When I awoke, the summer dawn was stealing faintly through the
barricaded windows. Oh! how I longed for one draught of air, even as
London imports it! My head was burning and my eyes distended from the
tainted stuff around me, and my hands, and arms, and even shoulders were
stiff from over exertion. Languidly regarding the brick I had worked so
hard for, and commiserating much the plight of my tender hands, I felt
inclined to give it up, till I thought of all at stake. My poor Uncle in
deadly peril through my desperate folly; Conrad too, as that murderer
implied, in a critical position. My own life also--it might be a week
before the monster returned; and I felt sure that I could not live more
than three days in that corruption. The oppression was so horrible,
especially when I stood up, that I resolved at all hazards to break one
of the windows. I had tried to do so the night before, but they were
beyond my reach, and I had no stick, for I durst not touch the poles
that propped the unlucky porpoise. Now, I had a good missile, and after
two or three vain attempts from the closeness of the bars, I hurled the
brick-bat through the glass; and, as it raised the sacks a little, I
obtained more light, as well as a breath of air. The taint upon the
glass, the reek of the deadly gases, even cleared away for a short
distance round the fracture.
Cora was fast asleep no doubt, and the crash of the glass did not
disturb her; so I fell to again, and worked very hard till breakfast
time. If I could only get out by noon, in time for the two o'clock
train! When I expected my jailor, I hid away under the porpoise the
seven bricks I had removed since daylight--for I could work much faster
as the aperture increased--and then I fastened my blanket over the hole.
After drinking the milk with some relish--eat I could not in that
pestilential den--I returned to my labour, and prepared to attack the
second course in the thickness of the wall. By this time I had
contrived, with the help of a brick, to extract the hold-fast from the
bench, which I could not do the night before; and very useful I found
it, both as a hammer and lever. So with rising hopes, I resumed.
Oh, cruel disappointment! The second course was bedded in cement harder
than the bricks themselves. Most likely they had formed the outside of
the wall, until Lepardo added the nine-inch lining of headers. I was
utterly dismayed; and now my beloved knife, which had stood like a
hero-martyr all its grinding indignities, broke off short at the haft,
and left me helpless and hopeless. And I was getting on so well, and so
proud of all I had done. There was nothing for it but a storm of
crying. It served me right for ill-treating my dear father's knife so
shockingly.
I cried for at least a quarter of an hour, before it occurred to me what
a great baby I was. Then, with the tears in my swollen eyes, and sobs
that made my net-pressed bosom sore, I began to grope and peer again
along the sides of my prison. There was more light now than had
hitherto entered, since Cora dropped the curtain. This was partly owing
to the position of the sun, and partly to the interposition of the
brick. Just opposite that window, on a shelf where lay an old Penguin
looking very bilious, I spied the corner of a little box, half covered
with tow and moth-eaten feathers. Snatching it eagerly, I found it to
be a match-box. But alas, how light! With trembling fingers I pulled
it open, for it was one of those that slide. There were three, and only
three, fine stout lucifer matches, with the precious blue still on them.
But even if they should prove dry enough to kindle, what good would they
be to me?
"All the good in the world," said hope, looking towards the door, "if
you had shown sense enough, Clara, to fall to at that door, before your
knife was broken, you might have cut through it by this time. Now you
can't, that is certain; but why shouldn't you burn it down?"
At any rate, I would try; that is, if my matches would only strike fire.
I had felt last night a piece of candle on the floor near the crocodile.
This I soon laid hands upon; and now for operations. No fear of old
Cora smelling the smoke, for she spent all the forenoon, as I knew well,
in a little chapel she had established quite at the top of the house;
and this being the festival of St. Bottle-imp, she would be twice as
devout as usual. As for suffocating myself, that I must take the chance
of. Much better to die of curling wood smoke than of these crawling
odours.
To give the wood, which was hard and solid, every inclination to burn, I
channeled it first in a fan from the bottom with my little pen-blade.
Then I cut off the lower half of my precious candle, and smeared the
tallow in the shallow grooves I had made. This being done, I broke,
with as little noise as possible, some other panes of glass, to admit
the air to my fire, procured all the wool and tow that I could reach,
and a pile of paper, and steeped them, though it sickened me to do it,
in the rank oil from some of the specimens.
All this being ready at hand, I prepared, with a beating heart, to try
the matches, on which the whole depended. I had taken the precaution of
slipping them just inside my frock, hoping that the warmth of my body
might serve to dry them a little. The first, as I rubbed it on the
sandpaper, flashed for a moment, but did not kindle; the second just
kindled with a sputter, but did not ignite its stick: the third--I was
so nervous that I durst not attempt it then; but trembled as I looked at
it. I would not even breathe for fear of damping the phosphorus.
Perhaps three lives depended on the behaviour of that match. In
desperation at last I struck boldly! a broad blue flame leaped upon the
air, and in a moment my candle was lighted. In the hollow of my hand I
carried it round the room, to search for anything likely to be of
service to me. Oh! grand discovery--behind a great tabby cat, I found a
bottle containing nearly a pint of naphtha, used, I suppose, for
singeing some of the hair off. Now I need not fear, but what I could
burn the door down; the only thing to fear was that I should burn myself
as well, used the naphtha very cautiously, keeping most of it as a last
resource.
Then commending the result to God, I set my candle carefully at the foot
of the door, just below the spot where all my little grooves converged.
At once the flame ran up them, the naphtha kindling angrily with a
spatter and a hiss. The blue light showed in livid ghastliness all the
horrors of the chamber. The naphtha was burnt in a moment, it seemed to
go off like gunpowder; from a prudent distance I threw more upon it, and
soon I had the delight of seeing a steady flame established. The lumps
of tallow were burning now, and the wood began to smoulder. Several
times I thought that I must be choked by the smoke, till it went in a
cloud to the windows, and streamed away under the sacks.
As the fire grew and grew, and required no more feeding, I lay on my
face, to get all the air possible, at the further end of the room, where
my loose mortar was scattered. I could feel my heart thumping heavily
on the pavement, and my breath was shorter and shorter, as much from
fear as from smoke. If once I became insensible, or even if I retained
my senses but failed to extinguish the fire, nothing more would ever be
known or heard of Clara Vaughan; there would be nothing even to hold an
inquest upon. I must burn ignobly, in the fat of that dreadful
porpoise, and with the crocodile, and all those grinning beasts, so
awful in the firelight, making faces at me! Surely it must be time,
high time to put it out; that is to say if I could. Once let the flame
gather head on the other side of the door, and with my scanty means I
never could hope to quench it.
At last, I became so frightened, that I hardly let it burn long enough.
It was flaring beautifully, and licking deeper and deeper (with ductile
wreathing tongues and jets like a pushing crocus), the channels prepared
to tempt it; and now the black wood was reddened, and a strong heat was
given out, and the blazes began to roar; when I cast on the centre
suddenly my doubled blanket, and propped it there with the pillow.
After a few vain efforts, the flames, deprived of air, expired in gray
smoke; then I removed the scorched blanket, and let the smouldering
proceed.
The charring went on nicely for perhaps a quarter of an hour, and the
smell made me think of bonfires and roast potatoes; and I gouged away
with the claw of the holdfast, until I saw that, by a vigorous onset, a
large piece might be detached; so I stepped back and ran at it with a
mighty kick, and with a shower of dust and sparks, a great triangle flew
out before my "military heel."
At the risk of setting myself on fire, though gathered in the smallest
possible compass for a girl rather full in the chest, I squeezed through
the hole in the door, and met face to face old Cora.
She could not speak, but fell back upon the steps, and rolled in fits of
terror. I thought her black eyes would have leaped from their sockets;
they came out like hat-pegs japanned. Pressed as I was for time, I
could not leave her so. I ran up to the pump-trough for water, and put
out the fire first, and then poor Cora's hysterics.
I cannot repeat her exclamations, to our ears they are so impious; but
the mildest of them were these, as rendered weakly into English.
"Holy Madonna, most sacred mother, take back your blessed heart. Take
it back, for the sake of the God that loved you, take it back, and
trample on the wicked stomach of her who dared to steal it. You have
come through the fires of hell to fetch it, mother of the beloved one,
lo I hold it out to you."
I gladly received my poor gordit, and left the old lady, as there was
now no danger, to recover her wits at leisure; for I had not a moment to
spare.
As I entered Mrs. Shelfer's door, the church clock at the top of the
Square was striking twelve. By the two o'clock train I must go, or I
might as well have stopped in my dungeon. Though the smoke had purified
me a little, I still felt conscious of a nasty clinging smell; but it
would have surprised me, if there had been time, when the little woman
cried,
"Lor bless my soul, Miss Vaughan, where ever have you been? Why, Mr.
Chumps the butcher--"
"The bath in one moment, and all the water in the house. And as I throw
my things out, burn them in the garden."
In twenty minutes I was reclad from head to foot, and as sweet as any
girl in Gloucestershire; my eyes were bright with energy, and my
dripping hair in billows, like a rapid under the pine-trees. I had no
time to tell Mrs. Shelfer, who was off her legs with excitement, one
word of what had happened, or what I was going to do; but flung on
myself another hat and cloak, then her old bonnet and little green shawl
on her, dragged her out of the house, and locked the door behind us; for
Mrs. Fletcher, after waiting and wondering long about me, was gone to
consult Ann Maples. If Mrs. Shelfer's best bonnet was twenty-two years
old, her second-best must have been forty-four; at any rate it appeared
coeval with herself.
Patty trotted along at my side, wondering what would come next. Her
thin little lips were working, and her face was like a kaleidoscope of
expressions; but whenever I glanced toward her, she cast her eyes up,
with a scared weird look, as if she was watching a ghost through a
skylight, and trudged still faster, and muttered, "Yes, yes, Miss
Vaughan. Quite right, my good friend; not a moment to lose."
"And pray, Mrs. Shelfer, where do you suppose we are going?"
"Oh, I knows well enough "--with her eyes like corks drawn by
distance--"I knowed it all the time. Yes, yes. Let me alone for that.
Patty Shelfer wasn't born yesterday. Why only Tuesday was a week--"
"If you guess right, I will tell you."
"Why going to Charley, Miss Vaughan, to be sure. Going for Charley's
opinion. And very wise of you too; and what a most every one does;
particular when he have money. But how you knowed he were there--"
"Where?"
"At the great wrestling match to be sure. And he wanted to take me; a
thing he ain't offered to do fifteen year next oyster-day. No, no, says
I, with Miss Vaughan away, and most likely among them resurrectioners--"
Here she cast at me a glance, like a flash of lightning, to see if the
hit had told. In a moment I understood all that I had not cared to ask
about; why she trembled and shrunk from my hand, why she feared to look
at me, and fixed her eyes away so. She believed that I had been burked,
and that what she saw walking beside was my spirit come to claim burial.
I could not stop to disprove it, any more than I could stop to laugh.
"And his grandfather were a sexton, Miss; and our Charley himself a
first-rate hand at the spade."
"Mrs. Shelfer, we are close to the place. Now, listen to what I say.
It is not your husband I want, but Farmer Huxtable, whom you saw at the
door. Nothing but a question of life and death would bring me among
this rabble. No doubt there are many respectable men, but it is no
place for a lady. The farmer himself knows that, and has never dared to
ask me; though his wife and daughter, in ignorance, have. It is
half-past twelve exactly; in a quarter of an hour at the utmost, I must
speak to, and what is more, carry off the Devonshire competitor. Your
husband is here, and on the Committee, you told me. I expect you to
manage it. Go in at once and find him. Stop, here is plenty of money."
In her supreme astonishment, she even dared to look at me. But she
feared to take the money, although her eyes glistened at it, for I
offered more gold than silver.
"Come back to me at once; I shall not move from here. Mind, if the
farmer loses the match through me, I will pay all, and give the money
for another."
For once the little woman obeyed me, without discussion. She pushed
through a canvass door into the vast marquee, or whatever it ought to be
called, and was admitted readily on giving her husband's name. I hung
back, but with a sense of the urgency of my case, which turned my shame
into pride. Many eyes were on me already of loungers and outsiders. In
two or three minutes poor Patty came back, bringing Mr. Shelfer himself,
who ever since his ducking had shown me the rose and pink of respect.
He even went the length now of removing his pipe from his mouth.
"Very sorry indeed, Miss Vaughan, very sorry, you know. But we darrn't
interrupt the men now. Our lives wouldn't be worth it, and they'd kill
both the umpires and the referee too you know. Why it's fall for fall,
only think of that, Miss Vaughan, it's fall for fall!" And the
perspiration stood upon his forehead, and he wanted to run back.
"What do you mean?" In spite of my hurry, I felt deeply interested.
How could I help it, loving the farmer so?
"Why, the Great Northern won the first throw by a bit of foul play, a
foul stroke altogether, and no back at all, say I, and my eyes is pretty
good; however, the umpires give it, and you should see John Huxtable's
face, the colour of a scythe-stone; he knew it was unfair you know. And
you should see him go in again for the second fall. 'I could ha dooed
it,' I hear him say, 'I could ha dooed it aisy, only I wudn't try
Abraham, and I wun't nother if can help it now.' None of us knows what
he mean, but in he go again, Miss, and three times he throw Sam
Richardson clean over his shoulder, and one as fair a back as ever was
in sawdust. But the umpires wouldn't give it, till just now he turn him
over straight for'ard, just the same as a sod in a spade, and they
couldn't get out of that. And now they be just in for the finishing
bout, and if you want him, your only way is to come. May be, he'll try
Abraham, when he see you. Ah they've catched."
A shout inside proclaimed some crisis; Mr. Shelfer, in his excitement,
actually pulled me in without knowing it. Once there, I could not go
back; and the scene was a grand and thrilling one.
In the centre of a roped arena, hedged by countless faces, all rigid,
flushed, and straining with suspense, stood two mighty forms; the
strongest men in England and perhaps in all the world. A loose sack, or
jerkin, of the toughest canvass, thrown back clear of the throat,
half-sleeved, and open in front, showed the bole of the pollard neck,
the solid brawn of the chest, and the cords of the outstretched arm.
Stout fustian breeches, belted at waist, and strapped at knee, cased
their vast limbs so exactly, yet so easily, that every curve was thew,
and every wrinkle sinew. Thin white stockings, flaked with sawdust and
looking rather wet, rolled and stood out, like the loops of a mace, with
the rampant muscles of the huge calf, and the bulge of the broad
foreleg.
As the shout proclaimed, they had caught or clutched; a thing which is
done with much fencing and feinting, each foining to get the best grasp.
Where I went, or what happened to me, I never noticed at all, so
absorbed at once I became in this rare and noble probation of glorious
strength, trained skill, and emulous manhood.
Round and round the ring they went, as in musical measure, holding each
other at arms' length, pacing warily and in distance, skilfully poised
to throw the weight for either attack or defence. Each with his left
hand clutched the jerkin of the other, between the neck and shoulder,
each kept his right arm lightly bent, and the palm like a butterfly
quivering. Neither dared to move his eyes from the pupils of the other;
for though they were not built alike, each knew the strength of his
fellow. The Northern Champion was at least three inches taller than the
Son of Devon, quite as broad in the shoulders and large of limb, but not
so thick-set and close-jointed, not quite so stanch in the loins and
quarters. But he was longer in the reach, and made the most of that
advantage. On his breast he bore the mark of a hug as hard as a bear's;
and his face, though a fine and manly one, looked rather savage and
spiteful.
The farmer was smiling pleasantly, an honest but anxious smile. For the
first time he had met with a man of almost his own power; and on a turn
of the heel depended at least four hundred pounds, and what was more
than four million to him, the fame of the county that nursed him. Above
them hung the champion's belt, not of the west or north, but of England
and of the world.
Suddenly, ere I could see how they did it, they had closed in the
crowning struggle. Breast to breast, and thigh to thigh, they tugged,
and strained, and panted. Nothing though I knew of the matter, I saw
that the North-man had won the best hold, and as his huge arms enwrapped
my friend, a tremble went through my own frame. The men of the North
and their backers saw it, and a loud hurrah pealed forth; deep silence
ensued, and every eye was intent. Though giant arms were round him and
Titan legs inlocked, never a foot he budged. John Huxtable stood like a
buttress. He tried not to throw the other; placed as he was, he durst
not; but he made up his mind to stand, and stand he did with a
vengeance. In vain the giant jerked and twisted, levered, heaved, and
laboured, till his very eyeballs strained; all the result was ropes and
bunches in the wide-spread Devonshire calves, and a tightening of the
clench that threatened to crush the Northern ribs. As well might a
coiling snake expect to uproot an oak.
As this exertion of grand stability lasted and outlasted, shouts arose
and rang alike from friend and foe, from north, and west, and east; even
I could not help clapping my feeble hands. But the trial was nearly
over. The assailant's strength was ebbing; I could hear him gasp for
breath under the fearful pressure. By great address he had won that
hold, and made sure of victory from it, it had never failed before; but
to use a Devonshire word, the farmer was too "stuggy." Now, the latter
watched his time, and his motive power waxed as the other's waned. At
length he lifted him bodily off his legs, and cast him flat on his back.
A flat and perfectly level cast, as ever pancake crackled at. Thunders
of applause broke forth, and scarcely could I keep quiet.
With amazement the farmer espied me as he was bowing on all sides, and
amid the tumult and uproar that shook the canvass like a lark's wing, he
ran across the ring full speed. Then he stopped short, remembering his
laboured and unpresentable plight, and he would have blushed, if he had
not been as red as fire already. None of such nonsense for me. I called
him by name, took his hand, and with all my heart congratulated.
"But, farmer, I want you immediately, on a matter of life and death."
Beany Dawe and the children came, but I only stopped to kiss Sally, and
motioned them all away. "If you remember your promise to me, get ready
for a journey in a moment, and run all the way to my lodgings. We must
leave London, at two o'clock, to save my Uncle's life."
Mr. Huxtable looked astounded, and his understanding, unlike his legs,
for the moment was carried away. Meanwhile up came Sally again, caught
hold of my hand, and silently implored for some little notice, if only
of her costume, violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. I
could only kiss her again.
"Oh do come, farmer Huxtable, do come at once, I entreat you; or I must
go alone and helpless."
"That you shan't, my dearie, dang Jan Uxtable for a girt lout."
"Please, sir, I am sent to tell you that the umpires gives it no fall,
and you must play again."
The man looked abased by his errand; even he knew better. In my hurry I
had paid no attention to the ominous hissing and hooting around a knot
of men on the benches at the end.
The farmer's face I shall never forget; as he slowly gathered the truth,
it became majestic with honest indignation. A strong man's wrath at
deceit and foul play sat upon it, like a king on his throne.
"For the chillers--" he stammered at last--"ony for the poor chiller's
sake--else I'd never stand it, danged if I wud, Miss Clara; it make a
man feel like a rogue and a cheat himself."
Then, with all the power of his mighty voice he shouted, so that every
fold of the canvass shook, and every heart thrilled fearfully:
"Men of Lunnon, if men you be, no chap can have fair play with you. It
be all along of your swindling bets about things you don't know nothing
of. You offered me five hunder pound, afore ever here I come, to sell
my back to the Northman. A good honest man he be, and the best
cross-buttock as ever I met with; but a set of rogues and cowards that's
what you be; and no sport can live with you. As for your danged belt, I
wun't have it, no tino, it wud be a disgrace to the family; it shan't
never go along side the Devonshire and Cornwall leather. But I'll throw
your man over again, and any six of you to once as plases."
Then, thorough gentleman as he was, he apologized to me for his honest
anger, and for having drawn all eyes upon me, as there I stood at his
side.
"But never fear about the time, Miss Clara, I won't kape you two
minutes. I'll give him Abraham's staylace this time. They have a drove
me to it, as us hasn't a moment to spare."
Proudly he stepped into the ring again, and again the North Country
giant, looking rather ashamed, confronted him. No fencing or feinting
this time; but the Devonshire wrestler, appealing thus to the public,
"Now look here, Lunnoners, wull e, and zee if this here be a back,"
rushed straight at his antagonist, grappled him in some peculiar manner,
seemed to get round his back, and then spun him up over his own left
shoulder, in such a way that he twirled in the air and came down dead on
his spine. Dead indeed he appeared to be, and a dozen surgeons came
forward, in the midst of a horrible silence, and some were preparing to
bleed him, when the farmer moved them aside; he knew that the poor man
was only stunned by concussion of the spine. Awhile he knelt over him
sadly, with the tears in his own brave eyes:
"I wudn't have doed it, lad; indade and indade I wudn't, ony they forced
me to it; and you didn't say nought agin them. It be all fair enough,
but it do hoort so tarble. That there trick was invented by a better
man nor I be, and it be karled 'Abraham Cann's staylace.' I'll show e
how to do it, if ever us mates again. Now tak the belt, man, tak it--"
he leaped up, and tore it down, with very little respect, "I resigns it
over to you; zimth they arl wants you to have it and you be a better man
nor deserves it. And I'll never wrastle no more; Jan Uxtable's time be
over. Give us your hond, old chap. We two never mate again, unless you
comes down our wai, and us han't got a man to bate e, now I be off the
play. There be dacent zider and bakkon to Tossil's Barton Farm. Give us
your hond like a man, there be no ill will atween us, for this here
little skumdoover." Perhaps he meant skirmish and manoeuvre, all in
one. Sam Richardson, slowly recovering, put out his great hand, all
white and clammy, and John Huxtable took it tenderly, amid such
uproarious cheering, that I expected the tent on our heads. Even
Shelfer's sharp eyes had a drop of moisture in them. As for Beany Dawe,
he flung to the winds all dithyrambic gravity, and chanted and danced
incoherently, Cassandra and Chorus in one; while Sally Huxtable blotted
all her rainbow in heavy drops.
Hundreds of pipes were smashed, even the Stoic Shelfer's, in the rush to
get at the farmer; but he parted the crowd right and left, as I might
part willow-sprays, and came at once to me. Whether by his aid, or by
the sympathies of the multitude, I am sure I cannot tell, but I found
myself in a cab, with Sally at my side, and Mrs. Shelfer on the box, and
the farmer's face at the window.
"Twenty minutes, Miss, I'll be there, raddy to go where you plases. It
bain't quite one o'clock yet. I must put myself dacent like, avore I
can go with you, Miss; and git the money for the sake of them poor
chiller, if so be they Lunnoners be honest enough to pai. Jan Uxtable
never come to Lunnon town no more."
With thousands of people hurraing, we set off full gallop for Albert
Street.