The Garret and the Garden; Or, Low Life High Up, R. M. Ballantyne [romance book recommendations txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Book online «The Garret and the Garden; Or, Low Life High Up, R. M. Ballantyne [romance book recommendations txt] 📗». Author R. M. Ballantyne
“Of who, mother—old nurse?” asked Rosa.
“Yes, your father’s old nurse; indeed I may say mine also, for when I was a little girl I used to pay long visits to your grandfather’s house. And it seems that she is in great poverty—almost destitute. Dear, dear old nurse! you won’t be long in poverty if I can help it!”
As she spoke, a handsome man of middle age and erect carriage entered the room. There was an expression of care and anxiety on his countenance, which, however, partly disappeared when the lady turned towards him with a triumphant look and held up the letter.
“Didn’t I tell you, Jack, that your lawyer would find our old nurse if any one could? He writes me that she has been heard of, living in some very poor district on the south side of the Thames, and hopes to be able to send me her exact address very soon. I felt quite sure that Mr Lockhart would find her, he is such an obliging and amiable man, as well as clever. I declare that I can’t bear to look at all the useless luxury in which we live when I think of the good and true creatures like old nurse who are perishing in absolute destitution.”
“But being disgusted with our luxury and giving it all up would not mend matters, little wife,” returned Jack with a faint smile. “Rich people are not called upon to give up their riches, but to use them—to spend well within their means, so as to have plenty to spare in the way of helping those who are willing to help themselves, and sustaining those who cannot help themselves. The law of supply and demand has many phases, and the profits resulting therefrom are overruled by a Higher Power than the laws of Political Economy. There are righteous rich as well as poor; there are wicked poor as well as rich. What you and I have got to do in this perplexing world is to cut our particular coat according to our cloth.”
“Just so,” said the lady with energy. “Your last remark is to the point, whatever may be the worth of your previous statements, and I intend to cut off the whole of my superfluous skirts in order to clothe old nurse and such as she with them.”
Rosa laughingly approved of this decision, for she was like-minded with her mother, but her father did not respond. The look of care had returned to his brow, and there was cause for it for Colonel Brentwood had just learned from his solicitor that he was a ruined man.
“It is hard to have to bring you such news, darling,” he said, taking his wife’s hand, “especially when you were so happily engaged in devising liberal things for the poor, but God knows what is best for us. He gave us this fortune, when He inclined uncle Richard to leave it to us, and now He has seen fit to take it away.”
“But how—what do you mean by taking it away?” asked poor Mrs Brentwood, perceiving that her husband really had some bad news to tell.
“Listen; I will explain. When uncle Richard Weston died, unexpectedly, leaving to us his estate, we regarded it you know, as a gift from God, and came to England resolving to spend our wealth in His service. Well, yesterday Mr Lockhart informed me that another will has been found, of later date than that which made me uncle Richard’s heir, in which the whole estate is left to a distant connection of whose very existence I had become oblivious.”
“Well, Jack,” returned the lady, with a valiant effort to appear reconciled, “but that is not ruin, you know. Your pay still remains to us.”
“I—I fear not. That is to say, believing the estate to be mine, I have come under obligations which must be met and, besides, I have spent considerable sums which must be refunded—all of which, if I understand the law of the land rightly, means ruin.”
For some moments Mrs Brentwood sat in silent meditation. “Well,” she said at length, with the air of one who has made up her mind, “I don’t understand much about the law of the land. All I know is that my purse is full of gold just now, so I will snap my fingers at the law of the land and go right off to visit and succour our dear old Liz.”
According to arrangement, David Laidlaw was taken the following evening by his landlord, Mr Spivin, to see one of the low lodging-houses of London.
Our adventurous Scot had often read and heard that some of the low quarters of London were dangerous for respectable men to enter without the escort of the police, but his natural courage and his thorough confidence in the strength of his bulky frame inclined him to smile at the idea of danger. Nevertheless, by the advice of his new friend the landlord, he left his watch and money, with the exception of a few coppers, behind him—carefully stowed under the pillow of his bed in his shoulder-bag. For further security the door of his room was locked and the key lung on a nail in an out-of-the-way corner, known only, as Mr Spivin pointed out, to “their two selves.”
“But hoo dis it happen, Mr Speevin,” asked David, as they walked along the streets together, “that ye can gang safely amang the thieves withoot a polisman t’ proteck ye?”
“Oh, as to that,” replied the jolly landlord, “I’m connected with a religious society which sends agents down among them poor houtcasts to convert ’em. They hall knows me, bless you. But I ain’t a-goin’ with you myself. You see, I’m a very busy man, and engagements which I ’ad forgotten prevents me, but I’ve made an arrangement with one o’ the converted thieves to take you to a few of the worst places in London. Of course he can pass you hevery where as one of his friends.”
To this David made no reply, save with a slight “Humph!” as he looked earnestly at his companion. But Mr Spivin wore an expression of seraphic candour.
“Here he is,” added the landlord, as they turned a corner and drew near to a man in mean attire, who seemed to be waiting for some one. “He’s rather disreputable to look at, only just been converted, an’ not ’avin’ ’ad the chance yet to better himself.—But—hallo!—you seem to know him.”
The last exclamation and remark were called forth by the look of surprise on Laidlaw’s face, and the air almost of alarm on that of the mean-looking man—alarm which was by no means unnatural, seeing that he was none other than the fellow who had attempted to rob our Scotsman the previous night.
David, however, was quick to recover himself. “Know him!” he cried, with a hearty laugh, “ay, I ken him weel. I lent him a helpin’ haund last nicht, no’ far frae here.”
“Surely he was not beggin’?” exclaimed Mr Spivin in tones of virtuous reproof, “for a noo convert to go a-beggin’, you know, would be houtrageous!”
“Na, na,” answered David, with a quiet and somewhat cynical smile, “he wasna beggin’, puir lad, but I took peety on ’im, an’ gee’d ’im some bawbees. So this is yer new convert, is he? an’ he’s to be my guide? He’ll do. He’ll do. Sae I’ll bid ye guid-nicht, Mr Speevin.”
As the Scot held out his hand in a very decided manner the landlord was obliged to depart without further enlightenment, after cautioning the “converted” thief to take good care of his friend.
When he was gone the Scotsman and the ex-convict stood looking silently at each other, the first with an earnest yet half-sarcastic smile, the other with a mingled expression of reckless amusement, in which, however, there was a trace of anxiety.
“Weel noo,” said the former, “aren’t ye an oot-an’-oot blagyird?”
“If you mean by that an out-and-out blackguard,” answered the thief, “you’re not far wrong.”
“Ye’re honest the noo, ony way,” remarked the Scot, with a nod. “Noo, my man, look ye here. Ye are nae mair convertit than yer freen’ Speevin is, though I took him for a rale honest man at first. But bein’ a blagyird, as ye admit, I’m wullin’ t’ hire ye in that capacity for the nicht. Noo, what I want is t’ see low life in Lun’on, an’ if ye’ll tak’ me to what they may ca’ the warst haunts o’ vice, I’ll mak’ it worth yer while—an’ I’ve got mair siller than ye think for, maybe.”
A stern frown settled on the thief’s face as David spoke.
“I suppose,” he said, “that you want me to show you the misery and destitootion among the poor of London, that you may return to your ’ome in the North and boast that you ’ave ‘done the slums!’”
“Na—na, ye’re quite mista’en, man,” returned David quickly; “but I want t’ see for mysel’ what I’ve heard sae muckle aboot—to see if it’s a’ true, for I’m wae—I’m” (correcting himself) “sorry—for the puir craturs, an’ wud fain help some o’ them if I could. Noo, freen’,” he continued, laying his huge hand gently on the man’s shoulder, “if ye want to earn something, an’ll tak’ me t’ where I want t’ gang—guid. If no’—I’ll bid ye guid-nicht.”
“Do you know,” said the man, with a furtive glance at David’s kindly face, “the risk you run from the men who live in such places if you go alone and unprotected?”
“I ken the risk they run if they daur t’ meddle wi’ me! Besides, I’ll be naether alane nor unproteckit if I’ve you wi’ me, for I can trust ye!”
A peculiar smile played for a moment on the haggard features of the thief.
“Scotchman,” he said, “whatever your name may be, I—”
“My name is David Laidlaw, an’ I’ve nae cause t’ be ashamed o’t.”
“Well, Mr Laidlaw,” returned the thief, in vastly improved language and tone, “I’m indebted to you for a good supper and a warm bed last night. Besides, yours is the first friendly touch or kind voice that has greeted me since I was discharged, and you’ve said you can trust me! So I’ll do my best for you even though you should not give me a penny. But remember, you will go among a rough lot whom I have but little power to control.”
“Hoots! c’way, man, an’ dinna waste time haverin’.”
Saying this, he grasped his guide by the arm in a friendly way and walked off, much to the surprise of a policeman with an aquiline nose, who turned his bull’s-eye full on them as they passed, and then went on his way, shaking his head sagaciously.
As the ill-assorted pair advanced, the streets they traversed seemed to grow narrower and dirtier. The inhabitants partook of the character of their surroundings, and it struck our Scotsman that, as ordinary shops became fewer and meaner, grog-shops became more numerous and self-assertive. From out of these dens of debauchery there issued loud cries and curses and ribald songs, and occasionally one or two of the wretched revellers, male or female, were thrust out, that they might finish off a quarrel with a fight in the street, or because they insisted on having more drink without having the means to pay for it.
At one particular point a woman “in unwomanly rags” was seen leaning up against a lamp-post with an idiotical expression on her bloated face, making an impassioned speech to some imaginary person at her elbow. The speech came to an abrupt end when, losing her balance, she fell to the ground, and lay there in drunken contentment.
At the same moment the attention of our explorer was drawn to a riot close at hand, occasioned by two men engaged in a fierce encounter. They were loudly cheered and backed by their friends, until all were scattered by two powerful constables, who swooped suddenly on the scene and captured one of
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