Story 12.Fallen among Thieves.A Grandfather’s Yarn.Chapter One.“When I was a young fellow,” began my grandfather—There was a general silence and a settling of ourselves in our seats, as the wavering voice of the old man uttered these magical words.No one had asked him to tell a story, some of us had almost forgotten that he was sitting there in his big chair, one of the group which crowded round his own Christmas fire at Culverton Manor.He was an old, old man, was my grandfather. The proverbial “threescore years and ten” was an old story with him, and even the “fourscore” awarded to the strong was receding into the distance. Yet there he sat, in his old straight-back chair, hale and bright, as he looked round on us his descendants, sons and daughters grey-haired already, grandchildren, who some of them were staid heads of families themselves, and the little group of great-grandchildren, who knew as well as any one that when their father’s grandfather began to talk of “the days when he was young,” it was worth their while to hold their peace and prick up their ears.“When I was a young fellow,” began my grandfather, stroking his old grizzled moustache, “I was a cornet in the Buffs. It was in the year—heigho! my memory’s getting rusty!—it was in the year 1803, I believe, when every one was expecting the French over, and I was quartered with my regiment at Ogilby. Ogilby is an inland town, you know, thirty miles from here; and as there was not much immediate danger of Bonaparte dropping in upon us there without good warning, we had a lazy rollicking time of it in that bright little place.“We young officers, boys that we were, thought it a fine thing to live as grand gentlemen, and spend our pay half a dozen times over in all sorts of extravagances. And, I recollect with sorrow, I was as bad as any of them.“Our colonel was an easy-going old soldier, who had been a wild blade himself once, and held that it was little use looking too sharply after us, so he didn’t look after us at all; and we in consequence did just as we pleased.“Sometimes we invited all the gentry round to feast with us at mess, and pledged our pay months in advance to load the table with the most costly delicacies. At other times we would sally forth, and out of sheer mischief organise a riot in the town, and end the night with broken heads, and now and then in the lock-up. And when we were tired of this, we got up I know not what gaieties to pass the time.“As I said, I was as bad as any of them—worse perhaps. For I had had a good home and careful training, and knew all the time I was joining in the excesses of my comrades that I was a fool and a prodigal, and a traitor to my better self. And yet I went in, and might have gone on to the end of the chapter, had not an event happened to me which served to pull me up short.“One evening that winter our festivities culminated by a grand entertainment given by the officers of our mess to all the countryside. Compared with this, our former efforts in the same direction had been mere child’s play. We had hired the largest assembly room in the town, and decorated it regardless of all expense. The wine merchants and confectioners for miles round had been exhausted to furnish our supper, and the tailors and milliners driven nearly distracted over our toilets. Ogilby had never seen such a brilliant entertainment, and the officers of the Buffs had never achieved such a triumph.“I was among the last to leave the gay scene, and as I stepped out into the chill winter air, and called for my horse, the clock of the church was striking four. My man had to help me to my saddle, for, what with the sudden change of air, added to the excesses of the evening, I was not steady enough to do it myself. My man was the son of an old tenant of my father’s, and as he had known me from childhood, I was used to allowing him more familiarity than most gentlemen allow to their servants. I was, therefore, not surprised when, on reaching my quarters, after helping me to alight, he stopped a moment to speak to me before I entered the house.“‘By your leave, Master Hal,’ said he, saluting, ‘I thought you might like to know there is bad news from Culverton.’“‘How?’ I demanded, scarcely taking in what he said.“‘Bad news, begging your honour’s pardon. I had it in a letter from Phoebe, the dairymaid at the Vicarage, who your honour may know is my sweetheart, or rather I am hers; and by your—’“‘Sirrah, man, drop your sweetheart and come to your news! What is it?’“‘It is news of the squire, Master Hal!’ said the man, seriously.“‘My father!’ I exclaimed, suddenly sobered by the name.“‘He is ill, please your honour. He had a stroke a week ago, and Phoebe says his life is despaired of.’“‘Ill a week, and I never heard!’ I exclaimed. ‘Why did no one tell me?’“‘Your honour may remember you have not examined your letters for these three days past.’“It was true. In the whirl of excitement, with late nights and later mornings, and never-ending frivolity, my very letters had lain on my mantelshelf unopened!“My man turned to take my horse away to the stable. His action recalled me suddenly to myself.“‘Hold!’ I said; ‘leave the horse here, Tucker, and help me into the saddle again.’“Tucker gazed at me in astonishment, but did as he was bid.“‘I am going to Culverton,’ I said, shortly, taking up the reins.“‘To Culverton! At this hour, and in this weather!’ said Tucker, in tones of alarm. ‘Stay at any rate till you have had a night’s rest, for you need it, master, and till I can put up what you need for the journey.’“‘Let go my horse, man!’ I cried, excitedly, setting spurs to the animal and abruptly ending the honest fellow’s remonstrance.“The thought of my father lying ill, dying perhaps, and me here revelling in Ogilby, made it impossible for me to contemplate a moment’s delay, even so much as to change my gay attire or provide myself with necessaries for the journey. Culverton was thirty miles distant. I had a good horse, and with all my dissipation I was capable of a fair share of endurance. I therefore yielded to my impulse, and halting only to leave word with a comrade whom I met to explain my absence to the colonel, I dashed off into the night on my way to Culverton.“What were my thoughts during those first few hours I need hardly tell you. I hope and trust none of you will ever be tortured by the self-reproach of which I was then the victim.“For some distance out of Ogilby the roads were pretty good, and I made tolerable progress; so that when morning broke about seven I was at least a dozen miles on my journey. I could scarcely brook the delay of a few minutes at the first village to rest my horse and swallow a hurried breakfast; but I knew that for the rest of the way accommodation, either for man or beast, was very limited, and, therefore, prudence made the unwelcome delay a necessity.“Once more in the saddle I hoped to make up for lost time; but in this I was fated to be disappointed. For scarcely had I got beyond the village when the weather suddenly changed. The chill morning air freshened to a wind which brought snow with it, light at first, but increasing in heaviness as the day went on. The road rapidly became covered, and my horse, unable on the treacherous foothold to maintain the canter of the morning, was compelled to slacken into a trot.“I was in no gear for weather like this, as you may suppose. I still wore the light festive attire of the previous night, covered only with my military cape, which I now drew more closely around me at every step. How I wished I had taken Tucker’s prudent advice! But it was too late to help it now.“What troubled me most was not the cold, or the driving snow in my face, but the slow pace at which progress was now possible. I had hoped to reach Culverton by noon, but by noon I had accomplished scarcely two-thirds of the distance, and every moment the difficulties of the way were increasing. My horse trudged on gallantly. The trot had long since given place to a walk, and the walk in turn often became a sheer struggle for progress through the drifts and obstacles of the uncertain road.“As for me, I was nearly frozen in my saddle, and more than once was compelled to dismount and tramp along beside my horse in the deep snow in order to keep the blood going in my veins. And all the while the thought of my father lying there at Culverton, neglected perhaps, with no son at hand to tend him, drove me nearly frantic.“The afternoon dragged on, and towards dark the snow ceased to fall. That was at least some comfort, for to battle through that storm in the dark would have been an impossibility. As it was, my good horse was even now ready to drop, and I was in little better plight. If either of us failed it meant an entire night in the snow, and that would be little short of certain death. It was a dreary prospect.“However, as I say, the snow ceased to fall, and towards night the sky overhead began to clear, until presently the moon shone out and lit up the wintry scene. But for this light we might have lost our way hopelessly, for the road lay over a heath, which being all covered in snow, we had only the wayside posts to direct us and keep us on the beaten track.“It must have been near eight o’clock, sixteen hours since I had left the assembly at Ogilby, when I caught sight in the moonlight of a small cottage a little way removed from the road on our right. The sight of this, the first habitation we had passed for hours, was welcome indeed. I could scarcely stand with hunger, fatigue, and cold, and my brave horse was stumbling at every step. Our only chance of reaching Culverton that night was in seeking such rest and refreshment as this place might afford, and I therefore gladly turned aside and led my weary steed along the by-path that led up to it.“It was a small tumbledown cottage, or rather barn, and my fond hopes as to fire and refreshment were dashed at once. It was empty. The broken door stood ajar, the roof was nearly fallen in, and everything within and without testified that for weeks at any rate it had been deserted. Still it had walls and a roof, and so if we were not to have board we might at least for an hour or so help ourselves to lodgings.“I led my horse in, and after much groping about was delighted to discover in one corner of the hovel a sort of stall, which had evidently at one time or other been occupied by a cow. The ground was still strewn with a little old and very vile straw, which, however, was an unexpected luxury to us both, and a mere mouthful of stale hay remained in the trough. To these desirable quarters I conducted my faithful companion, who without ceremony devoured the hay, and then, too exhausted to stand, dropped into a recumbent posture, and lay stretched on his side on the straw. I quickly followed his example, creeping as close to his side as I could for the sake of the warmth, and thus we lay in the dark, resting as we had never rested before after our day’s work.“My own fear was lest I should fall asleep. In spite of my anxiety about my father, and my bitter reproaches against myself, I felt a stupor come over me which it was almost more than human nature to resist. Once or twice I dozed off for a moment, and then woke by an effort, each time more painful, until I was tempted at last to give in and resist no longer, whatever it cost.“I had just come to this resolve when I became suddenly aware of the sound of voices in the cottage. Whoever they belonged to, I felt sure they must have entered after me, for I had explored every corner of the place when I took possession. They had probably entered during one of my fits of drowsiness.”My first impulse was to discover myself to the new comers, and see if they could help me and my horse in our distress. But on second thoughts I decided to remain where I was until I could ascertain at least who the intruders were, and if they had any better right in the cottage than I had. I was wide awake now, and raising myself noiselessly from my horse’s side, I crawled to the side of the stall and peered over.“By the uncertain light of a small fire of sticks which they had made, I saw two men sitting on the floor regaling themselves with bread and meat and the contents of a bottle. The sight of these good things made me still more inclined to disclose my presence, but prudence again forbade; besides which there was something strange about the look of the men, and the place where they were, which excited my curiosity.“For a long time they continued their meal in silence. It went to my heart to see the victuals disappearing at such a rate, as you may suppose.“At length, when, for the present at any rate, their appetites seemed to be appeased, they began to talk once more.“‘You’re sure there’s no mistake this time?’ said one.“‘I have his own word for it,’ replied the other. ‘I tell you, Tom, he’s planned it all out like Bonaparte himself.’“‘All I can say is,’ said he who was called Tom, ‘I hope something will come of it, for I’m sick of all this doing nothing.’“‘You may be sure something will come of this,’ replied the other; ‘and it will be something worth the while too, unless I’m mistaken, for the old gentleman is very rich; see here,’ said he, producing some papers from his pocket, ‘this is what he says.’“He began to read a letter, and you may fancy how I, listening behind the partition, started as I heard it.“‘Jack,’ it said, ‘I’m watched and can’t come. You and Tom must do it without me. Be you know where by eight on Friday night, and I’ll send one I can trust to show you the way and help you through with it. You may rely on him, though he’s a queer dog. Here’s a map of the grounds of Culverton, but you won’t need it, for he I send knows the place well. The steward is on our side, and will leave the back door unlatched. The strong box stands in the study, the second door on the left after you pass the great clock. The old man lies ill, and only two maids are in the house besides. The young puppy is away at Ogilby. Bring what you get to the tower by the river on Saturday night. There are jewels in the desk in the old man’s room. He cannot hurt—if he tries he must be quieted—you know how.’“I was so horrified that for a moment or two I scarcely knew whether I was awake or dreaming. My poor father, not only ill, but in peril of robbery, and perhaps murder! And I, what could I do? My impulse was to spring from my retreat and make one desperate effort to overpower the villains. But I was too weak to do it. Besides I was unarmed, whereas they had each his pistol. What could I do?“The man who had read the letter carefully put it, along with the rough map of the Culverton grounds, into the fire, and the two sat and watched the papers as they burned.“‘He’s a good man of business,’ said Tom.“‘Middling,’ replied the other; ‘and if he—’“At that moment my horse gave a sudden start in his sleep. The quick ears of the two villains instantly caught the sound.“‘Hullo!’ said one in a whisper, ‘what was that?’“‘Hist!’ said the other, holding up his hand, ‘strike a light, Tom.’“While Tom obeyed I softly dropped on my hands and knees and crawled back to my old place beside the horse, where I lay motionless, and to all appearance in a profound sleep.“‘I’m sure I heard something,’ said Tom, holding up the lantern. From where they were they could see nothing but the side of the stall. They therefore crept round stealthily; and as I lay I saw the light suddenly turn on the horse.“‘A nag, as I’m a Dutchman, and saddled too!’ exclaimed Tom.“‘If that’s so, the rider’s not far off,’ said the other, grimly, taking the lantern and advancing.“It was all I could do to lie motionless, breathing heavily, as the light fell full on my face.“‘Ah! found him!’ was the exclamation, as both rushed towards me.“I heard the cocking of a pistol close beside me, and was conscious of a rude plucking at my arm.“‘Come, get up there! What do you do here? Get up, do you hear?’“I had one hope left, and it was a desperate one.“I roused myself slowly, and with many feints, from my mock slumber, and rubbed my eyes and yawned, and stared first at one, then the other.“‘Get up,’ again cried the men, still pulling my arm roughly, ‘and say what you’re doing here.’“‘Doing here?’ I drawled as unconcernedly as I could, stretching myself at the same time, ‘That’s a pretty question to ask me. What wereyoudoing not to be here at eight o’clock, I’d like to know?’“The men let go my arms, and looked at me in bewilderment.“‘Why,’ said one, ‘are you—’“‘There,’ said I, ‘we don’t mention names in our trade. You’ll learn that when you grow older, and you’ll learn to be punctual too,’ I added, testily.“The men looked half abashed.“‘We were here at eight,’ they said.“‘No, you were not. I was here at eight to the minute, and I had time to fall asleep, as you see, before you came. But never mind that. You know what business is on foot, I suppose?’“‘Yes, I had it all from—’“‘Hush! no names, you dolt; what did I tell you before?’“The men were perfectly sheepish now, and I began to breathe again. It was well I had been described in the letter as a ‘queer dog,’ for it is an easy part to act, even to save one’s own life. Besides, this would account sufficiently well for my unbusinesslike attire.“My great fear was lest the real person referred to in the letter should arrive on the scene before I had quitted it. I therefore ordered an immediate departure.“‘We’ve lost an hour already with your dilatoriness,’ I growled; ‘don’t let us lose any more. As it is, it is a chance if we reach Culverton before morning. Come, lead out my horse, and bring what food you have with you, for I’m starving.’“Before five minutes had passed we were safe out of the cottage and in the high-road—I, mounted on my faithful and partly refreshed horse, eating ravenously of the scraps of bread and meat my companions had left, while they trudged along in the snow one on either side.“In this manner we progressed for an hour or so in silence, until about one o’clock there appeared on the side of a distant hill a twinkling light. I knew it at once. It had guided me home often and often before now, and it was doing so again. But in what strange company!“‘That’s Culverton, on the hill there,’ said I.“The men, who were nearly dead beat with their tramp through the deep snow, said nothing, but plodded on doggedly. It was nearly an hour more before we reached the outskirts of the estate, and by this time so exhausted were they that when I cried a halt they fairly sat down in the snow.“I was strongly tempted to leave them there; but a desire to bring them to condign punishment prevented me. They were armed, and I was not. Besides, the reference in the letter to my father’s steward made me anxious to sift the matter to the bottom.“‘Come, come,’ said I, ‘at that rate you’ll never see the strong box. Get up, men!’“They struggled to their feet. Had they been anything but the villains they were I could have pitied them, they looked so miserable.“‘Hold my horse,’ said I, dismounting, ‘while I go and reconnoitre. I know every inch of the ground. Keep in the dark, whatever you do, under the hedge there. So. Are you loaded?’“‘I am,’ said Tom, sullenly taking out his pistol.“‘So am I,’ said the other.“‘Give me one of the pistols,’ I said, as coolly as I could. ‘You won’t want both here, and I may want one.’“Tom handed me his.“‘Now keep a look-out here, and when you hear me whistle over the wall, come sharp, mind!’“So saying, I left them, and went on towards the house.“Except in my father’s room no lights were burning, and I began to hope that what the letter had said about the steward might after all prove to be false. I went quietly up to the back door and turned the handle. It was open. The story was true, then, and in my rage and indignation I could hardly contain myself to act my part any longer. However, I made a desperate effort.“Holding the door slightly open I whistled softly. There was no answer. I whistled again louder. This time there was a sound of some one moving, and the faint nicker of a candle, and presently I heard a voice whisper—“‘Is it all right?’“‘All right,’ I whispered back. ‘And you, steward?’“‘Yes. All ready. Come in.’“I entered. My hat was over my eyes, and in the faint candle-light the false servant did not know me. I followed him to his room.“‘You’re late,’ he said, reaching down some keys from a nail. ‘Where are the rest?’“‘Outside,’ I replied in a low whisper.“But, low as it was, the voice was not disguised enough to escape the quick ear of the steward. He turned sharply round and looked at me, while I at the same moment, throwing off my cap, sprang towards him and presented my pistol.“He was too stunned and terrified to do anything but drop on his knees and utter incoherent entreaties and ejaculations for pity.“‘How is my father?’ I inquired, not heeding his entreaties, and pointing the pistol still at his head.“‘Better,’ he faltered—‘much better. Oh, Master—’“‘Come with me,’ I replied, turning to the door.“He accompanied me like a lamb. Had my father been worse I had intended to lock him up a prisoner in his own room. As it was, I took him silently and stealthily through the village and delivered him up then and there into the hands of the watch.“This villain secured, it only remained to make sure of the other two. And this, as it happened, was a very easy task. For both, exhausted by their long, forced march and utterly benumbed by the cold, had fallen into a drowsy stupor under the hedge where they had been left, crouching beside my faithful steed for warmth. In this state it was simple work to secure them and march them off to custody, where at any rate they were not less comfortable for a time than they had been.“A further visit next morning to the ‘tower by the river,’ which was well known to the watch as a rendezvous of thieves, served to secure the rest of the conspirators: and the law of the land shortly afterwards put it out of their power one and all to practise their wicked craft again.“As for me, that night taught me a lesson or two that I’ve not forgotten to this day, and which in my turn I’ve tried to teach to some of you here. I went back to Ogilby a wiser man than I had left it, and, thank God, a better one.”“And what did the poor horse do?” asked the youngest of the Culvertons.“Why, he carried me back as merrily as if he’d never seen snow in all his life.”
“When I was a young fellow,” began my grandfather—
There was a general silence and a settling of ourselves in our seats, as the wavering voice of the old man uttered these magical words.
No one had asked him to tell a story, some of us had almost forgotten that he was sitting there in his big chair, one of the group which crowded round his own Christmas fire at Culverton Manor.
He was an old, old man, was my grandfather. The proverbial “threescore years and ten” was an old story with him, and even the “fourscore” awarded to the strong was receding into the distance. Yet there he sat, in his old straight-back chair, hale and bright, as he looked round on us his descendants, sons and daughters grey-haired already, grandchildren, who some of them were staid heads of families themselves, and the little group of great-grandchildren, who knew as well as any one that when their father’s grandfather began to talk of “the days when he was young,” it was worth their while to hold their peace and prick up their ears.
“When I was a young fellow,” began my grandfather, stroking his old grizzled moustache, “I was a cornet in the Buffs. It was in the year—heigho! my memory’s getting rusty!—it was in the year 1803, I believe, when every one was expecting the French over, and I was quartered with my regiment at Ogilby. Ogilby is an inland town, you know, thirty miles from here; and as there was not much immediate danger of Bonaparte dropping in upon us there without good warning, we had a lazy rollicking time of it in that bright little place.
“We young officers, boys that we were, thought it a fine thing to live as grand gentlemen, and spend our pay half a dozen times over in all sorts of extravagances. And, I recollect with sorrow, I was as bad as any of them.
“Our colonel was an easy-going old soldier, who had been a wild blade himself once, and held that it was little use looking too sharply after us, so he didn’t look after us at all; and we in consequence did just as we pleased.
“Sometimes we invited all the gentry round to feast with us at mess, and pledged our pay months in advance to load the table with the most costly delicacies. At other times we would sally forth, and out of sheer mischief organise a riot in the town, and end the night with broken heads, and now and then in the lock-up. And when we were tired of this, we got up I know not what gaieties to pass the time.
“As I said, I was as bad as any of them—worse perhaps. For I had had a good home and careful training, and knew all the time I was joining in the excesses of my comrades that I was a fool and a prodigal, and a traitor to my better self. And yet I went in, and might have gone on to the end of the chapter, had not an event happened to me which served to pull me up short.
“One evening that winter our festivities culminated by a grand entertainment given by the officers of our mess to all the countryside. Compared with this, our former efforts in the same direction had been mere child’s play. We had hired the largest assembly room in the town, and decorated it regardless of all expense. The wine merchants and confectioners for miles round had been exhausted to furnish our supper, and the tailors and milliners driven nearly distracted over our toilets. Ogilby had never seen such a brilliant entertainment, and the officers of the Buffs had never achieved such a triumph.
“I was among the last to leave the gay scene, and as I stepped out into the chill winter air, and called for my horse, the clock of the church was striking four. My man had to help me to my saddle, for, what with the sudden change of air, added to the excesses of the evening, I was not steady enough to do it myself. My man was the son of an old tenant of my father’s, and as he had known me from childhood, I was used to allowing him more familiarity than most gentlemen allow to their servants. I was, therefore, not surprised when, on reaching my quarters, after helping me to alight, he stopped a moment to speak to me before I entered the house.
“‘By your leave, Master Hal,’ said he, saluting, ‘I thought you might like to know there is bad news from Culverton.’
“‘How?’ I demanded, scarcely taking in what he said.
“‘Bad news, begging your honour’s pardon. I had it in a letter from Phoebe, the dairymaid at the Vicarage, who your honour may know is my sweetheart, or rather I am hers; and by your—’
“‘Sirrah, man, drop your sweetheart and come to your news! What is it?’
“‘It is news of the squire, Master Hal!’ said the man, seriously.
“‘My father!’ I exclaimed, suddenly sobered by the name.
“‘He is ill, please your honour. He had a stroke a week ago, and Phoebe says his life is despaired of.’
“‘Ill a week, and I never heard!’ I exclaimed. ‘Why did no one tell me?’
“‘Your honour may remember you have not examined your letters for these three days past.’
“It was true. In the whirl of excitement, with late nights and later mornings, and never-ending frivolity, my very letters had lain on my mantelshelf unopened!
“My man turned to take my horse away to the stable. His action recalled me suddenly to myself.
“‘Hold!’ I said; ‘leave the horse here, Tucker, and help me into the saddle again.’
“Tucker gazed at me in astonishment, but did as he was bid.
“‘I am going to Culverton,’ I said, shortly, taking up the reins.
“‘To Culverton! At this hour, and in this weather!’ said Tucker, in tones of alarm. ‘Stay at any rate till you have had a night’s rest, for you need it, master, and till I can put up what you need for the journey.’
“‘Let go my horse, man!’ I cried, excitedly, setting spurs to the animal and abruptly ending the honest fellow’s remonstrance.
“The thought of my father lying ill, dying perhaps, and me here revelling in Ogilby, made it impossible for me to contemplate a moment’s delay, even so much as to change my gay attire or provide myself with necessaries for the journey. Culverton was thirty miles distant. I had a good horse, and with all my dissipation I was capable of a fair share of endurance. I therefore yielded to my impulse, and halting only to leave word with a comrade whom I met to explain my absence to the colonel, I dashed off into the night on my way to Culverton.
“What were my thoughts during those first few hours I need hardly tell you. I hope and trust none of you will ever be tortured by the self-reproach of which I was then the victim.
“For some distance out of Ogilby the roads were pretty good, and I made tolerable progress; so that when morning broke about seven I was at least a dozen miles on my journey. I could scarcely brook the delay of a few minutes at the first village to rest my horse and swallow a hurried breakfast; but I knew that for the rest of the way accommodation, either for man or beast, was very limited, and, therefore, prudence made the unwelcome delay a necessity.
“Once more in the saddle I hoped to make up for lost time; but in this I was fated to be disappointed. For scarcely had I got beyond the village when the weather suddenly changed. The chill morning air freshened to a wind which brought snow with it, light at first, but increasing in heaviness as the day went on. The road rapidly became covered, and my horse, unable on the treacherous foothold to maintain the canter of the morning, was compelled to slacken into a trot.
“I was in no gear for weather like this, as you may suppose. I still wore the light festive attire of the previous night, covered only with my military cape, which I now drew more closely around me at every step. How I wished I had taken Tucker’s prudent advice! But it was too late to help it now.
“What troubled me most was not the cold, or the driving snow in my face, but the slow pace at which progress was now possible. I had hoped to reach Culverton by noon, but by noon I had accomplished scarcely two-thirds of the distance, and every moment the difficulties of the way were increasing. My horse trudged on gallantly. The trot had long since given place to a walk, and the walk in turn often became a sheer struggle for progress through the drifts and obstacles of the uncertain road.
“As for me, I was nearly frozen in my saddle, and more than once was compelled to dismount and tramp along beside my horse in the deep snow in order to keep the blood going in my veins. And all the while the thought of my father lying there at Culverton, neglected perhaps, with no son at hand to tend him, drove me nearly frantic.
“The afternoon dragged on, and towards dark the snow ceased to fall. That was at least some comfort, for to battle through that storm in the dark would have been an impossibility. As it was, my good horse was even now ready to drop, and I was in little better plight. If either of us failed it meant an entire night in the snow, and that would be little short of certain death. It was a dreary prospect.
“However, as I say, the snow ceased to fall, and towards night the sky overhead began to clear, until presently the moon shone out and lit up the wintry scene. But for this light we might have lost our way hopelessly, for the road lay over a heath, which being all covered in snow, we had only the wayside posts to direct us and keep us on the beaten track.
“It must have been near eight o’clock, sixteen hours since I had left the assembly at Ogilby, when I caught sight in the moonlight of a small cottage a little way removed from the road on our right. The sight of this, the first habitation we had passed for hours, was welcome indeed. I could scarcely stand with hunger, fatigue, and cold, and my brave horse was stumbling at every step. Our only chance of reaching Culverton that night was in seeking such rest and refreshment as this place might afford, and I therefore gladly turned aside and led my weary steed along the by-path that led up to it.
“It was a small tumbledown cottage, or rather barn, and my fond hopes as to fire and refreshment were dashed at once. It was empty. The broken door stood ajar, the roof was nearly fallen in, and everything within and without testified that for weeks at any rate it had been deserted. Still it had walls and a roof, and so if we were not to have board we might at least for an hour or so help ourselves to lodgings.
“I led my horse in, and after much groping about was delighted to discover in one corner of the hovel a sort of stall, which had evidently at one time or other been occupied by a cow. The ground was still strewn with a little old and very vile straw, which, however, was an unexpected luxury to us both, and a mere mouthful of stale hay remained in the trough. To these desirable quarters I conducted my faithful companion, who without ceremony devoured the hay, and then, too exhausted to stand, dropped into a recumbent posture, and lay stretched on his side on the straw. I quickly followed his example, creeping as close to his side as I could for the sake of the warmth, and thus we lay in the dark, resting as we had never rested before after our day’s work.
“My own fear was lest I should fall asleep. In spite of my anxiety about my father, and my bitter reproaches against myself, I felt a stupor come over me which it was almost more than human nature to resist. Once or twice I dozed off for a moment, and then woke by an effort, each time more painful, until I was tempted at last to give in and resist no longer, whatever it cost.
“I had just come to this resolve when I became suddenly aware of the sound of voices in the cottage. Whoever they belonged to, I felt sure they must have entered after me, for I had explored every corner of the place when I took possession. They had probably entered during one of my fits of drowsiness.”
My first impulse was to discover myself to the new comers, and see if they could help me and my horse in our distress. But on second thoughts I decided to remain where I was until I could ascertain at least who the intruders were, and if they had any better right in the cottage than I had. I was wide awake now, and raising myself noiselessly from my horse’s side, I crawled to the side of the stall and peered over.
“By the uncertain light of a small fire of sticks which they had made, I saw two men sitting on the floor regaling themselves with bread and meat and the contents of a bottle. The sight of these good things made me still more inclined to disclose my presence, but prudence again forbade; besides which there was something strange about the look of the men, and the place where they were, which excited my curiosity.
“For a long time they continued their meal in silence. It went to my heart to see the victuals disappearing at such a rate, as you may suppose.
“At length, when, for the present at any rate, their appetites seemed to be appeased, they began to talk once more.
“‘You’re sure there’s no mistake this time?’ said one.
“‘I have his own word for it,’ replied the other. ‘I tell you, Tom, he’s planned it all out like Bonaparte himself.’
“‘All I can say is,’ said he who was called Tom, ‘I hope something will come of it, for I’m sick of all this doing nothing.’
“‘You may be sure something will come of this,’ replied the other; ‘and it will be something worth the while too, unless I’m mistaken, for the old gentleman is very rich; see here,’ said he, producing some papers from his pocket, ‘this is what he says.’
“He began to read a letter, and you may fancy how I, listening behind the partition, started as I heard it.
“‘Jack,’ it said, ‘I’m watched and can’t come. You and Tom must do it without me. Be you know where by eight on Friday night, and I’ll send one I can trust to show you the way and help you through with it. You may rely on him, though he’s a queer dog. Here’s a map of the grounds of Culverton, but you won’t need it, for he I send knows the place well. The steward is on our side, and will leave the back door unlatched. The strong box stands in the study, the second door on the left after you pass the great clock. The old man lies ill, and only two maids are in the house besides. The young puppy is away at Ogilby. Bring what you get to the tower by the river on Saturday night. There are jewels in the desk in the old man’s room. He cannot hurt—if he tries he must be quieted—you know how.’
“I was so horrified that for a moment or two I scarcely knew whether I was awake or dreaming. My poor father, not only ill, but in peril of robbery, and perhaps murder! And I, what could I do? My impulse was to spring from my retreat and make one desperate effort to overpower the villains. But I was too weak to do it. Besides I was unarmed, whereas they had each his pistol. What could I do?
“The man who had read the letter carefully put it, along with the rough map of the Culverton grounds, into the fire, and the two sat and watched the papers as they burned.
“‘He’s a good man of business,’ said Tom.
“‘Middling,’ replied the other; ‘and if he—’
“At that moment my horse gave a sudden start in his sleep. The quick ears of the two villains instantly caught the sound.
“‘Hullo!’ said one in a whisper, ‘what was that?’
“‘Hist!’ said the other, holding up his hand, ‘strike a light, Tom.’
“While Tom obeyed I softly dropped on my hands and knees and crawled back to my old place beside the horse, where I lay motionless, and to all appearance in a profound sleep.
“‘I’m sure I heard something,’ said Tom, holding up the lantern. From where they were they could see nothing but the side of the stall. They therefore crept round stealthily; and as I lay I saw the light suddenly turn on the horse.
“‘A nag, as I’m a Dutchman, and saddled too!’ exclaimed Tom.
“‘If that’s so, the rider’s not far off,’ said the other, grimly, taking the lantern and advancing.
“It was all I could do to lie motionless, breathing heavily, as the light fell full on my face.
“‘Ah! found him!’ was the exclamation, as both rushed towards me.
“I heard the cocking of a pistol close beside me, and was conscious of a rude plucking at my arm.
“‘Come, get up there! What do you do here? Get up, do you hear?’
“I had one hope left, and it was a desperate one.
“I roused myself slowly, and with many feints, from my mock slumber, and rubbed my eyes and yawned, and stared first at one, then the other.
“‘Get up,’ again cried the men, still pulling my arm roughly, ‘and say what you’re doing here.’
“‘Doing here?’ I drawled as unconcernedly as I could, stretching myself at the same time, ‘That’s a pretty question to ask me. What wereyoudoing not to be here at eight o’clock, I’d like to know?’
“The men let go my arms, and looked at me in bewilderment.
“‘Why,’ said one, ‘are you—’
“‘There,’ said I, ‘we don’t mention names in our trade. You’ll learn that when you grow older, and you’ll learn to be punctual too,’ I added, testily.
“The men looked half abashed.
“‘We were here at eight,’ they said.
“‘No, you were not. I was here at eight to the minute, and I had time to fall asleep, as you see, before you came. But never mind that. You know what business is on foot, I suppose?’
“‘Yes, I had it all from—’
“‘Hush! no names, you dolt; what did I tell you before?’
“The men were perfectly sheepish now, and I began to breathe again. It was well I had been described in the letter as a ‘queer dog,’ for it is an easy part to act, even to save one’s own life. Besides, this would account sufficiently well for my unbusinesslike attire.
“My great fear was lest the real person referred to in the letter should arrive on the scene before I had quitted it. I therefore ordered an immediate departure.
“‘We’ve lost an hour already with your dilatoriness,’ I growled; ‘don’t let us lose any more. As it is, it is a chance if we reach Culverton before morning. Come, lead out my horse, and bring what food you have with you, for I’m starving.’
“Before five minutes had passed we were safe out of the cottage and in the high-road—I, mounted on my faithful and partly refreshed horse, eating ravenously of the scraps of bread and meat my companions had left, while they trudged along in the snow one on either side.
“In this manner we progressed for an hour or so in silence, until about one o’clock there appeared on the side of a distant hill a twinkling light. I knew it at once. It had guided me home often and often before now, and it was doing so again. But in what strange company!
“‘That’s Culverton, on the hill there,’ said I.
“The men, who were nearly dead beat with their tramp through the deep snow, said nothing, but plodded on doggedly. It was nearly an hour more before we reached the outskirts of the estate, and by this time so exhausted were they that when I cried a halt they fairly sat down in the snow.
“I was strongly tempted to leave them there; but a desire to bring them to condign punishment prevented me. They were armed, and I was not. Besides, the reference in the letter to my father’s steward made me anxious to sift the matter to the bottom.
“‘Come, come,’ said I, ‘at that rate you’ll never see the strong box. Get up, men!’
“They struggled to their feet. Had they been anything but the villains they were I could have pitied them, they looked so miserable.
“‘Hold my horse,’ said I, dismounting, ‘while I go and reconnoitre. I know every inch of the ground. Keep in the dark, whatever you do, under the hedge there. So. Are you loaded?’
“‘I am,’ said Tom, sullenly taking out his pistol.
“‘So am I,’ said the other.
“‘Give me one of the pistols,’ I said, as coolly as I could. ‘You won’t want both here, and I may want one.’
“Tom handed me his.
“‘Now keep a look-out here, and when you hear me whistle over the wall, come sharp, mind!’
“So saying, I left them, and went on towards the house.
“Except in my father’s room no lights were burning, and I began to hope that what the letter had said about the steward might after all prove to be false. I went quietly up to the back door and turned the handle. It was open. The story was true, then, and in my rage and indignation I could hardly contain myself to act my part any longer. However, I made a desperate effort.
“Holding the door slightly open I whistled softly. There was no answer. I whistled again louder. This time there was a sound of some one moving, and the faint nicker of a candle, and presently I heard a voice whisper—
“‘Is it all right?’
“‘All right,’ I whispered back. ‘And you, steward?’
“‘Yes. All ready. Come in.’
“I entered. My hat was over my eyes, and in the faint candle-light the false servant did not know me. I followed him to his room.
“‘You’re late,’ he said, reaching down some keys from a nail. ‘Where are the rest?’
“‘Outside,’ I replied in a low whisper.
“But, low as it was, the voice was not disguised enough to escape the quick ear of the steward. He turned sharply round and looked at me, while I at the same moment, throwing off my cap, sprang towards him and presented my pistol.
“He was too stunned and terrified to do anything but drop on his knees and utter incoherent entreaties and ejaculations for pity.
“‘How is my father?’ I inquired, not heeding his entreaties, and pointing the pistol still at his head.
“‘Better,’ he faltered—‘much better. Oh, Master—’
“‘Come with me,’ I replied, turning to the door.
“He accompanied me like a lamb. Had my father been worse I had intended to lock him up a prisoner in his own room. As it was, I took him silently and stealthily through the village and delivered him up then and there into the hands of the watch.
“This villain secured, it only remained to make sure of the other two. And this, as it happened, was a very easy task. For both, exhausted by their long, forced march and utterly benumbed by the cold, had fallen into a drowsy stupor under the hedge where they had been left, crouching beside my faithful steed for warmth. In this state it was simple work to secure them and march them off to custody, where at any rate they were not less comfortable for a time than they had been.
“A further visit next morning to the ‘tower by the river,’ which was well known to the watch as a rendezvous of thieves, served to secure the rest of the conspirators: and the law of the land shortly afterwards put it out of their power one and all to practise their wicked craft again.
“As for me, that night taught me a lesson or two that I’ve not forgotten to this day, and which in my turn I’ve tried to teach to some of you here. I went back to Ogilby a wiser man than I had left it, and, thank God, a better one.”
“And what did the poor horse do?” asked the youngest of the Culvertons.
“Why, he carried me back as merrily as if he’d never seen snow in all his life.”
Story 13.Our Novel.A Summer Holiday Achievement.Chapter One.The Plot.It was a bold undertaking, no doubt, at our tender age, to propose to take the world by storm. But others had done it before us.We had read ourWonderful Boysand ourBoyhood of Great Mencarefully and critically. We had seen that Mozart had composed music at six, and written it down very untidily too; we had seen that Marlborough had, by sheer cheek, been made an officer at about our age; that David Wilkie, one of the dullest of boys, had painted pictures while at school; that Scott, a notorious blockhead, had written poetry at thirteen; and that James Watt, at the same age, with very little education, had pondered over the spout of a tea-kettle.All this we had seen, and been very greatly impressed, for surely, if some of these very ordinary boys had succeeded in startling their generation, it would be strange, if we two—Sydney Sproutels and Harry Hullock, who had just carried off the English composition prize at Denhamby—couldn’t write something between us that would make the world “sit up.”That English composition prize had really been a great feather in our caps. It was the first thing of the kind we had done—not the first English composition, but the first sustained literary effort—and it had opened our eyes to the genius that burned within us.The exercise had been to expand the following brief anecdote into an interesting narrative which should occupy two pages of Denhamby paper with twenty lines in a page:—“Orpheus, son of Oeagrus and Calliope, having lost his wife, Eurydice, followed her to Hades, where, by the charm of his music, he received permission to conduct her back to earth, on condition that he should not look behind him during the journey. This condition he broke before Eurydice had quite reached earth, and she was in consequence snatched back into Hades.”I need not say that two pages of Denhamby paper were all too short to express all we had to say on this delightful subject. I, being by nature a poet, could have used all my space in describing the beauties of the spring morning on which Orpheus made his unusual expedition; while Hullock, whose genius was of a more practical order, confided to me afterwards that if he had had room he had intended to introduce a stirring conversation between the widower and his wife’s ghost, in which the latter would make certain very stringent conditions before consenting to return once more to household duties.However, by dint of severe self-denial, we both managed to restrain our muses to the forty lines prescribed, and sent in our compositions with quite a feeling of envy for the examiner who would have to read them.When the results were announced, the doctor publicly stated that “though many of the compositions were meritorious, yet, on the whole, those of Sproutels and Hullock showed most originality, and, indeed, gave considerable promise. The prize would be shared between them.”Of course, after that, all question as to our calling in life was at an end, and the sooner we “fleshed” our pens before the world the better. So it was arranged that Hullock was to get his father and mother to invite me for the midsummer holidays, and that before Denhamby saw us again, “Our Novel” should be started.The Hullock family, it is necessary to say here, consisted of my partner, his two parents, a maiden aunt, and a sister. Mr Hullock, a good and worthy little man, who had not had all the advantages of education which his son possessed, was a retired coal merchant, spending the afternoon of his days at Saint Leonards.His wife, as kind and motherly as she was tall and portly, treated me like her own son from the moment I entered her house.And with her to look after me, and Alice to fall in love with, and Harry to collaborate with, I was about as comfortable as a restless genius could be—that is, I should have been so had it not been for the damp and frigid influence of Aunt Sarah, who sympathised neither with genius nor youth, and certainly not with the two in combination. Twenty times a day she grieved me by calling me “silly little boy,” and twenty times a day she exasperated me by reminding Harry, and, through him, me, that “little boys should be seen and not heard.”However, we decided to ignore this uncongenial influence, and bury our sorrows in “Our Novel.”“Tell you what,” said Harry, as we walked on the pier the first evening, “we ought to look sharp and get our plot.”“Wouldn’t it be better to settle on the characters and get the plot afterwards?”“All serene!” said Harry; “can you suggest any one for a hero?”Harry said this in a half significant, half off-hand manner, which made it evident to me he expected I should at once nominate him.But, in my judgment, Harry hardly possessed all the qualifications necessary for the hero of our novel. So I replied, half significantly, half off-handedly too—“Hadn’tyoubetter think of some one?”Here we were in a fix at the very start. For Harry insisted he would much rather that I should select, and I was equally anxious for him to do it.At length we compromised the matter and decided we should make the hero a mixture of two fellows—the fellow Harry liked best and the fellow I liked best.After this amicable arrangement it was comparatively clear sailing. We had not to look far for the heroine, and it occurred to both of us that it would be original as well as pleasant to make the villain a female and middle-aged. As for minor characters, we were able to draw on our acquaintance at Denhamby to supply them, and, failing that, Harry was magnanimous enough to offer his father and mother as “not bad for some of the side plots.”We had got our characters. That one walk on the pier settled them all. We also stopped a bit to watch the people, we entered into conversation with a sailor (who turned out to be deaf), and insinuated ourselves into the front of a street row, all with a view to reproducing our observations on life into “Our Novel.”The street row indeed furnished an inspiration for our plot. It was the arrest of a make-believe Italian female organ-grinder, whose offence appeared to be that she was carrying about in a cradle attached to the organ an infant that did not belong to her. And as the infant brought her in much more money than her music did, she protested in very strong English against having it removed.With the quickness of genius we saw in this incident the pivot on which our novel should be made to turn.The baby was the heroine, the organ-grinder the villain who had stolen her from her high-born station in life. Two of the characters fitted at a blow! We had even got the high-born parents ready if required, and when sixteen years later the little truant was to discover her noble station, we had our hero ready to take her home!Between the pier-gate and Warrior Square we had the whole story worked out.“What has kept you little boys out so late?” asked a voice as we entered Mr Hullock’s hall. “It’s not right. You should have been in bed by eight.”It was Aunt Sarah! and we secretly condemned her on the spot to a public execution in our last chapter.As we undressed that evening another point was cleared up.“We can’t keep the hero hanging about sixteen years before we bring him in,” said Harry.“Humph,” I observed, “unless we said ‘sixteen years passed’ at the end of the first chapter, and then we might get him in in the second.”“It strikes me,” said Harry dubiously, “he ought to be in it all through. What do you say to making him another stolen baby belonging to another organ? Just as likely to have two stolen as one.”It did occur to me that if it came to that, all the characters in the story might begin life in this romantic way. However, there seemed no objection to starting the hero in an organ-grinder’s cradle, and we closed with the suggestion at once and got into bed.I woke very early. I had the hero on my mind. I wanted him to be a good one after the best model, and I could not help thinking that the Harry in him ought not to be overdone. Besides, if he was to make himself pleasant to the heroine, the less he was like Harry and the more he was like Harry’s chief friend the better. For sisters in fiction never make much of their brothers, but they often make a lot of their brothers’ friends.I nudged Harry with my elbow, in order to represent the case to him from this point of view. I did it delicately and in a most conciliatory manner.“I was thinking, old man, as Alice is the heroine and you’re her brother, I might—don’t you know—perhaps you’d like if—well, what I mean to say is, perhaps I’d better do the gush, when it comes to that.”Happily Harry was scarcely awake, and did not take in all my meaning.“All serene,” said he, “we’ll have as little of that as we can.”“I mean I think you’d do the parts about the villain and that sort of thing better—don’t you?”But as Harry was asleep again I had to take silence for consent.The day that followed was an anxious one. It is easy enough to get your characters, but it is awful having to fix their names. And it is simple work getting a plot, compared with the agony of dividing it up into forty chapters!This was the task before us to-day, and we retired as before to the pier-head with pencils and paper, in order to do it beyond the sound of Aunt Sarah’s voice.We endured agonies over the names. The hero’s name should naturally have been a judicious combination of the names of the two fellows we had in our minds’ eyes. But neither “Sydrey Sproutock” nor “Hardney Hulltels” exactly pleased us. Finally we decided to call him Henry Sydney, and, strange to say, it occurred to me it would be best as a rule to speak of him by his surname, while Harry was equally strong about calling him by his Christian name. At last we agreed that when we, the authors, spoke of him it should be as Sydney, and that when the heroine or any one else mentioned his name it should be as Henry—Harry explaining that “as they’re to be kids together there won’t be anything strange in her calling him by his Christian name.” The heroine, after much searching of heart, we christened Alicia Dearlove, and the villain Sarah Vixen.The other names we made up from a local directory which we were lucky enough to stumble across in the pavilion.Then came the formidable work of slicing up our novel into forty pieces. We wrote the figures down the side of a long sheet of paper, and looked with something like dismay at the work we had set before us.“Seems a lot of chapters,” said Harry; “couldn’t we make it thirty?”“Wouldn’t run to six shillings if we did,” said I.That settled it, and we set ourselves to fill up the blanks.“Chapter the First,” wrote I. “Theft of Alicia—Sorrow of her Parents—The Organ-grinder’s Lodgings—Suspicions of the Police—The Hero in the Room underneath.”“Hold hard!” cried Harry; “that’s too much for one chapter. We shall have to make that do for four of ’em, or else we shall run out in ten.”“How on earth can you make four chapters of that?” said I.“Well, you can make ‘Theft of Alicia’ spin out into one.”“Oh, ah! Why, all there is to say is that Aunt Sarah—I mean Mother Vixen—came across her in the square and collared her. However are you to make a dozen pages of that?”“Oh,” said Harry, “we shall have to make her call at public-houses on the way, and that sort of thing, and describe the scenery in the square, and have the nursemaid go off to see the militia band go by, and leave the baby on the seat. Bless you, it’ll spread out!”Harry seemed to know all about it.So we went, on with our skeleton, trotting our little foundling round town on the organ, where she witnessed with infant eyes street rows, cricket matches, bicycle races, a murder or two, and such other little incidents of life which we deemed calculated to enliven our story.About the twelfth chapter she and our hero had already exchanged tender passages.In the twentieth chapter her real father and mother happen to see her in the street (she being then sixteen), and are immediately struck by her resemblance to their lost baby.By chapter twenty-five our hero had saved the lives of his future mother and father-in-law, and had rescued the heroine, single-handed, from a Hatton Garden mob.In the twenty-ninth chapter Aunt Sarah had committed her murder with every circumstance of brutality and unpleasantness, the victim being one of our schoolfellows whom we neither of us loved.Then for a chapter or two there was some very active police play, interspersed with a few love scenes between the hero and heroine, who—though it never occurred to us at the time—must have enjoyed independent means, which made it quite unnecessary for them to follow the ordinary avocations of organ-grinders.About the thirty-fifth chapter there was to be a sudden drawing-in of threads from all quarters.Chapter thirty-sixth was to be devoted to Sarah in the condemned cell.Thirty-seventh—Alicia discovers her name by seeing it marked on a pocket-handkerchief she had been using at the time she was stolen.Chapter thirty-eighth—The hero discovers his name by being told it by a solicitor who has known all about it all the time.Chapter thirty-ninth—All comes right; everybody goes back to their mothers and fathers, and a quiet wedding ensues.Chapter forty—Execution of Sarah. Finis.We were tired and hungry by the time our paper was full, but we were jubilant all the same.“Stunning fine plot!” said Harry. “If we only work it out it ought to be as good asNicholas Nickleby.”“Rather! By the way, we ought to have one or two funny chaps in it to work off some of our jokes. There’s that one about the sculptor dying a horrid death, you know—because he makes faces and busts! I’d like to get that in somehow.”“All serene! That might come in in the last chapters. I’ve got theFamily Jest-Bookat home; we might pick a few things out of that, and then settle where they come in, and work in for them as we go on.”We accordingly made a judicious selection, and having marked the initials of the character who was to bring them in against each, and also the number of the chapter in which they were to “come on,” we really felt as if everything was now ready for our venture.We went to bed early, so as to get a good night and arise fresh to our work, not, however, before we had made an expedition to the stationer’s and expended half a crown in manuscript paper, J and D pens, blotting-paper, blue-black ink, and forty small paper-fasteners.These provided, and the servant being particularly charged to call us at five o’clock, we retired to rest, and slept with our “skeleton” under the pillow.Story 13.Chapter Two.The Plot Thickens.A grave question arose the moment we opened our eyes next morning. Who was to write the first chapter? A great deal depended on how it was done. The style of the first chapter would give tone to the whole novel, and, so to speak, show the way for all the other chapters.“I thought,” said Harry, in his suspicious off-hand way, “if you took the even numbers and I took the odd, that might do.”Might it? That would mean he would write Chapter One. I wanted to write Chapter One. On the other hand, it would mean I should have Chapter twelve, with the execution in it, which would suit me very well. I mentioned the fact, and could see that Harry had forgotten it, for he tried hard to back out of his arrangement.“I think you’d do the first chapter best,” said he. “There’s some scenery in it, you know, and you’re more of a dab at that than I am.”But my modesty preferred the even numbers, and our novel looked very like being water-logged before she had even been launched.A compromise was, however, arrived at. As the question of style was very important, it was decided we shouldbothwrite Chapter One, and then, after comparing the two attempts, arrange our further procedure accordingly.So I with a J pen, and Harry with a D retired to opposite corners of the room and plunged headlong into the “Theft of Alicia.” It was a hard morning’s work, and by the time the breakfast-bell rang we were both getting the steam up. The sight of Aunt Sarah brooding over the tea-tray had but one meaning for us, and Sister Alice’s pretty face and soft voice spoke to me only of that baby I had left in my chapter lying on the seat in the square.“Now, little boys, are you going to play on the beach to-day?” said the villain, as the meal concluded.“No, aunt,” said Harry. “Syd and I have got some work we are doing.”“What work?” demanded Aunt Sarah.“English composition,” said Harry boldly.And under cover of this truthful announcement we escaped.It was midday before I laid down my pen and gathered my scattered sheets together. Harry had been done before me, but he had only written eleven sheets, so our pace was about equal.“Done?” said he, as I sat back in my chair.“Yes; lock the door,” said I.I must beg the reader’s pardon if I do not lay before them the whole of the two lucubrations. They must be content with a few impartially chosen selections.My chapter began with a poetical description of London in early morning.“London in the morning! What a scene! The whistle of the workmen’s trains sounds, and the noise of vegetable carts going to Covent Garden Market, give the place an animated appearance. Very few people are awake, and those that are look sleepy.“In such a scene as this a hideous-looking woman, about fifty years old, with a long nose and a shabby barrel-organ, wended her way from some of the slums near Farringdon Street Station in the direction of Euston Square.“It was not a very pretty walk. There were no birds twittering in the trees, or cuckoos. You could not hear the gentle roar of the ocean, and what flowers there were, were in pots on the window-sills.“The ugly woman chose the road where there were most public-houses, and I am sorry to say that any one who had walked close beside her would have heard her talking to herself in very bad language.”Here followed the description of a few of the public-houses and their natural beauties, and my narrative proceeded—“In this way the wicked woman reached Euston Square. She was greatly intoxicated, and not able to play the tunes on her organ correctly. Nobody gave her anything, which was not surprising, and the police moved her on all round the square.“At last it was plain she would have to do something to get some money.“After thinking over all the different things, she thought she would steal a baby and get money that way. So, seeing a baby lying on a seat close by, whose nurse had gone off to see a militia band marching towards Gower Street, she stole it and went off as fast as she could.“There was a cradle hanging on to the organ, and when people saw the baby in it the wicked woman got as much money as she liked.“My reader will have guessed by this time that the baby, which was of the feminine gender, is the heroine.“She was really high-born.“Her father was a retired coal merchant. He was a very little man and dropped his h’s.“Her mother was what the vulgar would call a ‘whopper.’ Let not the reader think she whopped her baby or her husband. On the contrary, she was kind, but big.“They lived at Highbury, and the nurse always took the baby out for walks before breakfast.”It was at this point that it had suddenly flashed across me that I had left out the joke allotted to Chapter One, and as the narrative was well advanced, I ought to work up for it without delay. So I proceeded.“We left Alicia, for that was the name of our heroine, being wheeled back on the organ to Hatton Garden. It was an unpleasant journey. The bad woman called at a lot more public-houses, and left Alicia and the organ outside in the rain.“It was a wonder Alicia was not stolen again. She began to cry. People who came by couldn’t make out what it was, for she was hidden under the quilt, and some thought instead of an organ it must have been some strange animal.“An organ that cried like a child would be a very queer animal, nearly as queer as an author whose tale comes out of his head; and some of the people said so.”I was hot and tired by the time I had worked off this piece of humour, and began to wish I saw my way to the end of my twelve sheets. Two more I occupied with a picture of the organ-grinder’s quarters in Hatton Garden, and concluded with the following poetical passage:—“Little thought the wicked Vixen as she huddled her stolen infant into a damp corner of the filthy room, how much would happen before Alicia and her poor parents next met.“We know very little of what is going to happen, and perhaps it is a good job. At any rate it was a good job for Alicia as she lay fast asleep.“The world is all before the little baby—It doesn’t know what’s all in store for it—If it did know, it seems to me that maybe it wouldn’t like the prospect—not a bit.“End of Chapter One.”Harry looked a little uncomfortable as I finished reading my chapter aloud. I concluded he felt rather out of it, and I was not surprised. For on the whole it read well, and in some respects I flattered myself it had rather a pull onNicholas Nickleby.Harry wisely reserved his criticisms until he had read his own chapter, which I awaited with a smile of brotherly resignation.“You know,” explained he, before he began, “I tried to get more incident than you, that’s why I left out the scenery.”Aha! my scenery had fetched him, then! I wondered what his incident would be like.“Fire away!” said I.“Her name was Sarah Vixen—(I’m beginning now)—Her name was Sarah Vixen. She was a horrid old maid. One morning she went and played her organ in Euston Square. She played ‘Wait till the clouds roll by,’ and ‘Sweethearts’ waltz’, and the ‘Marseillaise,’ one after the other, after which she paused and watched a tennis match which was going on in the square.“It was a four-handed match between two rather good-looking boys who wore red and green ribbons on their straws—(those were the Denhamby colours)—and two big London fellows. The schoolboys won the toss, and the fair one served first. He put in a very hot service just over the net, which broke sharp as it fell, and bothered the Londoners completely. The dark hand-in played close up to the net, and was very neat in the way he picked up balls and smashed them over.”Harry paused and looked doubtfully at me for a moment, and then went on.“The schoolboys pulled off the first three games, and then the Londoners scored a game, owing to the wind. A large crowd collected to see the match, and shouts of ‘Well put over!’ greeted the schoolboys on every hand. The Londoners didn’t score another game in the first set, and scored nothing in the second.“The crowd became thicker and thicker every moment. In the last game the fair schoolboy spun a ball into the far left-hand corner, which the Londoner could not reach, and the match ended in a glorious victory for the two schoolboys, who, apparently unaware of the cheers of the crowd, walked home arm-in-arm as if nothing had happened.“On their way they met a runaway horse, and loud cries of ‘Take care!’ ‘Get out of the way!’ met them on all sides. A nursemaid was wheeling a child across the road at that moment, and quick as thought the fair boy sprang at the horse and brought him to a standstill just in time. The crowd seeing it, rushed with a great cheer to the young hero, but he seeing it, took his friend’s arm and walked on as if nothing had happened.“‘What are you so pale for?’ asked his friend.“‘Oh, nothing very much. I have broken my arm; but it really doesn’t matter much.’“While he spoke he fainted, and if it had not been for his friend, might have fallen.“Meanwhile the baby, left to herself in the perambulator in the middle of the road, began to cry, which attracted the notice of Vixen, who, seeing she was a nice child, went and lifted her out of her perambulator, and put her in her cradle on her organ while nobody was looking, and took her to her home.”“‘Whose home?’ I asked.Harry did not condescend to notice this interruption. He may have guessed I was jealous. All that about the heroic fair boy had been taking an unfair advantage of me, and I think he knew it. For I was of a dark complexion! His narrative went on to describe a fight in the organ-grinder’s lodgings, and a burglary, followed by a fire at the residence of the parents of the lost child. As a matter of course, the fair boy with his broken arm turned up on the fire-engine, and brought most of the family down the escape with his sound arm. Then by a sudden transition the scene changed back to the organ-grinder’s “cottage,” on the ground floor of which in another cradle slept another infant, a boy, fair, of course, and beautifully made, showing great promise of physical force and heroism of disposition.“He was older than Alicia, and could speak a little. There was no one in the room, and as he sat up in his cradle he felt very sad. Presently two young organ-grinders came into the room. One was dark and vicious, the other was fair (of course) and had a pleasant expression. They took no notice of the baby, but sat and smoked and asked riddles of one another. The fair one (of course!) was far the cleverer of the two, and caused much laughter by his wit.“‘Can you tell me,’ said he, in a pleasant silvery voice very unlike an organ-grinder, ‘why an author is a queer animal?’“‘Give it hup,’ said the vulgar one, who always put his ‘h’s’ wrong.“‘Because his tale comes out of his head!’“It was long before the vulgar one saw it, and then he laughed so much that the baby began to cry, and they had to go into the next room for fear of disturbing it. Having left the door open, the fair baby got out of its cradle, and, being old enough to walk, went quietly upstairs, and there what should he see in a cradle in the room above but Alicia! This was the first time the two met. They did not say much, but Cupid’s arrow went through them both from that minute. That’s all,” said Harry.There was a silence, which at last I broke.“And which chapter do you think we’d better put in?”“That’s just what I was going to ask you,” said Harry.“You see,” said I cautiously, “you’ve got rather a lot about that fair chap in yours, and he’s not in the plot.”“Oh, he turns out somebody,” said Harry.“Who?”“I don’t know yet.”“He’s not the hero, of course?” said I decisively; “he’s to be a mixture of both.”“Oh, of course,” said Harry. “But, I say, don’t you think there’s rather too much about scenery in yours? There’s very little of that inNicholas Nickleby, or poetry either.”“No; that struck me as one of the weak points ofNicholas Nickleby,” said I.“I thought it was settled the hero was to be in it from the first?” said Harry, falling back on another line of defence.“So he is. I shall say in the next chapter that he was in the room underneath all the time,” said I, rather testily.“Oh, well,” said Harry, “of course if you think yours is the best, you’d better stick it in. I’m out of it, if you’re going in for poetry.”“You’re not obliged to do any poetry,” said I. “Thanks. I shouldn’t try unless I was sure of writing something that wasn’t doggerel,” said Harry. This was hitting me on a tender point. “Look here,” said I, starting up, “do you mean to tell me I write doggerel?”“I didn’t say so.”“You meant it. I’d sooner write doggerel than stuff I’d be ashamed to read in a ‘penny dreadful.’ Call yourself a fair boy!”Alas for our novel! We spent half an hour that evening in anything but a literary competition.Aunt Sarah remarked on Harry’s black eye and my one-sided countenance at breakfast next morning, and inquired artlessly ifEnglish compositionhad caused them. We truly answered, “Yes.”Our friendship was quickly restored; but our poor novel, after that one evening, has never lifted up its head again. We have sometimes vaguely talked of finishing it, but we have been careful to avoid all discussion of details, still less all reference to Chapter One. In fact, we have come to the conclusion that it is better not to startle the world at too early an age. If you do, you are expected to keep it up, and that interferes with your enjoyment of life.When our Novel does come out, well, we think Conan Doyle, Wells, and those other fellows will sit up.
It was a bold undertaking, no doubt, at our tender age, to propose to take the world by storm. But others had done it before us.
We had read ourWonderful Boysand ourBoyhood of Great Mencarefully and critically. We had seen that Mozart had composed music at six, and written it down very untidily too; we had seen that Marlborough had, by sheer cheek, been made an officer at about our age; that David Wilkie, one of the dullest of boys, had painted pictures while at school; that Scott, a notorious blockhead, had written poetry at thirteen; and that James Watt, at the same age, with very little education, had pondered over the spout of a tea-kettle.
All this we had seen, and been very greatly impressed, for surely, if some of these very ordinary boys had succeeded in startling their generation, it would be strange, if we two—Sydney Sproutels and Harry Hullock, who had just carried off the English composition prize at Denhamby—couldn’t write something between us that would make the world “sit up.”
That English composition prize had really been a great feather in our caps. It was the first thing of the kind we had done—not the first English composition, but the first sustained literary effort—and it had opened our eyes to the genius that burned within us.
The exercise had been to expand the following brief anecdote into an interesting narrative which should occupy two pages of Denhamby paper with twenty lines in a page:—
“Orpheus, son of Oeagrus and Calliope, having lost his wife, Eurydice, followed her to Hades, where, by the charm of his music, he received permission to conduct her back to earth, on condition that he should not look behind him during the journey. This condition he broke before Eurydice had quite reached earth, and she was in consequence snatched back into Hades.”
I need not say that two pages of Denhamby paper were all too short to express all we had to say on this delightful subject. I, being by nature a poet, could have used all my space in describing the beauties of the spring morning on which Orpheus made his unusual expedition; while Hullock, whose genius was of a more practical order, confided to me afterwards that if he had had room he had intended to introduce a stirring conversation between the widower and his wife’s ghost, in which the latter would make certain very stringent conditions before consenting to return once more to household duties.
However, by dint of severe self-denial, we both managed to restrain our muses to the forty lines prescribed, and sent in our compositions with quite a feeling of envy for the examiner who would have to read them.
When the results were announced, the doctor publicly stated that “though many of the compositions were meritorious, yet, on the whole, those of Sproutels and Hullock showed most originality, and, indeed, gave considerable promise. The prize would be shared between them.”
Of course, after that, all question as to our calling in life was at an end, and the sooner we “fleshed” our pens before the world the better. So it was arranged that Hullock was to get his father and mother to invite me for the midsummer holidays, and that before Denhamby saw us again, “Our Novel” should be started.
The Hullock family, it is necessary to say here, consisted of my partner, his two parents, a maiden aunt, and a sister. Mr Hullock, a good and worthy little man, who had not had all the advantages of education which his son possessed, was a retired coal merchant, spending the afternoon of his days at Saint Leonards.
His wife, as kind and motherly as she was tall and portly, treated me like her own son from the moment I entered her house.
And with her to look after me, and Alice to fall in love with, and Harry to collaborate with, I was about as comfortable as a restless genius could be—that is, I should have been so had it not been for the damp and frigid influence of Aunt Sarah, who sympathised neither with genius nor youth, and certainly not with the two in combination. Twenty times a day she grieved me by calling me “silly little boy,” and twenty times a day she exasperated me by reminding Harry, and, through him, me, that “little boys should be seen and not heard.”
However, we decided to ignore this uncongenial influence, and bury our sorrows in “Our Novel.”
“Tell you what,” said Harry, as we walked on the pier the first evening, “we ought to look sharp and get our plot.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to settle on the characters and get the plot afterwards?”
“All serene!” said Harry; “can you suggest any one for a hero?”
Harry said this in a half significant, half off-hand manner, which made it evident to me he expected I should at once nominate him.
But, in my judgment, Harry hardly possessed all the qualifications necessary for the hero of our novel. So I replied, half significantly, half off-handedly too—
“Hadn’tyoubetter think of some one?”
Here we were in a fix at the very start. For Harry insisted he would much rather that I should select, and I was equally anxious for him to do it.
At length we compromised the matter and decided we should make the hero a mixture of two fellows—the fellow Harry liked best and the fellow I liked best.
After this amicable arrangement it was comparatively clear sailing. We had not to look far for the heroine, and it occurred to both of us that it would be original as well as pleasant to make the villain a female and middle-aged. As for minor characters, we were able to draw on our acquaintance at Denhamby to supply them, and, failing that, Harry was magnanimous enough to offer his father and mother as “not bad for some of the side plots.”
We had got our characters. That one walk on the pier settled them all. We also stopped a bit to watch the people, we entered into conversation with a sailor (who turned out to be deaf), and insinuated ourselves into the front of a street row, all with a view to reproducing our observations on life into “Our Novel.”
The street row indeed furnished an inspiration for our plot. It was the arrest of a make-believe Italian female organ-grinder, whose offence appeared to be that she was carrying about in a cradle attached to the organ an infant that did not belong to her. And as the infant brought her in much more money than her music did, she protested in very strong English against having it removed.
With the quickness of genius we saw in this incident the pivot on which our novel should be made to turn.
The baby was the heroine, the organ-grinder the villain who had stolen her from her high-born station in life. Two of the characters fitted at a blow! We had even got the high-born parents ready if required, and when sixteen years later the little truant was to discover her noble station, we had our hero ready to take her home!
Between the pier-gate and Warrior Square we had the whole story worked out.
“What has kept you little boys out so late?” asked a voice as we entered Mr Hullock’s hall. “It’s not right. You should have been in bed by eight.”
It was Aunt Sarah! and we secretly condemned her on the spot to a public execution in our last chapter.
As we undressed that evening another point was cleared up.
“We can’t keep the hero hanging about sixteen years before we bring him in,” said Harry.
“Humph,” I observed, “unless we said ‘sixteen years passed’ at the end of the first chapter, and then we might get him in in the second.”
“It strikes me,” said Harry dubiously, “he ought to be in it all through. What do you say to making him another stolen baby belonging to another organ? Just as likely to have two stolen as one.”
It did occur to me that if it came to that, all the characters in the story might begin life in this romantic way. However, there seemed no objection to starting the hero in an organ-grinder’s cradle, and we closed with the suggestion at once and got into bed.
I woke very early. I had the hero on my mind. I wanted him to be a good one after the best model, and I could not help thinking that the Harry in him ought not to be overdone. Besides, if he was to make himself pleasant to the heroine, the less he was like Harry and the more he was like Harry’s chief friend the better. For sisters in fiction never make much of their brothers, but they often make a lot of their brothers’ friends.
I nudged Harry with my elbow, in order to represent the case to him from this point of view. I did it delicately and in a most conciliatory manner.
“I was thinking, old man, as Alice is the heroine and you’re her brother, I might—don’t you know—perhaps you’d like if—well, what I mean to say is, perhaps I’d better do the gush, when it comes to that.”
Happily Harry was scarcely awake, and did not take in all my meaning.
“All serene,” said he, “we’ll have as little of that as we can.”
“I mean I think you’d do the parts about the villain and that sort of thing better—don’t you?”
But as Harry was asleep again I had to take silence for consent.
The day that followed was an anxious one. It is easy enough to get your characters, but it is awful having to fix their names. And it is simple work getting a plot, compared with the agony of dividing it up into forty chapters!
This was the task before us to-day, and we retired as before to the pier-head with pencils and paper, in order to do it beyond the sound of Aunt Sarah’s voice.
We endured agonies over the names. The hero’s name should naturally have been a judicious combination of the names of the two fellows we had in our minds’ eyes. But neither “Sydrey Sproutock” nor “Hardney Hulltels” exactly pleased us. Finally we decided to call him Henry Sydney, and, strange to say, it occurred to me it would be best as a rule to speak of him by his surname, while Harry was equally strong about calling him by his Christian name. At last we agreed that when we, the authors, spoke of him it should be as Sydney, and that when the heroine or any one else mentioned his name it should be as Henry—Harry explaining that “as they’re to be kids together there won’t be anything strange in her calling him by his Christian name.” The heroine, after much searching of heart, we christened Alicia Dearlove, and the villain Sarah Vixen.
The other names we made up from a local directory which we were lucky enough to stumble across in the pavilion.
Then came the formidable work of slicing up our novel into forty pieces. We wrote the figures down the side of a long sheet of paper, and looked with something like dismay at the work we had set before us.
“Seems a lot of chapters,” said Harry; “couldn’t we make it thirty?”
“Wouldn’t run to six shillings if we did,” said I.
That settled it, and we set ourselves to fill up the blanks.
“Chapter the First,” wrote I. “Theft of Alicia—Sorrow of her Parents—The Organ-grinder’s Lodgings—Suspicions of the Police—The Hero in the Room underneath.”
“Hold hard!” cried Harry; “that’s too much for one chapter. We shall have to make that do for four of ’em, or else we shall run out in ten.”
“How on earth can you make four chapters of that?” said I.
“Well, you can make ‘Theft of Alicia’ spin out into one.”
“Oh, ah! Why, all there is to say is that Aunt Sarah—I mean Mother Vixen—came across her in the square and collared her. However are you to make a dozen pages of that?”
“Oh,” said Harry, “we shall have to make her call at public-houses on the way, and that sort of thing, and describe the scenery in the square, and have the nursemaid go off to see the militia band go by, and leave the baby on the seat. Bless you, it’ll spread out!”
Harry seemed to know all about it.
So we went, on with our skeleton, trotting our little foundling round town on the organ, where she witnessed with infant eyes street rows, cricket matches, bicycle races, a murder or two, and such other little incidents of life which we deemed calculated to enliven our story.
About the twelfth chapter she and our hero had already exchanged tender passages.
In the twentieth chapter her real father and mother happen to see her in the street (she being then sixteen), and are immediately struck by her resemblance to their lost baby.
By chapter twenty-five our hero had saved the lives of his future mother and father-in-law, and had rescued the heroine, single-handed, from a Hatton Garden mob.
In the twenty-ninth chapter Aunt Sarah had committed her murder with every circumstance of brutality and unpleasantness, the victim being one of our schoolfellows whom we neither of us loved.
Then for a chapter or two there was some very active police play, interspersed with a few love scenes between the hero and heroine, who—though it never occurred to us at the time—must have enjoyed independent means, which made it quite unnecessary for them to follow the ordinary avocations of organ-grinders.
About the thirty-fifth chapter there was to be a sudden drawing-in of threads from all quarters.
Chapter thirty-sixth was to be devoted to Sarah in the condemned cell.
Thirty-seventh—Alicia discovers her name by seeing it marked on a pocket-handkerchief she had been using at the time she was stolen.
Chapter thirty-eighth—The hero discovers his name by being told it by a solicitor who has known all about it all the time.
Chapter thirty-ninth—All comes right; everybody goes back to their mothers and fathers, and a quiet wedding ensues.
Chapter forty—Execution of Sarah. Finis.
We were tired and hungry by the time our paper was full, but we were jubilant all the same.
“Stunning fine plot!” said Harry. “If we only work it out it ought to be as good asNicholas Nickleby.”
“Rather! By the way, we ought to have one or two funny chaps in it to work off some of our jokes. There’s that one about the sculptor dying a horrid death, you know—because he makes faces and busts! I’d like to get that in somehow.”
“All serene! That might come in in the last chapters. I’ve got theFamily Jest-Bookat home; we might pick a few things out of that, and then settle where they come in, and work in for them as we go on.”
We accordingly made a judicious selection, and having marked the initials of the character who was to bring them in against each, and also the number of the chapter in which they were to “come on,” we really felt as if everything was now ready for our venture.
We went to bed early, so as to get a good night and arise fresh to our work, not, however, before we had made an expedition to the stationer’s and expended half a crown in manuscript paper, J and D pens, blotting-paper, blue-black ink, and forty small paper-fasteners.
These provided, and the servant being particularly charged to call us at five o’clock, we retired to rest, and slept with our “skeleton” under the pillow.
A grave question arose the moment we opened our eyes next morning. Who was to write the first chapter? A great deal depended on how it was done. The style of the first chapter would give tone to the whole novel, and, so to speak, show the way for all the other chapters.
“I thought,” said Harry, in his suspicious off-hand way, “if you took the even numbers and I took the odd, that might do.”
Might it? That would mean he would write Chapter One. I wanted to write Chapter One. On the other hand, it would mean I should have Chapter twelve, with the execution in it, which would suit me very well. I mentioned the fact, and could see that Harry had forgotten it, for he tried hard to back out of his arrangement.
“I think you’d do the first chapter best,” said he. “There’s some scenery in it, you know, and you’re more of a dab at that than I am.”
But my modesty preferred the even numbers, and our novel looked very like being water-logged before she had even been launched.
A compromise was, however, arrived at. As the question of style was very important, it was decided we shouldbothwrite Chapter One, and then, after comparing the two attempts, arrange our further procedure accordingly.
So I with a J pen, and Harry with a D retired to opposite corners of the room and plunged headlong into the “Theft of Alicia.” It was a hard morning’s work, and by the time the breakfast-bell rang we were both getting the steam up. The sight of Aunt Sarah brooding over the tea-tray had but one meaning for us, and Sister Alice’s pretty face and soft voice spoke to me only of that baby I had left in my chapter lying on the seat in the square.
“Now, little boys, are you going to play on the beach to-day?” said the villain, as the meal concluded.
“No, aunt,” said Harry. “Syd and I have got some work we are doing.”
“What work?” demanded Aunt Sarah.
“English composition,” said Harry boldly.
And under cover of this truthful announcement we escaped.
It was midday before I laid down my pen and gathered my scattered sheets together. Harry had been done before me, but he had only written eleven sheets, so our pace was about equal.
“Done?” said he, as I sat back in my chair.
“Yes; lock the door,” said I.
I must beg the reader’s pardon if I do not lay before them the whole of the two lucubrations. They must be content with a few impartially chosen selections.
My chapter began with a poetical description of London in early morning.
“London in the morning! What a scene! The whistle of the workmen’s trains sounds, and the noise of vegetable carts going to Covent Garden Market, give the place an animated appearance. Very few people are awake, and those that are look sleepy.
“In such a scene as this a hideous-looking woman, about fifty years old, with a long nose and a shabby barrel-organ, wended her way from some of the slums near Farringdon Street Station in the direction of Euston Square.
“It was not a very pretty walk. There were no birds twittering in the trees, or cuckoos. You could not hear the gentle roar of the ocean, and what flowers there were, were in pots on the window-sills.
“The ugly woman chose the road where there were most public-houses, and I am sorry to say that any one who had walked close beside her would have heard her talking to herself in very bad language.”
Here followed the description of a few of the public-houses and their natural beauties, and my narrative proceeded—
“In this way the wicked woman reached Euston Square. She was greatly intoxicated, and not able to play the tunes on her organ correctly. Nobody gave her anything, which was not surprising, and the police moved her on all round the square.
“At last it was plain she would have to do something to get some money.
“After thinking over all the different things, she thought she would steal a baby and get money that way. So, seeing a baby lying on a seat close by, whose nurse had gone off to see a militia band marching towards Gower Street, she stole it and went off as fast as she could.
“There was a cradle hanging on to the organ, and when people saw the baby in it the wicked woman got as much money as she liked.
“My reader will have guessed by this time that the baby, which was of the feminine gender, is the heroine.
“She was really high-born.
“Her father was a retired coal merchant. He was a very little man and dropped his h’s.
“Her mother was what the vulgar would call a ‘whopper.’ Let not the reader think she whopped her baby or her husband. On the contrary, she was kind, but big.
“They lived at Highbury, and the nurse always took the baby out for walks before breakfast.”
It was at this point that it had suddenly flashed across me that I had left out the joke allotted to Chapter One, and as the narrative was well advanced, I ought to work up for it without delay. So I proceeded.
“We left Alicia, for that was the name of our heroine, being wheeled back on the organ to Hatton Garden. It was an unpleasant journey. The bad woman called at a lot more public-houses, and left Alicia and the organ outside in the rain.
“It was a wonder Alicia was not stolen again. She began to cry. People who came by couldn’t make out what it was, for she was hidden under the quilt, and some thought instead of an organ it must have been some strange animal.
“An organ that cried like a child would be a very queer animal, nearly as queer as an author whose tale comes out of his head; and some of the people said so.”
I was hot and tired by the time I had worked off this piece of humour, and began to wish I saw my way to the end of my twelve sheets. Two more I occupied with a picture of the organ-grinder’s quarters in Hatton Garden, and concluded with the following poetical passage:—
“Little thought the wicked Vixen as she huddled her stolen infant into a damp corner of the filthy room, how much would happen before Alicia and her poor parents next met.
“We know very little of what is going to happen, and perhaps it is a good job. At any rate it was a good job for Alicia as she lay fast asleep.
“The world is all before the little baby—It doesn’t know what’s all in store for it—If it did know, it seems to me that maybe it wouldn’t like the prospect—not a bit.
“End of Chapter One.”
Harry looked a little uncomfortable as I finished reading my chapter aloud. I concluded he felt rather out of it, and I was not surprised. For on the whole it read well, and in some respects I flattered myself it had rather a pull onNicholas Nickleby.
Harry wisely reserved his criticisms until he had read his own chapter, which I awaited with a smile of brotherly resignation.
“You know,” explained he, before he began, “I tried to get more incident than you, that’s why I left out the scenery.”
Aha! my scenery had fetched him, then! I wondered what his incident would be like.
“Fire away!” said I.
“Her name was Sarah Vixen—(I’m beginning now)—Her name was Sarah Vixen. She was a horrid old maid. One morning she went and played her organ in Euston Square. She played ‘Wait till the clouds roll by,’ and ‘Sweethearts’ waltz’, and the ‘Marseillaise,’ one after the other, after which she paused and watched a tennis match which was going on in the square.
“It was a four-handed match between two rather good-looking boys who wore red and green ribbons on their straws—(those were the Denhamby colours)—and two big London fellows. The schoolboys won the toss, and the fair one served first. He put in a very hot service just over the net, which broke sharp as it fell, and bothered the Londoners completely. The dark hand-in played close up to the net, and was very neat in the way he picked up balls and smashed them over.”
Harry paused and looked doubtfully at me for a moment, and then went on.
“The schoolboys pulled off the first three games, and then the Londoners scored a game, owing to the wind. A large crowd collected to see the match, and shouts of ‘Well put over!’ greeted the schoolboys on every hand. The Londoners didn’t score another game in the first set, and scored nothing in the second.
“The crowd became thicker and thicker every moment. In the last game the fair schoolboy spun a ball into the far left-hand corner, which the Londoner could not reach, and the match ended in a glorious victory for the two schoolboys, who, apparently unaware of the cheers of the crowd, walked home arm-in-arm as if nothing had happened.
“On their way they met a runaway horse, and loud cries of ‘Take care!’ ‘Get out of the way!’ met them on all sides. A nursemaid was wheeling a child across the road at that moment, and quick as thought the fair boy sprang at the horse and brought him to a standstill just in time. The crowd seeing it, rushed with a great cheer to the young hero, but he seeing it, took his friend’s arm and walked on as if nothing had happened.
“‘What are you so pale for?’ asked his friend.
“‘Oh, nothing very much. I have broken my arm; but it really doesn’t matter much.’
“While he spoke he fainted, and if it had not been for his friend, might have fallen.
“Meanwhile the baby, left to herself in the perambulator in the middle of the road, began to cry, which attracted the notice of Vixen, who, seeing she was a nice child, went and lifted her out of her perambulator, and put her in her cradle on her organ while nobody was looking, and took her to her home.”
“‘Whose home?’ I asked.
Harry did not condescend to notice this interruption. He may have guessed I was jealous. All that about the heroic fair boy had been taking an unfair advantage of me, and I think he knew it. For I was of a dark complexion! His narrative went on to describe a fight in the organ-grinder’s lodgings, and a burglary, followed by a fire at the residence of the parents of the lost child. As a matter of course, the fair boy with his broken arm turned up on the fire-engine, and brought most of the family down the escape with his sound arm. Then by a sudden transition the scene changed back to the organ-grinder’s “cottage,” on the ground floor of which in another cradle slept another infant, a boy, fair, of course, and beautifully made, showing great promise of physical force and heroism of disposition.
“He was older than Alicia, and could speak a little. There was no one in the room, and as he sat up in his cradle he felt very sad. Presently two young organ-grinders came into the room. One was dark and vicious, the other was fair (of course) and had a pleasant expression. They took no notice of the baby, but sat and smoked and asked riddles of one another. The fair one (of course!) was far the cleverer of the two, and caused much laughter by his wit.
“‘Can you tell me,’ said he, in a pleasant silvery voice very unlike an organ-grinder, ‘why an author is a queer animal?’
“‘Give it hup,’ said the vulgar one, who always put his ‘h’s’ wrong.
“‘Because his tale comes out of his head!’
“It was long before the vulgar one saw it, and then he laughed so much that the baby began to cry, and they had to go into the next room for fear of disturbing it. Having left the door open, the fair baby got out of its cradle, and, being old enough to walk, went quietly upstairs, and there what should he see in a cradle in the room above but Alicia! This was the first time the two met. They did not say much, but Cupid’s arrow went through them both from that minute. That’s all,” said Harry.
There was a silence, which at last I broke.
“And which chapter do you think we’d better put in?”
“That’s just what I was going to ask you,” said Harry.
“You see,” said I cautiously, “you’ve got rather a lot about that fair chap in yours, and he’s not in the plot.”
“Oh, he turns out somebody,” said Harry.
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“He’s not the hero, of course?” said I decisively; “he’s to be a mixture of both.”
“Oh, of course,” said Harry. “But, I say, don’t you think there’s rather too much about scenery in yours? There’s very little of that inNicholas Nickleby, or poetry either.”
“No; that struck me as one of the weak points ofNicholas Nickleby,” said I.
“I thought it was settled the hero was to be in it from the first?” said Harry, falling back on another line of defence.
“So he is. I shall say in the next chapter that he was in the room underneath all the time,” said I, rather testily.
“Oh, well,” said Harry, “of course if you think yours is the best, you’d better stick it in. I’m out of it, if you’re going in for poetry.”
“You’re not obliged to do any poetry,” said I. “Thanks. I shouldn’t try unless I was sure of writing something that wasn’t doggerel,” said Harry. This was hitting me on a tender point. “Look here,” said I, starting up, “do you mean to tell me I write doggerel?”
“I didn’t say so.”
“You meant it. I’d sooner write doggerel than stuff I’d be ashamed to read in a ‘penny dreadful.’ Call yourself a fair boy!”
Alas for our novel! We spent half an hour that evening in anything but a literary competition.
Aunt Sarah remarked on Harry’s black eye and my one-sided countenance at breakfast next morning, and inquired artlessly ifEnglish compositionhad caused them. We truly answered, “Yes.”
Our friendship was quickly restored; but our poor novel, after that one evening, has never lifted up its head again. We have sometimes vaguely talked of finishing it, but we have been careful to avoid all discussion of details, still less all reference to Chapter One. In fact, we have come to the conclusion that it is better not to startle the world at too early an age. If you do, you are expected to keep it up, and that interferes with your enjoyment of life.
When our Novel does come out, well, we think Conan Doyle, Wells, and those other fellows will sit up.