Bindle: Some Chapters in the Life of Joseph Bindle, Herbert George Jenkins [love letters to the dead TXT] 📗

"But," said Bindle, "couldn't yer put me in somethin' wot sits on an 'orse, or 'angs on be'ind? I want to go."

"It's no good; I cannot pass you."

"Couldn't yer make me even a 'ighlander? Me legs ain't too thin for that, are they?"

"It's no good!"

"Are they catchin'?" enquired Bindle, with some eagerness in his voice.

"Are what catching?"

"Various veins."

"No."

"Just my luck," grumbled Bindle, "a-gettin' somethink wot I can't 'and on."

The doctor laughed.

Finding that nothing could break down the doctor's relentless refusal, Bindle reluctantly departed.

During the week following he made application at several other recruiting offices, but always with the same result.

"Nothin' doin'," he mumbled. "Nothin' left for me but to become a bloomin' slop. I must do somethink." And he entered the local police-station.

"What is it?" enquired the officer in charge.

"Come to gi' meself up," said Bindle with a grin. "Goin' to be a special constable and run in all me dear ole pals."

He found the interrogations here far less severe. Certain particulars were asked of him. Finally he was told that he would hear in due course whether or no his services were accepted.

After an interval of about a week Bindle was sworn in. A few days later he called once more at the police-station for his equipment. As the truncheon, armlet, and whistle were handed to him, he eyed the articles dubiously, then looking up at the officer, enquired:

"This all I got to wear? It don't seem decent."

He was told that he would wear his ordinary clothes, and would be expected to report himself for duty at a certain hour on the following Monday.

On his way home he called in on his brother-in-law and, to the delight of Smith and the errand boy, solemnly informed Mr. Hearty of the step he had taken.

"Now look 'ere, 'Earty," he remarked, "you got to be pretty bloomin' careful what yer up to, or yer'll get run in. Yer'd look sort o' tasty with me a-shovin' of yer from be'ind in me new uniform, a bit in each 'and and the rest round me arm. S' long! an' don't yer forget it. No late nights. No carryin's on with the choir." And Bindle winked knowingly at Smith and the boy.

Bindle's popularity among his brother special constables was instantaneous and complete. They were for the most part sent out in pairs. "'untin' in couples," Bindle called it. The man who got Bindle as a companion considered himself lucky.

If Bindle saw a pair of lovers saying good-night, he would go up to them gravely and demand what they were doing, and warn them as to their proper course of conduct.

"There ain't goin' to be no kissin' on my beat," he would remark, "only wot I does meself. Why ain't you in the army, young feller?"

He never lost an opportunity of indulging his sense of the ludicrous, and he soon became known to many of those whose property it was his duty to protect. From servant-girls he came in for many dainties, and it was not long before he learnt that the solitary special gets more attention from the other sex than the one who "'unts in couples." As a consequence Bindle became an adept at losing his fellow-constable. "I can lose a special quicker than most chaps can lose a flea," he remarked once to Mrs. Bindle.

One night, about half-past nine, when on duty alone on Putney Hill, Bindle saw a man slip down one of the turnings on the left-hand side, as if desirous of avoiding observation. A moment after he heard a soft whistle. Grasping his truncheon in his right hand, Bindle slid into the shadow of the high wall surrounding a large house. A few minutes later he heard another whistle.

"'Ullo," he muttered, "shouldn't be surprised if there wasn't somethink on. Now, Joe B., for the V.C. or a pauper's grave."

Creeping stealthily along under the shadow of the wall, he came close up to the man without being observed. Just as he gave vent to the third whistle Bindle caught him by the arm.

"Now then, young feller, wot's all this about? I 'eard you. 'Oly Angels!" Bindle exclaimed in astonishment, "where did you spring from, sir?"

It was Dick Little.

"I was just a-goin' to run you in for a burglar."

"Well, you wouldn't have been far wrong," replied Little. "I'm bent on theft."

"Right-oh," said Bindle. "I'm with yer, special or no special. What are yer stealin', if it ain't a rude question?"

"A girl," Little replied.

Bindle whistled significantly.

In the course of the next five minutes Dick Little explained that he was in love with a girl whose people disapproved of him, and she was being kept almost a prisoner in the house in question. At night he was sometimes able to get a few words with her after dinner, she mounting a ladder and talking to him from the top of the garden wall.

"One of these nights," Little concluded, "we're going to make a bolt for it. By Jove!" he suddenly broke off. "You're the very man; you'll help, of course."

"'Elp?" said Bindle; "o' course I'll 'elp. If yer want to be made un'appy that's your affair. If yer wants me to 'elp to make yer un'appy, that's my affair."

At this moment there was a faint whistle from farther down the road.

"I must be off," said Little. "Come round and see me on Sunday, and I'll tell you all about it."

The next Sunday night Bindle heard the whole story. Dick Little was desperately in love with Ethel Knob-Kerrick, the daughter of Lady Knob-Kerrick, whose discomfiture at the Barton Bridge Temperance F�te had been due to his tampering with the lemonade. Lady Knob-Kerrick had come to know of clandestine meetings, and henceforth her daughter had been practically a prisoner, never being allowed out of her mother's sight or that of Miss Strint, who, although in sympathy with the lovers, was too much afraid of Lady Knob-Kerrick to render them any assistance.

"So I'm going to bolt with her," said Dick Little.

"And very nice too," remarked Bindle, as he gazed admiringly at the photograph of an extremely pretty brunette with expressive eyes and a tilted chin.

"Funny things, women," continued Bindle. "Yer think yer've got a bloomin' peach, when squash! and there is only the stone and a little juice left in yer 'and. Funny things, women! She'll probably nag yer into an asylum or the Blue Boar or——"

"Shut up, Bindle!" There was a hard note in Dick Little's voice.

"All right, sir, all right," said Bindle patiently. "I'd 'ave said the same meself when I was a-courtin' me little red-'eaded blossom. Funny things, women!

"If it ain't rude, sir," Bindle continued after a pause, "'ave yer got an 'ome ready? 'Cos when yer get a bird yer sort o' got to get a cage, an' if that cage ain't gold, wi' bits o' gold sort o' lyin' about, well, there'll be some feathers flyin', an' they won't be 'ers. A woman wot ain't got money makes a man moult pretty quick. Yer'll excuse me, sir, but I'm an old warrior at this 'ere game."

"I've bought a practice in Chelsea, and besides I've got between three and four hundred a year," replied Little.

"H'm," said Bindle, "may keep 'er in scent an' shoe-strings. I suppose you're set on doin' it?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, I'll 'elp yer; but it's a pity, it's always a pity when a nice chap like you gets balmy on a bit o' skirt."

"Right-oh!" said Little. "I knew you would."

A week later Bindle, wearing what he called his "uniform," met Dick Little by appointment outside Lady Knob-Kerrick's house on Putney Hill. Miss Kerrick had arranged to be ready at 9.30. Dick Little had borrowed, through his brother, Guggers' Rolls-Royce, which, according to the owner, would "gug-gug-go anywhere and do anything."

Guggers volunteered to drive himself. At 9.30 the car slid silently down the road at the side of Lady Knob-Kerrick's house. It was a dark night and the lights were hooded. Under the shade of a huge elm, and drawn close up against the house, no one could distinguish the car from the surrounding shadow.

A short ladder was placed in the tonneau and reared up against the wall. Bindle and Little both mounted the wall and waited what to Little seemed hours. It was nearly ten o'clock before a slight sound on the gravel announced the approach of someone. A subdued whistle from Dick Little produced a tremulous answer. Not a word was spoken. Presently a scraping against the wall announced the placing of the ladder from inside the garden, and a moment later a voice whispered:

"Is that you, Dick?"

"Yes, Ettie," was the reply. "Quick. I've got a friend here."

"It's all right, miss," whispered Bindle; "I'll catch hold of one arm and Mr. Little will do ditto with the other, and 'fore you can wink you'll be over. You ain't the screamin' sort, are yer?" he enquired anxiously.

A little laugh answered him.

"Now then, look slippy, in case the old gal—sorry, miss, yer mother—smells a rat."

It was a hot, soundless night. The atmosphere hung round them like a heavy garment saturated with moisture. Every sound seemed to be magnified. As he finished speaking, Bindle's quick ear detected a footstep inside the garden. Bending down he whispered to Guggers:

"Start the car, sir, there's someone comin'. Come along, miss," he added.

"Ethel!" Three hearts gave a great leap at the sound of a harsh, uncompromising voice from almost beneath them.

"Ethel, where are you? You will catch your death of cold walking about the garden at this time of night. Come in at once!"

It was Lady Knob-Kerrick. There was no mistaking her disapproving voice. Bindle grinned as he recollected the inglorious figure she had cut at the Temperance F�te.

"Ethel, where are you?" The voice cut sharply through the still air.

"Steady, sir," whispered Bindle to Dick Little, who had lifted Miss Kerrick off the wall.

"I'll keep the ole gal jawin'. Tell ole Spit-and-Speak to get off quietly."

"Strint!" Lady Knob-Kerrick's voice again rang out. "Strint, where are you?"

Bindle heard the sound of feet hastening down the path. He was standing on the wall, grasping with one hand the top of the ladder used by Miss Kerrick, which reached some three feet above the top of the wall. He had taken the precaution of putting his uniform in his pocket "in case I gets nabbed," as he explained to Dick Little.

Bindle heard a suppressed "gug-gug" from Guggers, on whose head Miss Kerrick had alighted. He wondered why Guggers had not started the engine.

Somewhere below him he heard Lady Knob-Kerrick moving about. Would she find the ladder? If she did, how was he to cover the retreat of the car? He was conscious of enjoying to the full the excitement of the situation.

"Where is Miss Knob-Kerrick?" Lady Knob-Kerrick always insisted on the "Knob." Her voice came from out of the darkness immediately below where Bindle was standing.

"I'm afraid——" began another voice, that of Miss Strint, when suddenly several things seemed to happen at once. There was a triumphant "Ah!" from Lady Knob-Kerrick, as she found the ladder and wrenched it from the wall, a yell from Bindle as he lost his balance, and an agonised shriek from Miss Strint, as she was swept from her feet by what she thought was a bomb, but what in reality was the ladder, which fell, pinning her to the earth.

"Help! Help!! Murder!!!" shrieked Lady Knob-Kerrick, until Bindle reached the ground, marvelling at the softness of the substance on which he had fallen, when her cries ceased suddenly and only the moans of Miss Strint were to be heard by the servants, who rushed from the house to the rescue.

On the other side of the wall the two occupants of the car held their breath, but Guggers saw in the sudden pandemonium that for which he had been waiting, and the Rolls-Royce leapt forward.

"Stop, Guggers," whispered Dick Little, leaning forward, "we can't leave him like this."

"Gug-gug-go to blazes! This is my car," was the response, as they tore up Putney Hill on the way to Walton, where Miss Kerrick was to spend the night with Guggers' sister.

Five minutes later Bindle stood in Lady Knob-Kerrick's drawing-room with Thomas, the footman, holding one arm, and Wilton, the butler, the other. On Wilton's face was an expression of disgust at having temporarily to usurp the