"Of course not," I cried, feeling very miserable; "of course I'm an ass,
but I'd sooner be back at Stonebridge House than here."
"By the way," said Smith, suddenly, "talking of Stonebridge House, who
did you think I ran against to-day at dinner-time?"
"Who, old Henniker?" I inquired.
"Rather not. If I had, I think I should have been game for running away
along with you. No, it was Flanagan."
"Was it? I should like to have seen him. What's he doing?"
"Not much, I fancy. He says his brother's a solicitor, and he's come up
to loaf about in his office and pick up a little law."
"Oh, I like that," I cried, laughing. "Think of old Flanagan a lawyer.
But didn't he say where he was living?"
"Yes, Cabbage Street, in Hackney. I forget the number. I say, Fred,
suppose we take a stroll this evening and try to find him out. It'll do
you good, a walk."
I gladly consented. We gave Mrs Nash due notice that we should not be
home to supper, and might possibly be out after ten, and then sallied
forth. Hackney was a good four miles from Beadle Square, and by the
time we had discovered Cabbage Street it was almost time to be
returning. But having come so far we were resolved we would at least
make an effort to find out our old schoolfellow. But the fates were
against us. Cabbage Street was a new street of small houses, about a
third of a mile long. Even if we had known the number it would have
taken some time to discover the house; but without that information it
was simply impossible. We did try. Jack took the left of the street
and began knocking at the odd numbers, starting from 229; while I
attacked the even numbers on the right side. But as far as we went no
one knew of a Flanagan, and we had to give it up.
It was half-past nine when we finally abandoned the search and turned
our faces Citywards once more.
"Horrid sell," said Jack. "We shall have to find out where his
brother's office is from the Directory, and get at him that way."
We walked back hard. Mrs Nash's temper was never to be relied on, and
it was ten to one she might lock us out for the night.
Luckily Jack was up to all the short cuts, and he piloted me through
more than one queer-looking slum on the way.
At last we were getting near our journey's end, and the prospect of a
"lock-out" from our lodgings was looming unpleasantly near, when Jack
took me by the arm and turned up a dark narrow passage.
"I'm nearly certain it's got a way out at the other end," he said, "and
if so it will take us right close to the square."
I followed him, trusting he was right, and inwardly marvelling at his
knowledge of the ins and outs of the great city.
But what a fearful "skeery"-looking hole that passage was!
There were wretched tumbledown houses on either side, so wretched and
tumbledown that it seemed impossible any one could live in them. But
the houses were nothing to the people. The court was simply swarming
with people. Drunken and swearing men; drunken and swearing women;
half-naked children who swore too. It was through such a company that
we had to thread our way down my friend Smith's "short cut." As we went
on it became worse, and what was most serious was that everybody seemed
to come out to their doors to stare at us. Supposing there were no way
through, and we had to turn back, it would be no joke, thought I, to
face all these disreputable-looking loungers who already were making
themselves offensive as we passed, by words and gesture.
I could tell by the way Smith strode on that he felt no more comfortable
than I did.
"You're sure there's a way through?" I said.
"Almost sure," he answered.
At the same moment a stone struck me on the cheek. It was not a hard
blow, and the blood which mounted to my face was quite as much brought
there by anger as by pain.
"Come on!" said Smith, who had seen what happened.
Coming on meant threading our way through a knot of young roughs, who
evidently considered our appearance in the court an intrusion and were
disposed to resent it. One of them put out his foot as Smith came up
with a view to trip him, but Jack saw the manoeuvre in time and walked
round. Another hustled me as I brushed past and sent me knocking up
against Jack, who, if he hadn't stood steady, would have knocked up
against some one else, and so pretty certainly have provoked an assault.
How we ever got past these fellows I can't imagine; but we did, and for
a yard or two ahead the passage was clear.
"Shall we make a rush for it?" I asked of Jack.
"Better not," said he. "If there is a way through, we must be nearly
out now."
He spoke so doubtfully that my heart sunk quite as much as if he had
said there was no way through and we must turn back.
However, what lay immediately before us was obscured by a suddenly
collected crowd of inhabitants, shouting and yelling with more than
ordinary clamour. This time the centre of attraction was not ourselves,
but a drunken woman, who had got a little ragged boy by the collar, and
was beating him savagely on the head with her by no means puny fist.
"There!--take that, you young--! I'll do for you this time!"
And without doubt it looked as if we were to witness the accomplishment
of the threat. The little fellow, unable even to howl, reeled and
staggered under her brutal blows. His pale, squalid face was covered
with blood, and his little form crouching in her grip was convulsed with
terror and exhaustion. It was a sickening spectacle.
The crowd pressed round, and yelled and laughed and hooted. The woman,
savage enough as she was, seemed to derive fresh vehemence from the
cries around her, and redoubled her cruel blows.
One half-smothered moan escaped the little boy's lips as she swung him
off his feet, and flung him down on the pavement.
Then Jack and I could stand it no longer.
"Let the child alone!" cried Jack, at the top of his voice.
I shall never forget the sudden weird hush which followed that
unexpected sound. The woman released her grasp of her victim as if she
had been shot, and the crowd, with a shout on their lips, stopped short
in amazement.
"Quick, Fred!" cried Jack, flying past me.
He dashed straight to where the little boy lay, swept him up in his
arms, and then, with me close at his heels, was rushing straight for the
outlet of the court, which, thank Heaven! was there, close at hand.
Next moment we were standing in the street which led to Beadle Square.
It all took less time to accomplish than it takes to write, and once out
of that awful court we could hardly tell whether we were awake or
dreaming.
The boy, however, in Jack's arms settled that question.
"Come on, quick!" said Smith, starting to run again. "They'll be out
after us."
We hurried on until we were in Beadle Square.
"What's to be done?" I asked.
"We must take him in with us," said Jack. "Look at the state he's in."
I did look. The little fellow, who seemed about eight years old, was
either stunned by his last blow or had fainted. His face, save where
the blood trickled down, was deadly pale, and as his head with its shock
of black hair lay back on Jack's arm, it seemed as if he could not look
in worse plight were he dead.
"We must take him with us," said Jack.
"What will Mrs Nash say?" was my inward ejaculation, as we reached the
door.
All the lights were out. We knocked twice, and no one came. Here was a
plight! Locked out at this hour of night, with a half-dead child in our
charge!
"Knock again," said Jack.
I _did_ knock again, a wonderful knock, that must have startled the cats
for a mile round, and this time it called up the spirit we wished for.
There was a flicker of a candle through the keyhole, and a slipshod
footstep in the hall, which gave us great satisfaction. Mrs Nash
opened the door.
At the sight of our burden, the abuse with which she was about to favour
us faded from her lips as she gazed at us in utter amazement.
"Why, what's all this? eh, you two? What's this?" she demanded.
"I'll tell you," said Jack, entering with his burden; "but I say, Mrs
Nash, can't you do something for him? Look at him!"
Mrs Nash was a woman, and whatever her private opinion on the matter
generally may have been; she could not resist this appeal. She took the
little fellow out of Jack's arms, and carried him away to her own
kitchen, where, after sponging his bruised face and forehead, and giving
him a drop of something in a teaspoon, and brushing back his matted hair
and loosing his ragged jacket at the neck, she succeeded in restoring
him to his senses. It was with a thrill of relief that we saw his eyes
open and a shade of colour come into his grimy cheeks.
"What have you been doing to him?" said Mrs Nash.
"He was being knocked about," said Jack, modestly, "and Batchelor and I
got him away."
"And what are you going to do with him?" inquired Mrs Nash, who, now
that her feminine offices were at an end, was fast regaining her old
crabbedness.
"He'd better go to bed," said Smith. "I'll have him in my bed."
"No, you won't!" said Mrs Nash, decisively.
"We can't turn him out at this time of night," said I.
"Can't help that. He don't sleep here, the dirty little wretch."
"He'll be murdered if he goes back," said Jack.
"That's no reason I should have my house made not fit to live in," said
Mrs Nash.
"He won't do any harm, I'll see to that," said Smith, rising and taking
the boy up in his arms.
"I tell you I ain't going to allow it," said Mrs Nash.
But Jack without another word carried off his burden, and we heard his
footsteps go slowly up the stairs to the bedroom. I stayed for some
little time endeavouring to appease Mrs Nash, but without much effect.
She abandoned her first idea of rushing out and defending the
cleanliness of her house by force of arms, but in place of that relieved
herself in very strong language on the subject of Jack Smith generally,
and of me in aiding and abetting him, and ended by announcing that she
gave us both warning, and we might look-out for somebody else to stand
our impudence (she called it "imperence"), for _she_ wouldn't.
When I went up stairs Jack and his small _protege_ were in bed and
asleep. I was quite startled when I caught sight of their two heads
side by side on the pillow. It looked for all the world like a big Jack
and a little Jack.
"Wouldn't Jack be flattered if I told him so!" thought I.
I was not long in following their example. All night long I dreamt of
Flanagan and that dreadful court, and of those two heads lying there
side by side in the next bed.
When I awoke in the morning it was very early and not yet light. I soon
discovered that what had aroused me was a conversation going on in the
next bed.
"Go on! you let me be!" I heard a shrill voice say.
"Hush! don't make a noise," said Jack. "I'll take you home in the
morning all right."
"I ain't done nothink to you," whined the boy.
"I know. No one's going to hurt you."
"You let me be, then; do you 'ear?" repeated the boy. "What did you
fetch me 'ere for?"
"You were nearly being killed last night," said Jack.
"You're a lie, I worn't," was the polite answer.
"Yes you were," said Jack. "A woman was nearly murdering you."
"That was my old gal--'tain't no concern of yourn."
Evidently there was little use expecting gratitude out of this queer
specimen of mortality; and Jack didn't try.
"You stay quiet and go to sleep, and I'll give you some breakfast in the
morning," he said to his graceless little bed-fellow.
"You ain't a-going to take me to the station, then?" demanded the
latter.
"No."
"Or the workus?"
"No."
"Or old shiny-togs?"
"Who?"
"Shiny-togs--you know--the bloke with the choker."
"I don't know who you mean."
"Go on!--you know 'im--'im as jaws in the church with 'is nightgown on."
"Oh, the clergyman," said Jack, hardly able to repress a smile. "No.
I'll take you back to your home."
"To my old gal?"
"Yes, to your mother."
"You ain't a 'avin' a lark with me, then?"
"No," said Jack, pitifully.
With this assurance the small boy was apparently satisfied, for he
pursued the conversation no longer, and shortly afterwards I fell off to
sleep again.
When next I woke it was broad daylight, and Jack Smith was standing by
my bed.
"Fred, I say, he's bolted!" he exclaimed, in an agitated voice, as I sat
up and rubbed my eyes.
"Who--the kid?" I asked.
"Yes."
"He's a nice amiable young specimen," replied I. "When did he go?"
"I don't know. When I woke up he was gone."
"Well, it's a good riddance," said I, who really did not see why Jack
should be so afflicted about such a graceless young ragamuffin. "Do you
know Mrs Nash has given us both warning over this business?"
"I don't care. But, I say, I wonder if he's hiding anywhere."
"Not he. He's safe away, depend upon it, and if Mrs Nash had had any
silver spoons they'd be safe away too."