FAILURE AND A NEW SCENT
Although our hero’s plan of
search may seem to some rather Quixotic, there was
nothing further from his thoughts than merely playing
at the game of amateur detective. Being enthusiastic
and sanguine, besides being spurred on by an intense
desire to rescue the father of May Leather, Charlie
Brooke was thoroughly in earnest in his plan.
He knew that it would be useless to attempt such
a search and rescue in any other capacity than that
of a genuine pauper, at least in appearance and action.
He therefore resolved to conduct the search in character,
and to plunge at once into the deepest pools of the
slums.
It is not our intention to carry the
reader through the Arabian-night-like adventures which
he experienced in his quest. Suffice it to say
that he did not find the lost man in the pools in
which he fished for him, but he ultimately, after many
weeks, found one who led him to the goal he aimed
at.
Meanwhile there were revealed to him
numerous phases of life or, rather, of
living death in the slums of the great city
which caused him many a heartache at the time, and
led him ever afterwards to consider with anxious pity
the condition of the poor, the so-called lost and
lapsed, the depraved, degraded, and unfortunate.
Of course he found as so many had found
before him that the demon Drink was at the
bottom of most of the misery he witnessed, but he
also learned that whereas many weak and vicious natures
dated the commencement of their final descent and
fall from the time when they began to drink, many of
the strong and ferocious spirits had begun a life
of wickedness in early youth, and only added drink
in after years as a little additional fuel to the
already roaring flame of sin.
It is well known that men of all stamps
and creeds and classes are to be found in the low
lodging-houses of all great cities. At first
Charlie did not take note of this, being too earnestly
engaged in the search for his friend, and anxious
to avoid drawing attention on himself; but as he grew
familiar with these scenes of misery and destitution
he gradually began to be interested in the affairs
of other people, and, as he was eminently sympathetic,
he became the confidant of several paupers, young
and old. A few tried to draw him out, but he
quietly checked their curiosity without giving offence.
It may be remarked here that he at
once dropped the style of talk which he had adopted
when representing Jem Mace, because he found so many
in the lodging-houses who had fallen from a good position
in society that grammatical language was by no means
singular. His size and strength also saved him
from much annoyance, for the roughs, who might otherwise
have bullied him, felt that it would be wise to leave
him alone.
On one occasion, however, his pacific
principles were severely tested as well as his manhood,
and as this led to important results we must recount
the incident.
There was a little lame, elderly man,
who was a habitual visitor at one of the houses which
our hero frequented. He was a humorous character,
who made light of his troubles, and was a general favourite.
Charlie had felt interested in the man, and in ordinary
circumstances would have inquired into his history,
but, as we have said, he laid some restraint on his
natural tendency to inquire and sympathise. As
it was, however, he showed his goodwill by many little
acts of kindness such as making way for
Zook so he was called when he
wanted to get to the general fire to boil his tea
or coffee; giving him a portion of his own food on
the half pretence that he had eaten as much as he wanted,
etcetera.
There was another habitue of
the same lodging, named Stoker, whose temperament
was the very opposite to that of little Zook.
He was a huge, burly dock labourer; an ex-prize-fighter
and a disturber of the peace wherever he went.
Between Stoker and Zook there was nothing in common
save their poverty, and the former had taken a strong
dislike to the latter, presumably on the ground of
Zook’s superiority in everything except bulk
of frame. Charlie had come into slight collision
with Stoker on Zook’s account more than once,
and had tried to make peace between them, but Stoker
was essentially a bully; he would listen to no advice,
and had more than once told the would-be peacemaker
to mind his own business.
One evening, towards the close of
our hero’s search among the lodging-houses,
little Zook entered the kitchen of the establishment,
tea-pot and penny loaf in hand. He hastened towards
the roaring fire that might have roasted a whole sheep,
and which served to warm the entire basement storey,
or kitchen, of the tenement.
“Here, Zook,” said Charlie,
as the former passed the table at which he was seated
taking his supper, “I’ve bought more than
I can eat, as usual! I’ve got two red-herrings
and can eat only one. Will you help me?”
“It’s all fish that comes
to my net, Charlie,” said the little man, skipping
towards his friend, and accepting the herring with
a grateful but exaggerated bow.
We omitted to say that our hero passed
among the paupers by his Christian name, which he
had given as being, from its very universality, the
best possible alias.
A few minutes later Stoker entered
and went to the fire, where loud, angry voices soon
told that the bully was at his old game of peace-disturber.
Presently a cry of “shame” was heard,
and poor Zook was seen lying on the floor with his
nose bleeding.
“Who cried shame?” demanded
the bully, looking fiercely round.
“I did not,” said
Charlie Brooke, striding towards him, “for I
did not know it was you who knocked him down, but
I do cry shame on you now, for striking a man
so much smaller than yourself, and without provocation,
I warrant.”
“An’ pray who are you?”
returned Stoker, in a tone that was meant to be witheringly
sarcastic.
“I am one who likes fair play,”
said Charlie, restraining his anger, for he was still
anxious to throw oil on the troubled waters, “and
if you call it fair play for a heavy-weight like you
to attack such a light-weight as Zook, you must have
forgotten somehow that you are an Englishman.
Come, now, Stoker, say to Zook you are sorry and won’t
worry him any more, and I’m sure he’ll
forgive you!”
“Hear! hear!” cried several of the on-lookers.
“Perhaps I may forgive
’im,” said Zook, with a humorous leer,
as he wiped his bleeding nose “I’d
do a’most anything to please Charlie!”
This was received with a general laugh,
but Stoker did not laugh; he turned on our hero with
a look of mingled pity and contempt.
“No, Mister Charlie,”
he said, “I won’t say I’m sorry,
because I’d tell a big lie if I did, and I’ll
worry him just as much as I please. But I’ll
tell ‘e what I’ll do. If you show
yourself as ready wi’ your bunches o’
fives as you are wi’ yer tongue, and agree to
fight me, I’ll say to Zook that I’m sorry
and won’t worry ’im any more.”
There was dead silence for a minute
after the delivery of this challenge, and much curiosity
was exhibited as to how it would be taken. Charlie
cast down his eyes in perplexity. Like many big
and strong men he was averse to use his superior physical
powers in fighting. Besides this, he had been
trained by his mother to regard it as more noble to
suffer than to avenge insults, and there is no doubt
that if the bully’s insult had affected only
himself he would have avoided him, if possible, rather
than come into conflict. Having been trained,
also, to let Scripture furnish him with rules for
action, his mind irresistibly recalled the turning
of the “other cheek” to the smiter, but
the fact that he was at that moment acting in defence
of another, not of himself, prevented that from relieving
him. Suddenly like the lightning flash
there arose to him the words, “Smite a scorner
and the simple will beware!” Indeed, all that
we have mentioned, and much more, passed through his
troubled brain with the speed of light. Lifting
his eyes calmly to the face of his opponent he said “I
accept your challenge.”
“No, no, Charlie!” cried
the alarmed Zook, in a remonstrative tone, “you’ll
do nothing of the sort. The man’s a old
prize-fighter! You haven’t a chance.
Why, I’ll fight him myself rather than let you
do it.”
And with that the little man began
to square up and twirl his fists and skip about in
front of the bully in spite of his lameness but
took good care to keep well out of his reach.
“It’s a bargain, then,”
said Charlie, holding out his hand.
“Done!” answered the bully, grasping it.
“Well, then, the sooner we settle
this business the better,” continued Charlie.
“Where shall it come off?”
“Prize-fightin’s agin
the law,” suggested an old pauper, who seemed
to fear they were about to set to in the kitchen.
“So it is, old man,” said
Charlie, “and I would be the last to engage in
such a thing, but this is not a prize-fight, for there’s
no prize. It’s simply a fight in defence
of weakness against brute strength and tyranny.”
There were only a few of the usual
inhabitants of the kitchen present at the time, for
it was yet early in the evening. This was lucky,
as it permitted of the fight being gone about quietly.
In the upper part of the building
there was an empty room of considerable size which
had been used as a furniture store, and happened at
that time to have been cleared out, with the view of
adding it to the lodging. There, it was arranged,
the event should come off, and to this apartment proceeded
all the inhabitants of the kitchen who were interested
in the matter. A good many, however, remained
behind some because they did not like fights,
some because they did not believe that the parties
were in earnest, others because they were too much
taken up with and oppressed by their own sorrows,
and a few because, being what is called fuddled, they
did not understand or care anything about the matter
at all. Thus it came to pass that all the proceedings
were quiet and orderly, and there was no fear of interruption
by the police.
Arrived at the scene of action, a
ring was formed by the spectators standing round the
walls, which they did in a single row, for there was
plenty of room. Then Stoker strode into the middle
of the room, pulled off his coat, vest, and shirt,
which he flung into a corner, and stood up, stripped
to the waist, like a genuine performer in the ring.
Charlie also threw off coat and vest, but retained
his shirt an old striped cotton one in
harmony with his other garments.
“I’m not a professional,”
he said, as he stepped forward; “you’ve
no objection, I suppose, to my keeping on my shirt?”
“None whatever,” replied
Stoker, with a patronising air; “p’r’aps
it may be as well for fear you should kitch cold.”
Charlie smiled, and held out his hand “You
see,” he said, “that at least I understand
the civilities of the ring.”
There was an approving laugh at this
as the champions shook hands and stood on guard.
“I am quite willing even yet,”
said Charlie, while in this attitude, “to settle
this matter without fighting if you’ll only agree
to leave Zook alone in future.”
This was a clear showing of the white
feather in the opinion of Stoker, who replied with
a thundering, “No!” and at the same moment
made a savage blow at Charlie’s face.
Our hero was prepared for it.
He put his head quickly to one side, let the blow
pass, and with his left hand lightly tapped the bridge
of his opponent’s nose.
“Hah! a hammytoor!” exclaimed
the ex-pugilist in some surprise.
Charlie said nothing, but replied
with the grim smile with which in school-days he had
been wont to indicate that he meant mischief.
The smile passed quickly, however, for even at that
moment he would gladly have hailed a truce, so deeply
did he feel what he conceived to be the degradation
of his position a feeling which neither
his disreputable appearance nor his miserable associates
had yet been able to produce.
But nothing was further from the intention
of Stoker than a truce. Savages usually attribute
forbearance to cowardice. War to the knife was
in his heart, and he rushed at Charlie with a shower
of slogging blows, which were meant to end the fight
at once. But they failed to do so. Our
hero nimbly evaded the blows, acting entirely on the
defensive, and when Stoker at length paused, panting,
the hammytoor was standing before him quite cool,
and with the grim look intensified.
“If you will have it take
it!” he exclaimed, and shot forth a blow which
one of the juvenile bystanders described as a “stinger
on the beak!”
The owner of the beak felt it so keenly,
that he lost temper and made another savage assault,
which was met in much the same way, with this difference,
that his opponent delivered several more stingers on
the unfortunate beak, which after that would have
been more correctly described as a bulb.
Again the ex-pugilist paused for breath,
and again the “hammytoor” stood up before
him, smiling more grimly than ever panting
a little, it is true, but quite unscathed about the
face, for he had guarded it with great care although
he had received some rather severe body blows.
Seeing this, Stoker descended to mean
practices, and in his next assault attempted, and
with partial success, to hit below the belt.
This roused a spirit of indignation in Charlie, which
gave strength to his arm and vigour to his action.
The next time Stoker paused for breath, Charlie
as the juvenile bystander remarked “went
for him,” planted a blow under each eye, a third
on his forehead, and a fourth on his chest with such
astounding rapidity and force that the man was driven
up against the wall with a crash that shook the whole
edifice.
Stoker dropped and remained still.
There were no seconds, no sponges or calling of time
at that encounter. It was altogether an informal
episode, and when Charlie saw his antagonist drop,
he kneeled down beside him with a feeling of anxiety
lest he had killed him.
“My poor man,” he said, “are you
much hurt?”
“Oh! you’ve no need to
fear for me,” said Stoker recovering himself
a little, and sitting up “but I throw
up the sponge. Stoker’s day is over w’en
‘e’s knocked out o’ time by a hammytoor,
and Zook is free to bile ’is pot unmorlested
in futur’.”
“Come, it was worth a fight
to bring you to that state of mind, my man,”
said Charlie, laughing. “Here, two of you,
help to take him down and wash the blood off him;
and I say, youngster,” he added, pulling out
his purse and handing a sovereign to the juvenile
bystander already mentioned, “go out and buy
sausages for the whole company.”
The boy stared at the coin in his
hand in mute surprise, while the rest of the ring
looked at each other with various expressions, for
Charlie, in the rebound of feeling caused by his opponent’s
sudden recovery and submission, had totally forgotten
his rôle and was ordering the people about
like one accustomed to command.
As part of the orders were of such
a satisfactory nature, the people did not object,
and, to the everlasting honour of the juvenile bystander
who resisted the temptation to bolt with the gold,
a splendid supper of pork sausages was smoking on
the various tables of the kitchen of that establishment
in less than an hour thereafter.
When the late hours of night had arrived,
and most of the paupers were asleep in their poor
beds, dreaming, perchance, of “better days”
when pork-sausages were not so tremendous a treat,
little Zook went to the table at which Charlie sat.
He was staring at a newspaper, but in reality was
thinking about his vain search, and beginning, if truth
must be told, to feel discouraged.
“Charlie,” said Zook,
sitting down beside his champion, “or p’r’aps
I should say Mister Charlie, the game’s
up wi’ you, whatever it was.”
“What d’you mean, Zook?”
“Well, I just mean that it’s
o’ no manner o’ use your tryin’ to
sail any longer under false colours in this here establishment.”
“I must still ask you to explain
yourself,” said Charlie, with a puzzled look.
“Well, you know,” continued
the little man, with a deprecatory glance, “w’en
a man in ragged clo’se orders people here about
as if ’e was the commander-in-chief o’
the British Army, an’ flings yellow boys about
as if ‘e was chancellor o’ the checkers,
an orders sassengers offhand for all ’ands,
’e may be a gentleman wery
likely ’e is, but ’e ain’t
a redooced one, such as slopes into lodgin’-’ouse
kitchens. W’atever little game may ’ave
brought you ‘ere, sir, it ain’t poverty an’
nobody will be fool enough in this ’ouse
to believe it is.”
“You are right, Zook.
I’m sorry I forgot myself,” returned Charlie,
with a sigh. “After all, it does not matter
much, for I fear my little game as you
call it was nearly played out, and it does
not seem as if I were going to win.”
Charlie clasped his hands on the table
before him, and looked at the newspaper somewhat disconsolately.
“It’s bin all along o’
takin’ up my cause,” said the little man,
with something like a whimper in his voice.
“You’ve bin wery kind to me, sir, an’
I’d give a lot, if I ‘ad it, an’
would go a long way if I wasn’t lame, to ’elp
you.”
Charlie looked steadily in the honest,
pale, careworn face of his companion for a few seconds
without speaking. Poverty, it is said, brings
together strange bed-fellows. Not less, perhaps,
does it lead to unlikely confidants. Under a
sudden impulse our hero revealed to poor Zook the
cause of his being there concealing nothing
except names.
“You’ll ’scuse me,
sir,” said the little man, after the narrative
was finished, “but I think you’ve gone
on summat of a wild-goose chase, for your man may
never have come so low as to seek shelter in sitch
places.”
“Possibly, Zook; but he was
penniless, and this, or the work-house, seemed to
me the natural place to look for him in.”
“’Ave you bin to the work-’ouses,
sir?”
“Yes at least to all in this neighbourhood.”
“What! in that toggery?” asked the little
man, with a grin.
“Not exactly, Zook, I can change my shell like
the hermit crabs.”
“Well, sir, it’s my opinion
that you may go on till doomsday on this scent an’
find nuthin’; but there’s a old ’ooman
as I knows on that might be able to ’elp you.
Mind I don’t say she could, but she might.
Moreover, if she can she will.”
“How?” asked Charlie,
somewhat amused by the earnestness of his little friend.
“Why, this way. She’s
a good old soul who lost ’er ‘usband an’
’er son if I ain’t mistaken through
drink, an’ ever since, she ’as devoted
‘erself body an’ soul to save men an’
women from drink. She attends temperance meetin’s
an’ takes people there a’most
drags ’em in by the scruff o’ the neck.
She keeps ‘er eyes open, like a weasel, an’
w’enever she sees a chance o’ what she
calls pluckin’ a brand out o’ the fire,
she plucks it, without much regard to burnin’
’er fingers. Sometimes she gits one an’
another to submit to her treatment, an’ then
she locks ’em up in ’er ‘ouse though
it ain’t a big un an’ treats
’em, as she calls it. She’s got
one there now, it’s my belief, though w’ether
it’s a he or a she I can’t tell.
Now, she may ’ave seen your friend goin’
about if ’e stayed long in Whitechapel.”
“It may be so,” returned
our hero wearily, for he was beginning to lose heart,
and the prospect opened up to him by Zook did not on
the first blush of it seem very brilliant. “When
could I see this old woman?”
“First thing to-morror arter breakfast, sir.”
“Very well; then you’ll come and breakfast
with me at eight?”
“I will, sir, with all the pleasure
in life. In this ’ere ’ouse, sir,
or in a resterang?”
“Neither. In my lodgings, Zook.”
Having given his address to the little
man, Charlie bade him good-night and retired to his
pauper-bed for the last time.