after him.

Half an hour afterwards Ned's friend and fellow-lodger, John Barret, entered the room, accompanied by Fred Auberly.

"Come, Fred," said the former, "we can chat here without interr-- hallo--"

"What's wrong?" inquired Fred, endeavouring to make out objects by the feeble flicker of the fire, while his friend struck a light.

Barret did not reply, but the light soon revealed Ned's disreputable figure half sprawling on and half clinging to the table.

"Surely this is not your chum, John?" asked Fred in surprise.

"Yes, that's him," answered Barret in a low sad voice. "Help me to get him into bed, like a good fellow."

Without a word the young men raised the drunken figure in their arms, and laid it like some loathsome object on one of the beds in the adjoining room.

"How can you stay with him?" asked Auberly, after they had returned to the other room and seated themselves at the fire.

"He is an old schoolfellow of mine," said Barret in a low voice. "I'm sorry you've seen him in this state. He was a very different fellow once, I assure you; and if it were not for that accursed drink he would be as pleasant a companion as exists. You know I have no friends in London save yourself, Fred, and this young fellow.--I came to stay with him at first, not knowing his character, and now I remain to try to-- to--save him; but I fear his case is hopeless. Come, Fred, we won't talk of it. You were saying, as we came along, that your father is sterner than ever, were you not?"

"Ay," said Fred, with a sigh, "he won't even let me call to see my sister too--that's the worst of it. For the rest I care not; my brush has sustained me hitherto, and my love for my profession increases every hour. I feel towards it, John, as a man may be supposed to feel towards the sweet, young girl whom wicked guardians had for a long time refused to let him wed. Nothing but death shall separate us now!"

Barret smiled, and was about to make some rejoinder, but he checked himself and changed the subject.

"How is your sister?" said he, "I have not heard of her for a long time."

"Not well," answered Fred; "the doctors shake their heads and speak of the shock having been too much for her. Dear Loo, she never was strong, and I'm afraid that she has received fatal injury on the night of the fire. I'm told that my poor father is sadly cut up about her--attends on her night and day, and humours her every whim. This is so unlike him that it fills me with anxiety on account of dear Loo, whom I have not seen since I went to live at Kensington."

"Kensington, Fred? I did not know you had gone to live there."

"I was just going