Chapter Thirty One.

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

Although our hero’s plan of search may seem to some rather Quixotic, there was nothing further from his thoughts than merely playing at the game of amateur detective. Being enthusiastic and sanguine, besides being spurred on by an intense desire to rescue the father of May Leather, Charlie Brooke was thoroughly in earnest in his plan. He knew that it would be useless to attempt such a search and rescue in any other capacity than that of a genuine pauper, at least in appearance and action. He therefore resolved to conduct the search in character, and to plunge at once into the deepest pools of the slums.

It is not our intention to carry the reader through the Arabian-night-like adventures which he experienced in his quest. Suffice it to say that he did not find the lost man in the pools in which he fished for him, but he ultimately, after many weeks, found one who led him to the goal he aimed at.

Meanwhile there were revealed to him numerous phases of life—or, rather, of living death—in the slums of the great city which caused him many a heartache at the time, and led him ever afterwards to consider with anxious pity the condition of the poor, the so-called lost and lapsed, the depraved, degraded, and unfortunate. Of course he found—as so many had found before him—that the demon Drink was at the bottom of most of the misery he witnessed, but he also learned that whereas many weak and vicious natures dated the commencement of their final descent and fall from the time when they began to drink, many of the strong and ferocious spirits had begun a life of wickedness in early youth, and only added drink in after years as a little additional fuel to the already roaring flame of sin.

It is well known that men of all stamps and creeds and classes are to be found in the low lodging-houses of all great cities. At first Charlie did not take note of this, being too earnestly engaged in the search for his friend, and anxious to avoid drawing attention on himself; but as he grew familiar with these scenes of misery and destitution he gradually began to be interested in the affairs of other people, and, as he was eminently sympathetic, he became the confidant of several paupers, young and old. A few tried to draw him out, but he quietly checked their curiosity without giving offence.

It may be remarked here that he at once dropped the style of talk which he had adopted when representing Jem Mace, because he found so many in the lodging-houses who had fallen from a good position in society that grammatical language was by no means singular. His size and strength also saved him from much annoyance, for the roughs, who might otherwise have bullied him, felt that it would be wise to leave him alone.

On one occasion, however, his pacific principles were severely tested as well as his manhood, and as this led to important results we must recount the incident.

There was a little lame, elderly man, who was a habitual visitor at one of the houses which our hero frequented. He was a humorous character, who made light of his troubles, and was a general favourite. Charlie had felt interested in the man, and in ordinary circumstances would have inquired into his history, but, as we have said, he laid some restraint on his natural tendency to inquire and sympathise. As it was, however, he showed his goodwill by many little acts of kindness—such as making way for Zook—so he was called—when he wanted to get to the general fire to boil his tea or coffee; giving him a portion of his own food on the half pretence that he had eaten as much as he wanted, etcetera.

There was anotherhabituéof the same lodging, named Stoker, whose temperament was the very opposite to that of little Zook. He was a huge, burly dock labourer; an ex-prize-fighter and a disturber of the peace wherever he went. Between Stoker and Zook there was nothing in common save their poverty, and the former had taken a strong dislike to the latter, presumably on the ground of Zook’s superiority in everything except bulk of frame. Charlie had come into slight collision with Stoker on Zook’s account more than once, and had tried to make peace between them, but Stoker was essentially a bully; he would listen to no advice, and had more than once told the would-be peacemaker to mind his own business.

One evening, towards the close of our hero’s search among the lodging-houses, little Zook entered the kitchen of the establishment, tea-pot and penny loaf in hand. He hastened towards the roaring fire that might have roasted a whole sheep, and which served to warm the entire basement storey, or kitchen, of the tenement.

“Here, Zook,” said Charlie, as the former passed the table at which he was seated taking his supper, “I’ve bought more than I can eat, as usual! I’ve got two red-herrings and can eat only one. Will you help me?”

“It’s all fish that comes to my net, Charlie,” said the little man, skipping towards his friend, and accepting the herring with a grateful but exaggerated bow.

We omitted to say that our hero passed among the paupers by his Christian name, which he had given as being, from its very universality, the best possiblealias.

A few minutes later Stoker entered and went to the fire, where loud, angry voices soon told that the bully was at his old game of peace-disturber. Presently a cry of “shame” was heard, and poor Zook was seen lying on the floor with his nose bleeding.

“Who cried shame?” demanded the bully, looking fiercely round.

“Idid not,” said Charlie Brooke, striding towards him, “for I did not know it was you who knocked him down, but Idocry shame on you now, for striking a man so much smaller than yourself, and without provocation, I warrant.”

“An’ pray who areyou?” returned Stoker, in a tone that was meant to be witheringly sarcastic.

“I am one who likes fair play,” said Charlie, restraining his anger, for he was still anxious to throw oil on the troubled waters, “and if you call it fair play for a heavy-weight like you to attack such a light-weight as Zook, you must have forgotten somehow that you are an Englishman. Come, now, Stoker, say to Zook you are sorry and won’t worry him any more, and I’m sure he’ll forgive you!”

“Hear! hear!” cried several of the on-lookers.

“Perhaps Imayforgive ’im,” said Zook, with a humorous leer, as he wiped his bleeding nose— “I’d do a’most anything to please Charlie!”

This was received with a general laugh, but Stoker did not laugh; he turned on our hero with a look of mingled pity and contempt.

“No, Mister Charlie,” he said, “I won’t say I’m sorry, because I’d tell a big lie if I did, and I’ll worry him just as much as I please. But I’ll tell ’e what I’ll do. If you show yourself as ready wi’ your bunches o’ fives as you are wi’ yer tongue, and agree to fight me, I’ll say to Zook that I’m sorry and won’t worry ’im any more.”

There was dead silence for a minute after the delivery of this challenge, and much curiosity was exhibited as to how it would be taken. Charlie cast down his eyes in perplexity. Like many big and strong men he was averse to use his superior physical powers in fighting. Besides this, he had been trained by his mother to regard it as more noble to suffer than to avenge insults, and there is no doubt that if the bully’s insult had affected only himself he would have avoided him, if possible, rather than come into conflict. Having been trained, also, to let Scripture furnish him with rules for action, his mind irresistibly recalled the turning of the “other cheek” to the smiter, but the fact that he was at that moment acting in defence of another, not of himself, prevented that from relieving him. Suddenly—like the lightning flash—there arose to him the words, “Smite a scorner and the simple will beware!” Indeed, all that we have mentioned, and much more, passed through his troubled brain with the speed of light. Lifting his eyes calmly to the face of his opponent he said— “I accept your challenge.”

“No, no, Charlie!” cried the alarmed Zook, in a remonstrative tone, “you’ll do nothing of the sort. The man’s a old prize-fighter! You haven’t a chance. Why, I’ll fight him myself rather than let you do it.”

And with that the little man began to square up and twirl his fists and skip about in front of the bully in spite of his lameness—but took good care to keep well out of his reach.

“It’s a bargain, then,” said Charlie, holding out his hand.

“Done!” answered the bully, grasping it.

“Well, then, the sooner we settle this business the better,” continued Charlie. “Where shall it come off?”

“Prize-fightin’s agin the law,” suggested an old pauper, who seemed to fear they were about to set to in the kitchen.

“So it is, old man,” said Charlie, “and I would be the last to engage in such a thing, but this is not a prize-fight, for there’s no prize. It’s simply a fight in defence of weakness against brute strength and tyranny.”

There were only a few of the usual inhabitants of the kitchen present at the time, for it was yet early in the evening. This was lucky, as it permitted of the fight being gone about quietly.

In the upper part of the building there was an empty room of considerable size which had been used as a furniture store, and happened at that time to have been cleared out, with the view of adding it to the lodging. There, it was arranged, the event should come off, and to this apartment proceeded all the inhabitants of the kitchen who were interested in the matter. A good many, however, remained behind—some because they did not like fights, some because they did not believe that the parties were in earnest, others because they were too much taken up with and oppressed by their own sorrows, and a few because, being what is called fuddled, they did not understand or care anything about the matter at all. Thus it came to pass that all the proceedings were quiet and orderly, and there was no fear of interruption by the police.

Arrived at the scene of action, a ring was formed by the spectators standing round the walls, which they did in a single row, for there was plenty of room. Then Stoker strode into the middle of the room, pulled off his coat, vest, and shirt, which he flung into a corner, and stood up, stripped to the waist, like a genuine performer in the ring. Charlie also threw off coat and vest, but retained his shirt—an old striped cotton one in harmony with his other garments.

“I’m not a professional,” he said, as he stepped forward; “you’ve no objection, I suppose, to my keeping on my shirt?”

“None whatever,” replied Stoker, with a patronising air; “p’r’aps it may be as well for fear you should kitch cold.”

Charlie smiled, and held out his hand— “You see,” he said, “that at least I understand the civilities of the ring.”

There was an approving laugh at this as the champions shook hands and stood on guard.

“I am quite willing even yet,” said Charlie, while in this attitude, “to settle this matter without fighting if you’ll only agree to leave Zook alone in future.”

This was a clear showing of the white feather in the opinion of Stoker, who replied with a thundering, “No!” and at the same moment made a savage blow at Charlie’s face.

Our hero was prepared for it. He put his head quickly to one side, let the blow pass, and with his left hand lightly tapped the bridge of his opponent’s nose.

“Hah! a hammytoor!” exclaimed the ex-pugilist in some surprise.

Charlie said nothing, but replied with the grim smile with which in school-days he had been wont to indicate that he meant mischief. The smile passed quickly, however, for even at that moment he would gladly have hailed a truce, so deeply did he feel what he conceived to be the degradation of his position—a feeling which neither his disreputable appearance nor his miserable associates had yet been able to produce.

But nothing was further from the intention of Stoker than a truce. Savages usually attribute forbearance to cowardice. War to the knife was in his heart, and he rushed at Charlie with a shower of slogging blows, which were meant to end the fight at once. But they failed to do so. Our hero nimbly evaded the blows, acting entirely on the defensive, and when Stoker at length paused, panting, the hammytoor was standing before him quite cool, and with the grim look intensified.

“If youwillhave it—takeit!” he exclaimed, and shot forth a blow which one of the juvenile bystanders described as a “stinger on the beak!”

The owner of the beak felt it so keenly, that he lost temper and made another savage assault, which was met in much the same way, with this difference, that his opponent delivered several more stingers on the unfortunate beak, which after that would have been more correctly described as a bulb.

Again the ex-pugilist paused for breath, and again the “hammytoor” stood up before him, smiling more grimly than ever—panting a little, it is true, but quite unscathed about the face, for he had guarded it with great care although he had received some rather severe body blows.

Seeing this, Stoker descended to mean practices, and in his next assault attempted, and with partial success, to hit below the belt. This roused a spirit of indignation in Charlie, which gave strength to his arm and vigour to his action. The next time Stoker paused for breath, Charlie—as the juvenile bystander remarked—“went for him,” planted a blow under each eye, a third on his forehead, and a fourth on his chest with such astounding rapidity and force that the man was driven up against the wall with a crash that shook the whole edifice.

Stoker dropped and remained still. There were no seconds, no sponges or calling of time at that encounter. It was altogether an informal episode, and when Charlie saw his antagonist drop, he kneeled down beside him with a feeling of anxiety lest he had killed him.

“My poor man,” he said, “are you much hurt?”

“Oh! you’ve no need to fear for me,” said Stoker recovering himself a little, and sitting up—“but I throw up the sponge. Stoker’s day is over w’en ’e’s knocked out o’ time by a hammytoor, and Zook is free to bile ’is pot unmorlested in futur’.”

“Come, it was worth a fight to bring you to that state of mind, my man,” said Charlie, laughing. “Here, two of you, help to take him down and wash the blood off him; and I say, youngster,” he added, pulling out his purse and handing a sovereign to the juvenile bystander already mentioned, “go out and buy sausages for the whole company.”

The boy stared at the coin in his hand in mute surprise, while the rest of the ring looked at each other with various expressions, for Charlie, in the rebound of feeling caused by his opponent’s sudden recovery and submission, had totally forgotten hisrôleand was ordering the people about like one accustomed to command.

As part of the orders were of such a satisfactory nature, the people did not object, and, to the everlasting honour of the juvenile bystander who resisted the temptation to bolt with the gold, a splendid supper of pork sausages was smoking on the various tables of the kitchen of that establishment in less than an hour thereafter.

When the late hours of night had arrived, and most of the paupers were asleep in their poor beds, dreaming, perchance, of “better days” when pork-sausages were not so tremendous a treat, little Zook went to the table at which Charlie sat. He was staring at a newspaper, but in reality was thinking about his vain search, and beginning, if truth must be told, to feel discouraged.

“Charlie,” said Zook, sitting down beside his champion, “or p’r’aps I should sayMisterCharlie, the game’s up wi’ you, whatever it was.”

“What d’you mean, Zook?”

“Well, I just mean that it’s o’ no manner o’ use your tryin’ to sail any longer under false colours in this here establishment.”

“I must still ask you to explain yourself,” said Charlie, with a puzzled look.

“Well, you know,” continued the little man, with a deprecatory glance, “w’en a man in ragged clo’se orders people here about as if ’e was the commander-in-chief o’ the British Army, an’ flings yellow boys about as if ’e was chancellor o’ the checkers, an orders sassengers offhand for all ’ands, ’emaybe a gentleman—wery likely ’e is,—but ’e ain’t a redooced one, such as slopes into lodgin’-’ouse kitchens. W’atever little game may ’ave brought you ’ere, sir, it ain’t poverty—an’ nobody will be fool enough inthis’ouse to believe it is.”

“You are right, Zook. I’m sorry I forgot myself,” returned Charlie, with a sigh. “After all, it does not matter much, for I fear my little game—as you call it—was nearly played out, and it does not seem as if I were going to win.”

Charlie clasped his hands on the table before him, and looked at the newspaper somewhat disconsolately.

“It’s bin all along o’ takin’ up my cause,” said the little man, with something like a whimper in his voice. “You’ve bin wery kind to me, sir, an’ I’d give a lot, if I ’ad it, an’ would go a long way if I wasn’t lame, to ’elp you.”

Charlie looked steadily in the honest, pale, careworn face of his companion for a few seconds without speaking. Poverty, it is said, brings together strange bed-fellows. Not less, perhaps, does it lead to unlikely confidants. Under a sudden impulse our hero revealed to poor Zook the cause of his being there—concealing nothing except names.

“You’ll ’scuse me, sir,” said the little man, after the narrative was finished, “but I think you’ve gone on summat of a wild-goose chase, for your man may never have come so low as to seek shelter in sitch places.”

“Possibly, Zook; but he was penniless, and this, or the work-house, seemed to me the natural place to look for him in.”

“’Ave you bin to the work-’ouses, sir?”

“Yes—at least to all in this neighbourhood.”

“What! in that toggery?” asked the little man, with a grin.

“Not exactly, Zook, I can change my shell like the hermit crabs.”

“Well, sir, it’s my opinion that you may go on till doomsday on this scent an’ find nuthin’; but there’s a old ’ooman as I knows on that might be able to ’elp you. Mind I don’t say she could, but shemight. Moreover, if she can she will.”

“How?” asked Charlie, somewhat amused by the earnestness of his little friend.

“Why, this way. She’s a good old soul who lost ’er ’usband an’ ’er son—if I ain’t mistaken—through drink, an’ ever since, she ’as devoted ’erself body an’ soul to save men an’ women from drink. She attends temperance meetin’s an’ takes people there—a’most drags ’em in by the scruff o’ the neck. She keeps ’er eyes open, like a weasel, an’ w’enever she sees a chance o’ what she calls pluckin’ a brand out o’ the fire, she plucks it, without much regard to burnin’ ’er fingers. Sometimes she gits one an’ another to submit to her treatment, an’ then she locks ’em up in ’er ’ouse—though it ain’t a big un—an’ treats ’em, as she calls it. She’s got one there now, it’s my belief, though w’ether it’s a he or a she I can’t tell. Now, she may ’ave seen your friend goin’ about—if ’e stayed long in Whitechapel.”

“It may be so,” returned our hero wearily, for he was beginning to lose heart, and the prospect opened up to him by Zook did not on the first blush of it seem very brilliant. “When could I see this old woman?”

“First thing to-morror arter breakfast, sir.”

“Very well; then you’ll come and breakfast with me at eight?”

“I will, sir, with all the pleasure in life. In this ’ere ’ouse, sir, or in a resterang?”

“Neither. In my lodgings, Zook.”

Having given his address to the little man, Charlie bade him good-night and retired to his pauper-bed for the last time.

Chapter Thirty Two.Success and Future Plans.Punctual to the minute Zook presented himself to Mrs Butt next morning and demanded audience.Mrs Butt had been forewarned of the impending visit, and, although she confessed to some uncomfortable feelings in respect of infection and dirt, received him with a gracious air.“You’ve come to breakfast, I understand?”“Well, I believe I ’ave,” answered the little man, with an involuntary glance at his dilapidated clothes; “’avin’ been inwited—unless,” he added, somewhat doubtfully, “the inwite came in a dream.”“You may go in and clear up that point for yourself,” said the landlady, as she ushered the poor man into the parlour, where he was almost startled to find an amiable gentleman waiting to receive him.“Come along, Zook, I like punctuality. Are you hungry?”“’Ungry as a ’awk, sir,” replied Zook, glancing at the table and rubbing his hands, for there entered his nostrils delicious odours, the causes of which very seldom entered his throat. “W’y, sir, Iknow’dyou was a gent, from the wery first!”“I have at least entered my native shell,” said Charlie, with a laugh. “Sit down. We’ve no time to waste. Now what’ll you have? Coffee, tea, pork-sausage, ham and egg, buttered toast, hot rolls. Just help yourself, and fancy you’re in the lodging-house at your own table.”“Well, sir, thatwouldbe a stretch o’ fancy that would strain me a’most to the bustin’ p’int. Coffee, if you please. Oh yes, sugar an’ milkin course. I never let slip a chance as I knows on. W’ich bread? well, ’ot rolls is temptin’, but I allers ’ad a weakness for sappy things, so ’ot buttered toast—if you can spare it.”“Spare it, my good man!” said Charlie, laughing. “There’s a whole loaf in the kitchen and pounds of butter when you’ve finished this, not to mention the shops round the corner.”It was a more gratifying treat to Charlie than he had expected, to see this poor man eat to his heart’s content of viands which he so thoroughly appreciated and so rarely enjoyed. What Zook himself felt, it is impossible for well-to-do folk to conceive, or an ordinary pen to describe; but, as he sat there, opposite to his big friend and champion, stowing away the good things with zest and devotion of purpose, it was easy to believe that his watery eyes were charged with the tears of gratitude, as well as with those of a chronic cold to which he was subject.Breakfast over, they started off in quest of the old woman with teetotal proclivities.“How did you come to know her?” asked Charlie, as they went along.“Through a ’ouse in the city as I was connected with afore I got run over an’ lamed. They used to send me with parcels to this old ’ooman. In course I didn’t know for sartin’ w’at was in the parcels, but ’avin’ a nose, you see, an’ bein’ able to smell, I guessed that it was a compound o’ wittles an’ wursted work.”“A strange compound, Zook.”“Well, they wasn’t ’zactly compounded—they was sometimes the one an’ sometimes the other; never mixed to my knowledge.”“What house was it that sent you?”“Withers and Company.”“Indeed!” exclaimed Charlie in surprise. “I know the house well. The head of it is a well-known philanthropist. How came you to leave them? They never would have allowed an old servant to come to your pass—unless, indeed, he was—”“A fool, sir, or wuss,” interrupted Zook; “an’ that’s just what I was. I runned away from ’em, sir, an’ I’ve been ashamed to go back since. But that’s ’ow I come to know old Missis Mag, an’ it’s down ’ere she lives.”They turned into a narrow passage which led to a small court at the back of a mass of miserable buildings, and here they found the residence of the old woman.“By the way, Zook, what’s her name?” asked Charlie.“Mrs Mag Samson.”“Somehow the name sounds familiar to me,” said Charlie, as he knocked at the door.A very small girl opened it and admitted that her missis was at ’ome; whereupon our hero turned to his companion.“I’ll manage her best without company, Zook,” he said; “so you be off; and see that you come to my lodging to-night at six to hear the result of my interview and have tea.”“I will, sir.”“And here, Zook, put that in your pocket, and take a good dinner.”“I will, sir.”“And—hallo! Zook, come here. Not a word about all this in the lodging-house;—stay, now I think of it, don’t go to the lodging-house at all. Go to a casual ward where they’ll make you take a good bath. Be sure you give yourself a good scrub. D’ye hear?”“Yes, sir.” He walked away murmuring, “More ’am and hegg an’ buttered toast to-night! Zook, you’re in luck to-day—in clover, my boy! in clover!”Meanwhile, Charlie Brooke found himself in the presence of a bright-eyed little old woman, who bade him welcome with the native grace of one who is a born, though not a social, lady, and beautified by Christianity. Her visitor went at once straight to the point.“Forgive my intrusion, Mrs Samson,” he said, taking the chair to which the old woman pointed, “but, indeed, I feel assured that you will, when I state that the object of my visit is to ask you to aid in the rescue of a friend from drink.”“No man intrudes on me who comes on such an errand; but how does it happen, sir, that you thinkIam able to aid you?”To this Charlie replied by giving her an account of his meeting and conversation with Zook, and followed that up with a full explanation of his recent efforts and a graphic description of Isaac Leather.The old woman listened attentively, and, as her visitor proceeded, with increasing interest not unmingled with surprise and amusement.When he had concluded, Mrs Samson rose, and, opening a door leading to another room, held up her finger to impose silence, and softly bade him look in.He did so. The room was a very small one, scantily furnished, with a low truckle-bed in one corner, and there, on the bed, lay the object of his quest—Isaac Leather! Charlie had just time to see that the thin pale face was not that of a dead, but of a sleeping, man when the old woman gently pulled him back and re-closed the door.“That’s your man, I think.”“Yes, that’s the man—I thank God for this most astonishing and unlooked-for success.”“Ah! sir,” returned the woman, sitting down again, “most of our successes are unlooked for, and, when they do come, we are not too ready to recognise the hand of the Giver.”“Nevertheless you must admit that some incidents do seem almost miraculous,” said Charlie. “To have foundyouout in this great city, the very person who had Mr Leather in her keeping, does seem unaccountable, does it not?”“Not so unaccountable as it seems to you,” replied the old woman, “and certainly not so much of a miracle as it would have been if you had found him by searching the lodging-houses. Here is the way that God seems to have brought it about. I have for many years been a pensioner of the house of Withers and Company, by whom I was employed until the senior partner made me a sort of female city-missionary amongst the poor. I devoted myself particularly to the reclaiming of drunkards—having special sympathy with them. A friend of mine, Miss Molloy, also employed by the senior partner in works of charity, happened to be acquainted with Mr Leather and his family. She knew of his failing, and she found out—for she has a strange power, that I never could understand, of inducing people to make a confidant of her,—she found out (what no one else knew, it seems) that poor Mr Leather wished to put himself under some sort of restraint, for he could not resist temptation when it came in his way. Knowing about me, she naturally advised him to put himself in my hands. He objected at first, but agreed at last on condition that none of his people should be told anything about it. I did not like to receive him on such conditions, but gave in because he would come on no other. Well, sir, you came down here because you had information which led you to think Mr Leather had come to this part of the city. You met with a runaway servant of Withers and Company—not very wonderful that. He naturally knows about me and fetches you here. Don’t you see?”“Yes, I see,” replied Charlie, with an amused expression; “still I cannot help looking on the whole affair as very wonderful, and I hope that that does not disqualify me from recognising God’s leading in the matter.”“Nay, young sir,” returned the old woman, “that ought rather to qualify you for such recognition, for are not His ways said to be wonderful—ay, sometimes ‘past finding out’? But what we know not now, we shall know hereafter. I thought that when my poor boy went to sea—”“Mrs Samson!” exclaimed Charlie, with a sudden start, “I see it now! Was your boy’s name Fred?”“It was.”“And he went to sea in theWalrus, that was wrecked in the Southern Ocean!”“Yes,” exclaimed the old woman eagerly.“Then,” said Charlie, drawing a packet from the breast-pocket of his coat, “Fred gave me this for you. I have carried it about me ever since, in the hope that I might find you. I came to London, but found you had left the address written on the packet, and it never occurred to me that the owners of theWalruswould know anything about the mother of one of the men who sailed in her. I have a message also from your son.”The message was delivered, and Charlie was still commenting on it, when the door of the inner room opened and Isaac Leather stood before them.“Charlie Brooke!” he exclaimed, in open-eyed amazement, not unmingled with confusion.“Ay, and a most unexpected meeting on both sides,” said Charlie, advancing and holding out his hand. “I bring you good news, Mr Leather, of your son Shank.”“Do you indeed?” said the broken-down man, eagerly grasping his young friend’s hand. “What have you to tell me? Oh Charlie, you have no idea what terrible thoughts I’ve had about that dear boy since he went off to America! My sin has found me out, Charlie. I’ve often heard that said before, but have never tally believed it till now.”“God sends you a message of mercy, then,” said our hero, who thereupon began to relieve the poor man’s mind by telling him of his son’s welfare and reformation.But we need not linger over this part of the story, for the reader can easily guess a good deal of what was said to Leather, while old Mrs Samson was perusing the letter of her dead son, and tears of mingled sorrow and joy coursed down her withered cheeks.That night however, Charlie Brooke conceived a vast idea, and partially revealed it at the tea-table to Zook—whose real name, by the way, was Jim Smith.“’Ave you found ’er, sir?” said Mrs Butt, putting the invariable, and by that time annoying, question as Charlie entered his lodging.“No, Mrs Butt, I haven’t found’er, and I don’t expect to find’erat all.”“Lawk! sir, I’msosorry.”“Has Mr Zook come?”“Yes, sir ’e’s inside and looks impatient. The smell o’ the toast seems a’most too strong a temptation for ’im; I’m glad you’ve come.”“Look here, Zook,” said Charlie, entering his parlour, “go into that bedroom. You’ll find a bundle of new clothes there. Put them on. Wrap your old clothes in a handkerchief, and bring them to me. Tea will be ready when you are.”The surprised pauper did as he was bid, without remark, and re-entered the parlour a new man!“My own mother, if I ’ad one, wouldn’t know me, sir,” he said, glancing admiringly at his vest.“Jim Smith, Esquire,” returned Charlie, laughing. “I really don’t think she would.”“Zook, sir,” said the little man, with a grave shake of the head; “couldn’t think of changin’ my name at my time of life; let it be Zook, if you please, sir, though in course I’ve no objection to esquire, w’en I ’ave the means to maintain my rank.”“Well, Zook, you have at all events the means to make a good supper, so sit down and go to work, and I’ll talk to you while you eat,—but, stay, hand me the bundle of old clothes.”Charlie opened the window as he spoke, took hold of the bundle, and discharged it into the back yard.“There,” he said, sitting down at the table, “that will prove an object of interest to the cats all night, and a subject of surprise to good Mrs Butt in the morning. Now, Zook,” he added, when his guest was fairly at work taking in cargo, “I want to ask you—have you any objection to emigrate to America?”“Not the smallest,” he said, as well as was possible through a full mouth. “Bein’ a orphling, so to speak, owin’ to my never ’avin’ ’ad a father or mother—as I knows on—there’s nothin’ that chains me to old England ’cept poverty.”“Could you do without drink?”“Sca’sely, sir, seein’ the doctors say that man is about three parts—or four, is it?—made up o’ water; I would be apt to grow mummified without drink, wouldn’t I, sir?”“Come, Zook—you know that I meanstrongdrink—alcohol in all its forms.”“Oh, I see. Well, sir, as to that, I’ve bin in the ’abit of doin’ without it so much of late from needcessity, that I don’t think I’d find much difficulty in knocking it off altogether, if I was to bring principle to bear.”“Well, then,” continued Charlie, ”(have some more ham?) I have just conceived a plan. I have a friend in America who is a reformed drunkard. His father in this country is also, I hope, a reformed drunkard. There is a good man out there, I understand, who has had a great deal to do with reformed drunkards, and he has got up a large body of friends and sympathisers who have determined to go away into the far west and there organise a total abstinence community, and found a village or town where nothing in the shape of alcohol shall be admitted except as physic.“Now, I have a lot of friends in England who, I think, would go in for such an expedition if—”“Aretheyall reformed drunkards, sir?” asked Zook in surprise, arresting a mass of sausage in its course as he asked the question.“By no means,” returned Charlie with a laugh, “but they are earnest souls, and I’m sure will go if I try to persuade them.”“You’re sure to succeed, sir,” said Zook, “if your persuasions is accompanied wi’ sassengers, ’am, an’ buttered toast,” remarked the little man softly, as he came to a pause for a few seconds.“I’ll bring to bear on them all the arguments that are available, you may be sure. Meanwhile I shall count you my first recruit.”“Number 1 it is, sir, w’ich is more than I can say of this here slice,” said Zook, helping himself to more toast.While the poor but happy man was thus pleasantly engaged, his entertainer opened his writing portfolio and began to scribble off note after note, with such rapidity that the amazed pauper at his elbow fairly lost his appetite, and, after a vain attempt to recover it, suggested that it might be as well for him to retire to one of the palatial fourpence-a-night residences in Dean and Flower Street.“Not to-night. You’ve done me a good turn that I shall never forget” said Charlie, rising and ringing the bell with needless vigour.“Be kind enough, Mrs Butt, to show Mr Zook to his bedroom.”“My heye!” murmured the pauper, marching off with two full inches added to his stature. “Not in there, I suppose, missis,” he said facetiously, as he passed the coal-hole.“Oh, lawks! no—this way,” replied the good woman, who was becoming almost imbecile under the eccentricities of her lodger. “This is your bedroom, and I only ’ope it won’t turn into a band-box before morning, for of all the transformations an’ pantimimes as ’as took place in this ’ouse since Mr Brooke entered it, I—”She hesitated, and, not seeing her way quite clearly to the fitting end of the sentence, asked if Mr Zook would ’ave ’ot water in the morning.“No, thank you, Missis,” replied the little man with dignity, while he felt the stubble on his chin; “’avin left my razors at ’ome, I prefers the water cold.”Leaving Zook to his meditations, Mrs Butt retired to bed, remarking, as she extinguished the candle, that Mr Brooke was still “a-writin’ like a ’ouse a fire!”

Punctual to the minute Zook presented himself to Mrs Butt next morning and demanded audience.

Mrs Butt had been forewarned of the impending visit, and, although she confessed to some uncomfortable feelings in respect of infection and dirt, received him with a gracious air.

“You’ve come to breakfast, I understand?”

“Well, I believe I ’ave,” answered the little man, with an involuntary glance at his dilapidated clothes; “’avin’ been inwited—unless,” he added, somewhat doubtfully, “the inwite came in a dream.”

“You may go in and clear up that point for yourself,” said the landlady, as she ushered the poor man into the parlour, where he was almost startled to find an amiable gentleman waiting to receive him.

“Come along, Zook, I like punctuality. Are you hungry?”

“’Ungry as a ’awk, sir,” replied Zook, glancing at the table and rubbing his hands, for there entered his nostrils delicious odours, the causes of which very seldom entered his throat. “W’y, sir, Iknow’dyou was a gent, from the wery first!”

“I have at least entered my native shell,” said Charlie, with a laugh. “Sit down. We’ve no time to waste. Now what’ll you have? Coffee, tea, pork-sausage, ham and egg, buttered toast, hot rolls. Just help yourself, and fancy you’re in the lodging-house at your own table.”

“Well, sir, thatwouldbe a stretch o’ fancy that would strain me a’most to the bustin’ p’int. Coffee, if you please. Oh yes, sugar an’ milkin course. I never let slip a chance as I knows on. W’ich bread? well, ’ot rolls is temptin’, but I allers ’ad a weakness for sappy things, so ’ot buttered toast—if you can spare it.”

“Spare it, my good man!” said Charlie, laughing. “There’s a whole loaf in the kitchen and pounds of butter when you’ve finished this, not to mention the shops round the corner.”

It was a more gratifying treat to Charlie than he had expected, to see this poor man eat to his heart’s content of viands which he so thoroughly appreciated and so rarely enjoyed. What Zook himself felt, it is impossible for well-to-do folk to conceive, or an ordinary pen to describe; but, as he sat there, opposite to his big friend and champion, stowing away the good things with zest and devotion of purpose, it was easy to believe that his watery eyes were charged with the tears of gratitude, as well as with those of a chronic cold to which he was subject.

Breakfast over, they started off in quest of the old woman with teetotal proclivities.

“How did you come to know her?” asked Charlie, as they went along.

“Through a ’ouse in the city as I was connected with afore I got run over an’ lamed. They used to send me with parcels to this old ’ooman. In course I didn’t know for sartin’ w’at was in the parcels, but ’avin’ a nose, you see, an’ bein’ able to smell, I guessed that it was a compound o’ wittles an’ wursted work.”

“A strange compound, Zook.”

“Well, they wasn’t ’zactly compounded—they was sometimes the one an’ sometimes the other; never mixed to my knowledge.”

“What house was it that sent you?”

“Withers and Company.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Charlie in surprise. “I know the house well. The head of it is a well-known philanthropist. How came you to leave them? They never would have allowed an old servant to come to your pass—unless, indeed, he was—”

“A fool, sir, or wuss,” interrupted Zook; “an’ that’s just what I was. I runned away from ’em, sir, an’ I’ve been ashamed to go back since. But that’s ’ow I come to know old Missis Mag, an’ it’s down ’ere she lives.”

They turned into a narrow passage which led to a small court at the back of a mass of miserable buildings, and here they found the residence of the old woman.

“By the way, Zook, what’s her name?” asked Charlie.

“Mrs Mag Samson.”

“Somehow the name sounds familiar to me,” said Charlie, as he knocked at the door.

A very small girl opened it and admitted that her missis was at ’ome; whereupon our hero turned to his companion.

“I’ll manage her best without company, Zook,” he said; “so you be off; and see that you come to my lodging to-night at six to hear the result of my interview and have tea.”

“I will, sir.”

“And here, Zook, put that in your pocket, and take a good dinner.”

“I will, sir.”

“And—hallo! Zook, come here. Not a word about all this in the lodging-house;—stay, now I think of it, don’t go to the lodging-house at all. Go to a casual ward where they’ll make you take a good bath. Be sure you give yourself a good scrub. D’ye hear?”

“Yes, sir.” He walked away murmuring, “More ’am and hegg an’ buttered toast to-night! Zook, you’re in luck to-day—in clover, my boy! in clover!”

Meanwhile, Charlie Brooke found himself in the presence of a bright-eyed little old woman, who bade him welcome with the native grace of one who is a born, though not a social, lady, and beautified by Christianity. Her visitor went at once straight to the point.

“Forgive my intrusion, Mrs Samson,” he said, taking the chair to which the old woman pointed, “but, indeed, I feel assured that you will, when I state that the object of my visit is to ask you to aid in the rescue of a friend from drink.”

“No man intrudes on me who comes on such an errand; but how does it happen, sir, that you thinkIam able to aid you?”

To this Charlie replied by giving her an account of his meeting and conversation with Zook, and followed that up with a full explanation of his recent efforts and a graphic description of Isaac Leather.

The old woman listened attentively, and, as her visitor proceeded, with increasing interest not unmingled with surprise and amusement.

When he had concluded, Mrs Samson rose, and, opening a door leading to another room, held up her finger to impose silence, and softly bade him look in.

He did so. The room was a very small one, scantily furnished, with a low truckle-bed in one corner, and there, on the bed, lay the object of his quest—Isaac Leather! Charlie had just time to see that the thin pale face was not that of a dead, but of a sleeping, man when the old woman gently pulled him back and re-closed the door.

“That’s your man, I think.”

“Yes, that’s the man—I thank God for this most astonishing and unlooked-for success.”

“Ah! sir,” returned the woman, sitting down again, “most of our successes are unlooked for, and, when they do come, we are not too ready to recognise the hand of the Giver.”

“Nevertheless you must admit that some incidents do seem almost miraculous,” said Charlie. “To have foundyouout in this great city, the very person who had Mr Leather in her keeping, does seem unaccountable, does it not?”

“Not so unaccountable as it seems to you,” replied the old woman, “and certainly not so much of a miracle as it would have been if you had found him by searching the lodging-houses. Here is the way that God seems to have brought it about. I have for many years been a pensioner of the house of Withers and Company, by whom I was employed until the senior partner made me a sort of female city-missionary amongst the poor. I devoted myself particularly to the reclaiming of drunkards—having special sympathy with them. A friend of mine, Miss Molloy, also employed by the senior partner in works of charity, happened to be acquainted with Mr Leather and his family. She knew of his failing, and she found out—for she has a strange power, that I never could understand, of inducing people to make a confidant of her,—she found out (what no one else knew, it seems) that poor Mr Leather wished to put himself under some sort of restraint, for he could not resist temptation when it came in his way. Knowing about me, she naturally advised him to put himself in my hands. He objected at first, but agreed at last on condition that none of his people should be told anything about it. I did not like to receive him on such conditions, but gave in because he would come on no other. Well, sir, you came down here because you had information which led you to think Mr Leather had come to this part of the city. You met with a runaway servant of Withers and Company—not very wonderful that. He naturally knows about me and fetches you here. Don’t you see?”

“Yes, I see,” replied Charlie, with an amused expression; “still I cannot help looking on the whole affair as very wonderful, and I hope that that does not disqualify me from recognising God’s leading in the matter.”

“Nay, young sir,” returned the old woman, “that ought rather to qualify you for such recognition, for are not His ways said to be wonderful—ay, sometimes ‘past finding out’? But what we know not now, we shall know hereafter. I thought that when my poor boy went to sea—”

“Mrs Samson!” exclaimed Charlie, with a sudden start, “I see it now! Was your boy’s name Fred?”

“It was.”

“And he went to sea in theWalrus, that was wrecked in the Southern Ocean!”

“Yes,” exclaimed the old woman eagerly.

“Then,” said Charlie, drawing a packet from the breast-pocket of his coat, “Fred gave me this for you. I have carried it about me ever since, in the hope that I might find you. I came to London, but found you had left the address written on the packet, and it never occurred to me that the owners of theWalruswould know anything about the mother of one of the men who sailed in her. I have a message also from your son.”

The message was delivered, and Charlie was still commenting on it, when the door of the inner room opened and Isaac Leather stood before them.

“Charlie Brooke!” he exclaimed, in open-eyed amazement, not unmingled with confusion.

“Ay, and a most unexpected meeting on both sides,” said Charlie, advancing and holding out his hand. “I bring you good news, Mr Leather, of your son Shank.”

“Do you indeed?” said the broken-down man, eagerly grasping his young friend’s hand. “What have you to tell me? Oh Charlie, you have no idea what terrible thoughts I’ve had about that dear boy since he went off to America! My sin has found me out, Charlie. I’ve often heard that said before, but have never tally believed it till now.”

“God sends you a message of mercy, then,” said our hero, who thereupon began to relieve the poor man’s mind by telling him of his son’s welfare and reformation.

But we need not linger over this part of the story, for the reader can easily guess a good deal of what was said to Leather, while old Mrs Samson was perusing the letter of her dead son, and tears of mingled sorrow and joy coursed down her withered cheeks.

That night however, Charlie Brooke conceived a vast idea, and partially revealed it at the tea-table to Zook—whose real name, by the way, was Jim Smith.

“’Ave you found ’er, sir?” said Mrs Butt, putting the invariable, and by that time annoying, question as Charlie entered his lodging.

“No, Mrs Butt, I haven’t found’er, and I don’t expect to find’erat all.”

“Lawk! sir, I’msosorry.”

“Has Mr Zook come?”

“Yes, sir ’e’s inside and looks impatient. The smell o’ the toast seems a’most too strong a temptation for ’im; I’m glad you’ve come.”

“Look here, Zook,” said Charlie, entering his parlour, “go into that bedroom. You’ll find a bundle of new clothes there. Put them on. Wrap your old clothes in a handkerchief, and bring them to me. Tea will be ready when you are.”

The surprised pauper did as he was bid, without remark, and re-entered the parlour a new man!

“My own mother, if I ’ad one, wouldn’t know me, sir,” he said, glancing admiringly at his vest.

“Jim Smith, Esquire,” returned Charlie, laughing. “I really don’t think she would.”

“Zook, sir,” said the little man, with a grave shake of the head; “couldn’t think of changin’ my name at my time of life; let it be Zook, if you please, sir, though in course I’ve no objection to esquire, w’en I ’ave the means to maintain my rank.”

“Well, Zook, you have at all events the means to make a good supper, so sit down and go to work, and I’ll talk to you while you eat,—but, stay, hand me the bundle of old clothes.”

Charlie opened the window as he spoke, took hold of the bundle, and discharged it into the back yard.

“There,” he said, sitting down at the table, “that will prove an object of interest to the cats all night, and a subject of surprise to good Mrs Butt in the morning. Now, Zook,” he added, when his guest was fairly at work taking in cargo, “I want to ask you—have you any objection to emigrate to America?”

“Not the smallest,” he said, as well as was possible through a full mouth. “Bein’ a orphling, so to speak, owin’ to my never ’avin’ ’ad a father or mother—as I knows on—there’s nothin’ that chains me to old England ’cept poverty.”

“Could you do without drink?”

“Sca’sely, sir, seein’ the doctors say that man is about three parts—or four, is it?—made up o’ water; I would be apt to grow mummified without drink, wouldn’t I, sir?”

“Come, Zook—you know that I meanstrongdrink—alcohol in all its forms.”

“Oh, I see. Well, sir, as to that, I’ve bin in the ’abit of doin’ without it so much of late from needcessity, that I don’t think I’d find much difficulty in knocking it off altogether, if I was to bring principle to bear.”

“Well, then,” continued Charlie, ”(have some more ham?) I have just conceived a plan. I have a friend in America who is a reformed drunkard. His father in this country is also, I hope, a reformed drunkard. There is a good man out there, I understand, who has had a great deal to do with reformed drunkards, and he has got up a large body of friends and sympathisers who have determined to go away into the far west and there organise a total abstinence community, and found a village or town where nothing in the shape of alcohol shall be admitted except as physic.

“Now, I have a lot of friends in England who, I think, would go in for such an expedition if—”

“Aretheyall reformed drunkards, sir?” asked Zook in surprise, arresting a mass of sausage in its course as he asked the question.

“By no means,” returned Charlie with a laugh, “but they are earnest souls, and I’m sure will go if I try to persuade them.”

“You’re sure to succeed, sir,” said Zook, “if your persuasions is accompanied wi’ sassengers, ’am, an’ buttered toast,” remarked the little man softly, as he came to a pause for a few seconds.

“I’ll bring to bear on them all the arguments that are available, you may be sure. Meanwhile I shall count you my first recruit.”

“Number 1 it is, sir, w’ich is more than I can say of this here slice,” said Zook, helping himself to more toast.

While the poor but happy man was thus pleasantly engaged, his entertainer opened his writing portfolio and began to scribble off note after note, with such rapidity that the amazed pauper at his elbow fairly lost his appetite, and, after a vain attempt to recover it, suggested that it might be as well for him to retire to one of the palatial fourpence-a-night residences in Dean and Flower Street.

“Not to-night. You’ve done me a good turn that I shall never forget” said Charlie, rising and ringing the bell with needless vigour.

“Be kind enough, Mrs Butt, to show Mr Zook to his bedroom.”

“My heye!” murmured the pauper, marching off with two full inches added to his stature. “Not in there, I suppose, missis,” he said facetiously, as he passed the coal-hole.

“Oh, lawks! no—this way,” replied the good woman, who was becoming almost imbecile under the eccentricities of her lodger. “This is your bedroom, and I only ’ope it won’t turn into a band-box before morning, for of all the transformations an’ pantimimes as ’as took place in this ’ouse since Mr Brooke entered it, I—”

She hesitated, and, not seeing her way quite clearly to the fitting end of the sentence, asked if Mr Zook would ’ave ’ot water in the morning.

“No, thank you, Missis,” replied the little man with dignity, while he felt the stubble on his chin; “’avin left my razors at ’ome, I prefers the water cold.”

Leaving Zook to his meditations, Mrs Butt retired to bed, remarking, as she extinguished the candle, that Mr Brooke was still “a-writin’ like a ’ouse a fire!”

Chapter Thirty Three.Sweetwater Bluff.We must now leap over a considerable space, not only of distance, but of time, in order to appreciate fully the result of Charlie Brooke’s furious letter-writing and amazing powers of persuasion.Let the reader try to imagine a wide plateau, dotted with trees and bushes, on one of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, where that mighty range begins to slide into union with the great prairies. It commands a view of mingled woodland and rolling plain, diversified by river and lake, extending to a horizon so faint and far away as to suggest the idea of illimitable space.Early one morning in spring, five horsemen, emerging from a belt of woodland, galloped to the slope that led to the summit of this plateau. Drawing rein, they began slowly to ascend. Two of the cavaliers were young, tall, and strong;—two were portly and old, though still hearty and vigorous; one, who led them, on a coal-black steed, was a magnificent specimen of the backwoodsman, and one, who brought up the rear, was a thin little man, who made up for what he wanted in size by the energy and vigour of his action, as, with hand and heel, he urged an unwilling horse to keep up with the rest of the party.Arrived at the summit of the plateau, the leading horseman trotted to its eastern edge, and halted as if for the purpose of surveying the position.“Here we are at last,” he said, to the tallest of his comrades; “Sweetwater Bluff—and the end of our journey!”“And a most noble end it is!” exclaimed the tall comrade. “Why, Hunky Ben, it far surpasses my expectations and all you have said about it.”“Most o’ the people I’ve had to guide over this trail have said pretty much the same thing in different words, Mr Brooke,” returned the scout, dismounting. “Your wife will find plenty o’ subjects here for the paintin’ she’s so fond of.”“Ay, May will find work here to keep her brushes busy for many a day to come,” replied Charlie, “though I suspect that other matters will claim most of her time at first, for there is nothing but a wilderness here yet.”“You’ve yet to larn, sir, that we don’t take as long tofixup a town hereaway as you do in the old country,” remarked Hunky Ben, as old Jacob Crossley ambled up on the staid creature which we have already introduced asWheelbarrow.Waving his hand with enthusiasm the old gentleman exclaimed, “Glorious!” Indeed, for a few minutes he sat with glistening eyes and heaving chest, quite unable to give vent to any other sentiment than “glorious!” This he did at intervals. His interest in the scene, however, was distracted by the sudden advent of Captain Stride, whose horse—a long-legged roan—had an awkward tendency, among other eccentricities, to advance sideways with a waltzing gait, that greatly disconcerted the mariner.“Woa! you brute. Back your tops’ls, won’t you? Ineverdid see sitch a craft for heavin’ about like a Dutch lugger in a cross sea. She sails side on, no matter where she’s bound for. Forges ahead a’most entirely by means of leeway, so to speak. Hallo! woa! Ketch a grip o’ the painter, Dick, an’ hold on till I git off the hurricane deck o’ this walrus—else I’ll be overboard in a—. There—” The captain came to the ground suddenly as he spoke, without the use of stirrup, and, luckily, without injury.“Not hurt I hope?” asked Dick Darvall, assisting his brother-salt to rise.“Not a bit of it, Dick. You see I’m a’most as active as yourself though double your age, if not more. I say, Charlie, thisisa pretty look-out. Don’t ’ee think so, Mr Crossley? I was sure that Hunky Ben would find us a pleasant anchorage and safe holding-ground at last, though it did seem as if we was pretty long o’ comin’ to it. Just as we was leavin’ the waggins to ride on in advance I said to my missus—says I—Maggie, you may depend—”“Hallo! Zook,” cried Charlie, as the little man of the slums came limping up, “what have you done with your horse?”“Cast ’im loose, sir, an’ gi’n ’im leave of absence as long as ’e pleases. It’s my opinion that some the ’osses o’ the western prairies ain’t quite eekal to some o’ the ’osses I’ve bin used to in Rotten Row. Is this the place, Hunky? Well, now,” continued the little man, with flashing eyes, as he looked round on the magnificent scene, “it’ll do. Beats W’itechapel an’ the Parks any ’ow. An’ there’s lots o’ poultry about, too!” he added, as a flock of wild ducks went by on whistling wings. “I say, Hunky Ben, w’at’s yon brown things over there by the shores o’ the lake?”“Buffalo,” answered the scout.“What! wild uns?”“There’s no tame ones in them diggin’s as I knows on. If there was, they’d soon become wild, you bet.”“An’ w’at’s yon monster crawlin’ over the farthest plain, like the great sea-serpent?”“Why, man,” returned the scout, “them’s the waggins. Come, now, let’s to work an’ git the fire lit. The cart wi’ the chuck an’ tents’ll be here in a few minutes, an’ the waggins won’t be long arter ’em.”“Ay, wi’ the women an’ kids shoutin’ for grub,” added Zook, as he limped after the scout, while the rest of the little band dispersed—some to cut firewood, others to select the best positions for the tents. The waggons, with a supply of food, arrived soon after under the care of Roaring Bull himself, with two of his cowboys. They were followed by Buttercup, who bestrode, man-fashion, a mustang nearly as black as herself and even more frisky.In a wonderfully short time a number of white tents arose on the plateau and several fires blazed, and at all the fires Buttercup laboured with superhuman effect, assisted by the cowboys, to the unbounded admiration of Zook, who willingly superintended everything, but did little or nothing. A flat rock on the highest point was chosen for the site of a future block-house or citadel, and upon this was ere long spread a breakfast on a magnificent scale. It was barely ready when the first waggons arrived and commenced to lumber up the ascent, preceded by two girls on horseback, who waved their hands, and gave vent to vigorous little feminine cheers as they cantered up the slope.These two were our old friends whom we knew as May Leather and Mary Jackson, but who must now be re-introduced to the reader as Mrs Charlie Brooke and Mrs Dick Darvall. On the same day they had changed their names at the Ranch of Roaring Bull, and had come to essay wedded life in the far west.We need hardly say that this was the great experimental emigrant party, led by the Reverend William Reeves, who had resolved to found a colony on total abstinence principles, and with as many as possible of the sins of civilisation left behind. They found, alas! that sin is not so easily got rid of; nevertheless, the effort was not altogether fruitless, and Mr Reeves carried with him a sovereign antidote for sin in the shape of a godly spirit.The party was a large one, for there were many men and women of the frontier whose experiences had taught them that life was happier and better in every way without the prevalent vices of gambling and drinking.Of course the emigrants formed rather a motley band. Among them, besides those of our friends already mentioned, there were our hero’s mother and all the Leather family. Captain Stride’s daughter as well as his “Missus,” and Mr Crossley’s housekeeper, Mrs Bland. That good woman, however, had been much subdued and rendered harmless by the terrors of the wilderness, to which she had been recently exposed. Miss Molloy was also there, with an enormous supply of knitting needles and several bales of worsted.Poor Shank Leather was still so much of an invalid as to be obliged to travel in a spring cart with his father, but both men were rapidly regaining physical strength under the influence of temperance, and spiritual strength under a higher power.Soon the hammer, axe, and saw began to resound in that lovely western wilderness; the net to sweep its lakes; the hook to invade its rivers; the rifle to crack in the forests, and the plough to open up its virgin soil. In less time, almost, than a European would take to wink, the town of Sweetwater Bluff sprang into being; stores and workshops, a school and a church, grew, up like mushrooms; seed was sown, and everything, in short, was done that is characteristic of the advent of a thriving community. But not a gambling or drinking saloon, or a drop of firewater, was to be found in all the town.In spite of this, Indians brought their furs to it; trappers came to it for supplies; emigrants turned aside to see and rest in it; and the place soon became noted as a flourishing and pre-eminently peaceful spot.

We must now leap over a considerable space, not only of distance, but of time, in order to appreciate fully the result of Charlie Brooke’s furious letter-writing and amazing powers of persuasion.

Let the reader try to imagine a wide plateau, dotted with trees and bushes, on one of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, where that mighty range begins to slide into union with the great prairies. It commands a view of mingled woodland and rolling plain, diversified by river and lake, extending to a horizon so faint and far away as to suggest the idea of illimitable space.

Early one morning in spring, five horsemen, emerging from a belt of woodland, galloped to the slope that led to the summit of this plateau. Drawing rein, they began slowly to ascend. Two of the cavaliers were young, tall, and strong;—two were portly and old, though still hearty and vigorous; one, who led them, on a coal-black steed, was a magnificent specimen of the backwoodsman, and one, who brought up the rear, was a thin little man, who made up for what he wanted in size by the energy and vigour of his action, as, with hand and heel, he urged an unwilling horse to keep up with the rest of the party.

Arrived at the summit of the plateau, the leading horseman trotted to its eastern edge, and halted as if for the purpose of surveying the position.

“Here we are at last,” he said, to the tallest of his comrades; “Sweetwater Bluff—and the end of our journey!”

“And a most noble end it is!” exclaimed the tall comrade. “Why, Hunky Ben, it far surpasses my expectations and all you have said about it.”

“Most o’ the people I’ve had to guide over this trail have said pretty much the same thing in different words, Mr Brooke,” returned the scout, dismounting. “Your wife will find plenty o’ subjects here for the paintin’ she’s so fond of.”

“Ay, May will find work here to keep her brushes busy for many a day to come,” replied Charlie, “though I suspect that other matters will claim most of her time at first, for there is nothing but a wilderness here yet.”

“You’ve yet to larn, sir, that we don’t take as long tofixup a town hereaway as you do in the old country,” remarked Hunky Ben, as old Jacob Crossley ambled up on the staid creature which we have already introduced asWheelbarrow.

Waving his hand with enthusiasm the old gentleman exclaimed, “Glorious!” Indeed, for a few minutes he sat with glistening eyes and heaving chest, quite unable to give vent to any other sentiment than “glorious!” This he did at intervals. His interest in the scene, however, was distracted by the sudden advent of Captain Stride, whose horse—a long-legged roan—had an awkward tendency, among other eccentricities, to advance sideways with a waltzing gait, that greatly disconcerted the mariner.

“Woa! you brute. Back your tops’ls, won’t you? Ineverdid see sitch a craft for heavin’ about like a Dutch lugger in a cross sea. She sails side on, no matter where she’s bound for. Forges ahead a’most entirely by means of leeway, so to speak. Hallo! woa! Ketch a grip o’ the painter, Dick, an’ hold on till I git off the hurricane deck o’ this walrus—else I’ll be overboard in a—. There—” The captain came to the ground suddenly as he spoke, without the use of stirrup, and, luckily, without injury.

“Not hurt I hope?” asked Dick Darvall, assisting his brother-salt to rise.

“Not a bit of it, Dick. You see I’m a’most as active as yourself though double your age, if not more. I say, Charlie, thisisa pretty look-out. Don’t ’ee think so, Mr Crossley? I was sure that Hunky Ben would find us a pleasant anchorage and safe holding-ground at last, though it did seem as if we was pretty long o’ comin’ to it. Just as we was leavin’ the waggins to ride on in advance I said to my missus—says I—Maggie, you may depend—”

“Hallo! Zook,” cried Charlie, as the little man of the slums came limping up, “what have you done with your horse?”

“Cast ’im loose, sir, an’ gi’n ’im leave of absence as long as ’e pleases. It’s my opinion that some the ’osses o’ the western prairies ain’t quite eekal to some o’ the ’osses I’ve bin used to in Rotten Row. Is this the place, Hunky? Well, now,” continued the little man, with flashing eyes, as he looked round on the magnificent scene, “it’ll do. Beats W’itechapel an’ the Parks any ’ow. An’ there’s lots o’ poultry about, too!” he added, as a flock of wild ducks went by on whistling wings. “I say, Hunky Ben, w’at’s yon brown things over there by the shores o’ the lake?”

“Buffalo,” answered the scout.

“What! wild uns?”

“There’s no tame ones in them diggin’s as I knows on. If there was, they’d soon become wild, you bet.”

“An’ w’at’s yon monster crawlin’ over the farthest plain, like the great sea-serpent?”

“Why, man,” returned the scout, “them’s the waggins. Come, now, let’s to work an’ git the fire lit. The cart wi’ the chuck an’ tents’ll be here in a few minutes, an’ the waggins won’t be long arter ’em.”

“Ay, wi’ the women an’ kids shoutin’ for grub,” added Zook, as he limped after the scout, while the rest of the little band dispersed—some to cut firewood, others to select the best positions for the tents. The waggons, with a supply of food, arrived soon after under the care of Roaring Bull himself, with two of his cowboys. They were followed by Buttercup, who bestrode, man-fashion, a mustang nearly as black as herself and even more frisky.

In a wonderfully short time a number of white tents arose on the plateau and several fires blazed, and at all the fires Buttercup laboured with superhuman effect, assisted by the cowboys, to the unbounded admiration of Zook, who willingly superintended everything, but did little or nothing. A flat rock on the highest point was chosen for the site of a future block-house or citadel, and upon this was ere long spread a breakfast on a magnificent scale. It was barely ready when the first waggons arrived and commenced to lumber up the ascent, preceded by two girls on horseback, who waved their hands, and gave vent to vigorous little feminine cheers as they cantered up the slope.

These two were our old friends whom we knew as May Leather and Mary Jackson, but who must now be re-introduced to the reader as Mrs Charlie Brooke and Mrs Dick Darvall. On the same day they had changed their names at the Ranch of Roaring Bull, and had come to essay wedded life in the far west.

We need hardly say that this was the great experimental emigrant party, led by the Reverend William Reeves, who had resolved to found a colony on total abstinence principles, and with as many as possible of the sins of civilisation left behind. They found, alas! that sin is not so easily got rid of; nevertheless, the effort was not altogether fruitless, and Mr Reeves carried with him a sovereign antidote for sin in the shape of a godly spirit.

The party was a large one, for there were many men and women of the frontier whose experiences had taught them that life was happier and better in every way without the prevalent vices of gambling and drinking.

Of course the emigrants formed rather a motley band. Among them, besides those of our friends already mentioned, there were our hero’s mother and all the Leather family. Captain Stride’s daughter as well as his “Missus,” and Mr Crossley’s housekeeper, Mrs Bland. That good woman, however, had been much subdued and rendered harmless by the terrors of the wilderness, to which she had been recently exposed. Miss Molloy was also there, with an enormous supply of knitting needles and several bales of worsted.

Poor Shank Leather was still so much of an invalid as to be obliged to travel in a spring cart with his father, but both men were rapidly regaining physical strength under the influence of temperance, and spiritual strength under a higher power.

Soon the hammer, axe, and saw began to resound in that lovely western wilderness; the net to sweep its lakes; the hook to invade its rivers; the rifle to crack in the forests, and the plough to open up its virgin soil. In less time, almost, than a European would take to wink, the town of Sweetwater Bluff sprang into being; stores and workshops, a school and a church, grew, up like mushrooms; seed was sown, and everything, in short, was done that is characteristic of the advent of a thriving community. But not a gambling or drinking saloon, or a drop of firewater, was to be found in all the town.

In spite of this, Indians brought their furs to it; trappers came to it for supplies; emigrants turned aside to see and rest in it; and the place soon became noted as a flourishing and pre-eminently peaceful spot.

Chapter Thirty Four.The Last.But a little cloud arose ere long on the horizon of Sweetwater Bluff. Insignificant at first, it suddenly spread over the sky and burst in a wild storm.The first intimation of its approach came from Charlie Brooke one quiet autumn evening, in that brief but delightful season known as the Indian Summer.Charlie entered his garden that evening with a fowling-piece on his shoulder, and two brace of prairie hens at his girdle. May was seated at her cottage door, basking in sunshine, chatting with her mother—who was knitting of course—and Shank was conversing with Hunky Ben, who rested after a day of labour.“There, May, is to-morrow’s dinner,” said Charlie, throwing the birds at his wife’s feet, and sitting down beside her. “Who d’you think I passed when I was out on the plains to-day, Hunky? Your old friend Crux the Cowboy.”“He’s no friend o’ mine,” said the scout, while something like a frown flitted across his usually placid brow. “I’m not over-pleased to hear that he’s comin’, for it’s said that some old uncle or aunt o’ his—I forget which—has left him a lot o’ dollars. I hope he ain’t comin’ to spend ’em here, for he’d never git along without gamblin’ an’ drinkin’.”“Then, I can tell you that heisjust coming to stay here,” returned Charlie, “for he has several waggons with him, and a dozen men. I asked him where he was going to, and he said, to locate himself as a store-keeper at Sweetwater Bluff; but he did not seem inclined to be communicative, so I left him and galloped on to report the news. What d’you think about it?”“I think it’ll be a bad day for Sweetwater Bluff when Crux comes to settle in it. Howsoever, this is a free country, an’ we’ve no right to interfere with him so long as he don’t break the laws. But I doubt him. I’m afeard he’ll try to sell drink, an’ there’s some o’ our people who are longin’ to git back to that.”The other members of the party, and indeed those heads of the town generally who knew Crux, were of much the same opinion, but some of them thought that, being in a free country, no one had a right to interfere. The consequence was that Crux and his men were permitted to go to work. They hired a shed in which to stow their goods, while they were engaged in building a store, and in course of time this was finished; but there was a degree of mystery about the ex-cowboy’s proceedings which baffled investigation, and people did not like to press inquiry too far; for it was observed that all the men who had accompanied Crux were young and powerful fellows, well armed with rifle and revolver.At last however, the work was finished, and the mystery was cleared up, for, one fine morning, the new store was opened as a drinking and gambling saloon; and that same evening the place was in full swing—sending forth the shouts, songs, cursing and demoniac laughter for which such places are celebrated.Consternation filled the hearts of the community, for it was not only the men brought there by Crux who kept up their revels in the new saloon, but a sprinkling of the spirited young fellows of the town also, who had never been very enthusiastic in the temperance cause, and were therefore prepared to fall before the first temptation.At a conference of the chief men of the town it was resolved to try to induce Crux to quit quietly, and for this end to offer to buy up his stock-in-trade. Hunky Ben, being an old acquaintance, was requested to go to the store as a deputation.But the ex-cowboy was inexorable. Neither the offer of money nor argument had any effect on him.“Well, Crux,” said the scout, at the conclusion of his visit, “you know your own affairs best but, rememberin’ as I do, what you used to be, I thought there was more of fair-play about you.”“Fair-play! What d’ye mean?”“I mean that when folk letyoualone, you used to be willin’ to letthemalone. Here has a crowd o’ people come back all this way into the Rockies to escape from the curse o’ strong drink and gamblin’, an’ here has Crux—a lover o’ fair-play—come all this way to shove that curse right under their noses. I’d thowt better of ye, Crux, lad.”“It don’t matter much what you thowt o’ me, old man,” returned the cowboy, somewhat sharply; “an’, as to fair-play, there’s a lot of men here who don’t agree wi’ your humbuggin’ notions about temperance an’ tee-totalism—more of ’em, maybe, than you think. These want to have the drink, an’ I’ve come to give it ’em. I see nothin’ unfair in that.”Hunky Ben carried his report back to the council, which for some time discussed the situation. As in the case of most councils, there was some difference of opinion: a few of the members being inclined to carry things with a high hand—being urged thereto by Captain Stride—while others, influenced chiefly by Mr Reeves, were anxious to try peaceable means.At last a sub-committee was appointed, at Hunky Ben’s suggestion, to consider the whole matter, and take what steps seemed advisable. Hunky was an adroit and modest man—he could not have been a first-rate scout otherwise! He managed not only to become convener of the committee, but succeeded in getting men chiefly of his own opinion placed on it. At supper that night in Charlie’s cottage, while enjoying May’s cookery and presence, and waited on by the amused and interested Buttercup, the sub-committee discussed and settled the plan of operations.“It’s all nonsense,” said Hunky Ben, “to talk of tryin’ to persuade Crux. He’s as obstinate as a Texas mule wi’ the toothache.”“Rubbish!” exclaimed Captain Stride, smiting the table with his fist. “We mustn’t parley with him, but heave him overboard at once! I said so to my missus this very day. ‘Maggie,’ says I—”“And what doyouthink, Charlie?” asked Mr Crossley.“I think with Hunky Ben, of course. He knows Crux, and what is best to be done in the circumstances. The only thing that perplexes me, is what shall we do with the liquor when we’ve paid for it? A lot of it is good wine and champagne, and, although useless as a beverage, it is useful as a medicine, and might be given to hospitals.”“Pour it out!” exclaimed Shank, almost fiercely.“Ay, the hospitals can look out for themselves,” added Shank’s father warmly.“Some hospitals, I’ve bin told, git on well enough without it altogether,” said Dick Darvall. “However, it’s a subject that desarves consideration.—Hallo! Buttercup, what is it that tickles your fancy an’ makes your mouth stretch out like that?”Buttercup became preternaturally grave on the instant, but declined to tell what it was that tickled her fancy.Shortly after the party rose and left the house, Hunky Ben remarking, with a quiet laugh, that deeds of darkness were best hatched at night.What the conspirators hatched became pretty evident next day, for, during the breakfast hour, a band of forty horsemen rode slowly down the sloping road which led to the plains, and on the side of which Crux had built his saloon.Crux and his men turned out in some surprise to watch the cavalcade as it passed. The band was led by Charlie Brooke, and the scout rode in advance on Black Polly as guide.“Is it the Reds or the Buffalo you’re after to-day, Hunky, with such a big crowd?” asked Crux.“Halt!” cried Charlie, at that moment.The forty men obeyed, and, turning suddenly to the left, faced the saloon.“Hands up!” said Charlie, whose men at the same moment pointed their rifles at Crux and his men. These were all too familiar with the order to dare to disobey it.Our hero then ordered a small detachment of his men to enter the saloon and fetch out all rifles and pistols, and those of Crux’s people who chanced to have their weapons about them, were disarmed. Another detachment went off to the stables behind the saloon.While they were thus engaged, Charlie addressed Crux.“We have decided to expel you, Crux, from this town,” he said, as he drew an envelope from his pocket. “We have tried to convince you that, as the majority of the people here don’t want you, it is your duty to go. As you don’t seem to see this, we now take the law into our own hands. We love fair-play, however, so you will find in this envelope a cheque which we have reason to believe is fully equal to the value of your saloon and all its contents. Your lost time and trouble is your own affair. As you came without invitation, you must go without compensation. Here are your rifles, and revolvers, emptied of cartridges, and there are your horses saddled.”As he spoke, one detachment of his men handed rifles and revolvers to the party, who were stricken dumb with amazement. At the same time, their horses, saddled and bridled, were led to the front and delivered to them.“We have no provisions,” said Crux, at last recovering the use of his tongue; “and without ammunition we cannot procure any.”“That has been provided for,” said our hero, turning to Hunky Ben.“Ay, Crux,” said the scout, “we don’t want to starve you, though the ’arth wouldn’t lose much if we did. At the other end o’ the lake, about five mile from here, you’ll find a red rag flyin’ at the branch of a tree. In the hole of a rock close beside it, you’ll find three days’ provisions for you and your men, an’ a lot of ammunition.”“Now, mount and go,” said Charlie, “and if you ever show face here again, except as friends, your blood be on your own heads!”Crux did not hesitate. He and his men saw that the game was up; without another word they mounted their horses and galloped away.While this scene was being enacted a dark creature, with darker designs, entered the drinking saloon and descended to the cellar. Finding a spirit-cask with a tap in it, Buttercup turned it on, then, pulling a match-box out of her pocket she muttered, “I t’ink de hospitals won’t git much ob it!” and applied a light. The effect was more powerful than she had expected. The spirit blazed up with sudden fury, singeing off the girl’s eyebrows and lashes, and almost blinding her. In her alarm Buttercup dashed up to the saloon, missed her way, and found herself on the stair leading to the upper floor. A cloud of smoke and fire forced her to rush up. She went to the window and yelled, on observing that it was far too high to leap. She rushed to another window and howled in horror, for escape was apparently impossible.Charlie heard the howl. He and his men had retired to a safe distance when the fire was first observed—thinking the place empty—but the howl touched a chord in our hero’s sympathetic breast, which was ever ready to vibrate. From whom the howl proceeded mattered little or nothing to Charlie Brooke. Sufficient that it was the cry of a living being in distress. He sprang at once through the open doorway of the saloon, through which was issuing a volume of thick smoke, mingled with flame.“God help him! the place’ll blow up in a few minutes,” cried Hunky Ben, losing, for once, his imperturbable coolness, and rushing wildly after his friend. But at that moment the thick smoke burst into fierce flame and drove him back.Charlie sprang up the staircase three steps at a time, holding his breath to avoid suffocation. He reached the landing, where Buttercup ran, or, rather, fell, almost fainting, into his arms. At the moment an explosion in the cellar shook the building to its foundation, and, shattering one of the windows, caused a draught of air to drive aside the smoke. Charlie gasped a mouthful of air and looked round. Flames were by that time roaring up the only staircase. A glance from the nearest window showed that a leap thence meant broken limbs, if not death, to both. A ladder up to a trap-door suggested an exit by the roof. It might only lead to a more terrible leap, but meanwhile it offered relief from imminent suffocation. Charlie bore the half-dead girl to the top rung, and found the trap-door padlocked, but a thrust from his powerful shoulder wrenched hasp and padlock from their hold, and next moment a wild cheer greeted him as he stood on a corner of the gable. But a depth of forty or fifty feet was below him with nothing to break his fall to the hard earth.“Jump!” yelled one of the onlookers. “No, don’t!” cried another, “you’ll be killed.”“Hold your noise,” roared Hunky Ben, “and lend a hand here—sharp!—the house’ll blow up in a minute.”He ran as he spoke towards a cart which was partly filled with hay. Seizing the trams he raised them. Willing hands helped, and the cart was run violently up against the gable—Hunky shouting to some of the men to fetch more hay.But there was no time for that. Another explosion took place inside the building, which Charlie knew must have driven in the sides of more casks and let loose fresh fuel. A terrible roar, followed by ominous cracking of the roof, warned him that there was no time to lose. He looked steadily at the cart for a moment and leaped. His friends held their breath as the pair descended. The hay would not have sufficed to break the fall sufficiently, but happily the cart was an old one. When they came down on it like a thunderbolt, the bottom gave way. Crashing through it the pair came to the ground, heavily indeed, but uninjured!The fall, which almost stunned our hero, had the curious effect of reviving Buttercup, for she muttered something to the effect that, “dat was a mos’ drefful smash,” as they conveyed her and her rescuer from the vicinity of danger.This had scarcely been done when the house blew up—its walls were driven outwards, its roof was blown off, its bottles were shattered, all its baleful contents were scattered around, and, amid an appropriate hurricane of blue fire, that drinking and gambling saloon was blown to atoms.Would that a like fate might overtake every similar establishment in the world!This was the first and last attempt to disturb the peace of Sweetwater Bluff. It is said, indeed, that Crux and some of his men did, long afterwards, make their appearance in that happy and flourishing town, but they came as reformed men, not as foes—men who had found out that in very truth sobriety tends to felicity, that honesty is the best policy, and that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.The End.

The Last.

But a little cloud arose ere long on the horizon of Sweetwater Bluff. Insignificant at first, it suddenly spread over the sky and burst in a wild storm.

The first intimation of its approach came from Charlie Brooke one quiet autumn evening, in that brief but delightful season known as the Indian Summer.

Charlie entered his garden that evening with a fowling-piece on his shoulder, and two brace of prairie hens at his girdle. May was seated at her cottage door, basking in sunshine, chatting with her mother—who was knitting of course—and Shank was conversing with Hunky Ben, who rested after a day of labour.

“There, May, is to-morrow’s dinner,” said Charlie, throwing the birds at his wife’s feet, and sitting down beside her. “Who d’you think I passed when I was out on the plains to-day, Hunky? Your old friend Crux the Cowboy.”

“He’s no friend o’ mine,” said the scout, while something like a frown flitted across his usually placid brow. “I’m not over-pleased to hear that he’s comin’, for it’s said that some old uncle or aunt o’ his—I forget which—has left him a lot o’ dollars. I hope he ain’t comin’ to spend ’em here, for he’d never git along without gamblin’ an’ drinkin’.”

“Then, I can tell you that heisjust coming to stay here,” returned Charlie, “for he has several waggons with him, and a dozen men. I asked him where he was going to, and he said, to locate himself as a store-keeper at Sweetwater Bluff; but he did not seem inclined to be communicative, so I left him and galloped on to report the news. What d’you think about it?”

“I think it’ll be a bad day for Sweetwater Bluff when Crux comes to settle in it. Howsoever, this is a free country, an’ we’ve no right to interfere with him so long as he don’t break the laws. But I doubt him. I’m afeard he’ll try to sell drink, an’ there’s some o’ our people who are longin’ to git back to that.”

The other members of the party, and indeed those heads of the town generally who knew Crux, were of much the same opinion, but some of them thought that, being in a free country, no one had a right to interfere. The consequence was that Crux and his men were permitted to go to work. They hired a shed in which to stow their goods, while they were engaged in building a store, and in course of time this was finished; but there was a degree of mystery about the ex-cowboy’s proceedings which baffled investigation, and people did not like to press inquiry too far; for it was observed that all the men who had accompanied Crux were young and powerful fellows, well armed with rifle and revolver.

At last however, the work was finished, and the mystery was cleared up, for, one fine morning, the new store was opened as a drinking and gambling saloon; and that same evening the place was in full swing—sending forth the shouts, songs, cursing and demoniac laughter for which such places are celebrated.

Consternation filled the hearts of the community, for it was not only the men brought there by Crux who kept up their revels in the new saloon, but a sprinkling of the spirited young fellows of the town also, who had never been very enthusiastic in the temperance cause, and were therefore prepared to fall before the first temptation.

At a conference of the chief men of the town it was resolved to try to induce Crux to quit quietly, and for this end to offer to buy up his stock-in-trade. Hunky Ben, being an old acquaintance, was requested to go to the store as a deputation.

But the ex-cowboy was inexorable. Neither the offer of money nor argument had any effect on him.

“Well, Crux,” said the scout, at the conclusion of his visit, “you know your own affairs best but, rememberin’ as I do, what you used to be, I thought there was more of fair-play about you.”

“Fair-play! What d’ye mean?”

“I mean that when folk letyoualone, you used to be willin’ to letthemalone. Here has a crowd o’ people come back all this way into the Rockies to escape from the curse o’ strong drink and gamblin’, an’ here has Crux—a lover o’ fair-play—come all this way to shove that curse right under their noses. I’d thowt better of ye, Crux, lad.”

“It don’t matter much what you thowt o’ me, old man,” returned the cowboy, somewhat sharply; “an’, as to fair-play, there’s a lot of men here who don’t agree wi’ your humbuggin’ notions about temperance an’ tee-totalism—more of ’em, maybe, than you think. These want to have the drink, an’ I’ve come to give it ’em. I see nothin’ unfair in that.”

Hunky Ben carried his report back to the council, which for some time discussed the situation. As in the case of most councils, there was some difference of opinion: a few of the members being inclined to carry things with a high hand—being urged thereto by Captain Stride—while others, influenced chiefly by Mr Reeves, were anxious to try peaceable means.

At last a sub-committee was appointed, at Hunky Ben’s suggestion, to consider the whole matter, and take what steps seemed advisable. Hunky was an adroit and modest man—he could not have been a first-rate scout otherwise! He managed not only to become convener of the committee, but succeeded in getting men chiefly of his own opinion placed on it. At supper that night in Charlie’s cottage, while enjoying May’s cookery and presence, and waited on by the amused and interested Buttercup, the sub-committee discussed and settled the plan of operations.

“It’s all nonsense,” said Hunky Ben, “to talk of tryin’ to persuade Crux. He’s as obstinate as a Texas mule wi’ the toothache.”

“Rubbish!” exclaimed Captain Stride, smiting the table with his fist. “We mustn’t parley with him, but heave him overboard at once! I said so to my missus this very day. ‘Maggie,’ says I—”

“And what doyouthink, Charlie?” asked Mr Crossley.

“I think with Hunky Ben, of course. He knows Crux, and what is best to be done in the circumstances. The only thing that perplexes me, is what shall we do with the liquor when we’ve paid for it? A lot of it is good wine and champagne, and, although useless as a beverage, it is useful as a medicine, and might be given to hospitals.”

“Pour it out!” exclaimed Shank, almost fiercely.

“Ay, the hospitals can look out for themselves,” added Shank’s father warmly.

“Some hospitals, I’ve bin told, git on well enough without it altogether,” said Dick Darvall. “However, it’s a subject that desarves consideration.—Hallo! Buttercup, what is it that tickles your fancy an’ makes your mouth stretch out like that?”

Buttercup became preternaturally grave on the instant, but declined to tell what it was that tickled her fancy.

Shortly after the party rose and left the house, Hunky Ben remarking, with a quiet laugh, that deeds of darkness were best hatched at night.

What the conspirators hatched became pretty evident next day, for, during the breakfast hour, a band of forty horsemen rode slowly down the sloping road which led to the plains, and on the side of which Crux had built his saloon.

Crux and his men turned out in some surprise to watch the cavalcade as it passed. The band was led by Charlie Brooke, and the scout rode in advance on Black Polly as guide.

“Is it the Reds or the Buffalo you’re after to-day, Hunky, with such a big crowd?” asked Crux.

“Halt!” cried Charlie, at that moment.

The forty men obeyed, and, turning suddenly to the left, faced the saloon.

“Hands up!” said Charlie, whose men at the same moment pointed their rifles at Crux and his men. These were all too familiar with the order to dare to disobey it.

Our hero then ordered a small detachment of his men to enter the saloon and fetch out all rifles and pistols, and those of Crux’s people who chanced to have their weapons about them, were disarmed. Another detachment went off to the stables behind the saloon.

While they were thus engaged, Charlie addressed Crux.

“We have decided to expel you, Crux, from this town,” he said, as he drew an envelope from his pocket. “We have tried to convince you that, as the majority of the people here don’t want you, it is your duty to go. As you don’t seem to see this, we now take the law into our own hands. We love fair-play, however, so you will find in this envelope a cheque which we have reason to believe is fully equal to the value of your saloon and all its contents. Your lost time and trouble is your own affair. As you came without invitation, you must go without compensation. Here are your rifles, and revolvers, emptied of cartridges, and there are your horses saddled.”

As he spoke, one detachment of his men handed rifles and revolvers to the party, who were stricken dumb with amazement. At the same time, their horses, saddled and bridled, were led to the front and delivered to them.

“We have no provisions,” said Crux, at last recovering the use of his tongue; “and without ammunition we cannot procure any.”

“That has been provided for,” said our hero, turning to Hunky Ben.

“Ay, Crux,” said the scout, “we don’t want to starve you, though the ’arth wouldn’t lose much if we did. At the other end o’ the lake, about five mile from here, you’ll find a red rag flyin’ at the branch of a tree. In the hole of a rock close beside it, you’ll find three days’ provisions for you and your men, an’ a lot of ammunition.”

“Now, mount and go,” said Charlie, “and if you ever show face here again, except as friends, your blood be on your own heads!”

Crux did not hesitate. He and his men saw that the game was up; without another word they mounted their horses and galloped away.

While this scene was being enacted a dark creature, with darker designs, entered the drinking saloon and descended to the cellar. Finding a spirit-cask with a tap in it, Buttercup turned it on, then, pulling a match-box out of her pocket she muttered, “I t’ink de hospitals won’t git much ob it!” and applied a light. The effect was more powerful than she had expected. The spirit blazed up with sudden fury, singeing off the girl’s eyebrows and lashes, and almost blinding her. In her alarm Buttercup dashed up to the saloon, missed her way, and found herself on the stair leading to the upper floor. A cloud of smoke and fire forced her to rush up. She went to the window and yelled, on observing that it was far too high to leap. She rushed to another window and howled in horror, for escape was apparently impossible.

Charlie heard the howl. He and his men had retired to a safe distance when the fire was first observed—thinking the place empty—but the howl touched a chord in our hero’s sympathetic breast, which was ever ready to vibrate. From whom the howl proceeded mattered little or nothing to Charlie Brooke. Sufficient that it was the cry of a living being in distress. He sprang at once through the open doorway of the saloon, through which was issuing a volume of thick smoke, mingled with flame.

“God help him! the place’ll blow up in a few minutes,” cried Hunky Ben, losing, for once, his imperturbable coolness, and rushing wildly after his friend. But at that moment the thick smoke burst into fierce flame and drove him back.

Charlie sprang up the staircase three steps at a time, holding his breath to avoid suffocation. He reached the landing, where Buttercup ran, or, rather, fell, almost fainting, into his arms. At the moment an explosion in the cellar shook the building to its foundation, and, shattering one of the windows, caused a draught of air to drive aside the smoke. Charlie gasped a mouthful of air and looked round. Flames were by that time roaring up the only staircase. A glance from the nearest window showed that a leap thence meant broken limbs, if not death, to both. A ladder up to a trap-door suggested an exit by the roof. It might only lead to a more terrible leap, but meanwhile it offered relief from imminent suffocation. Charlie bore the half-dead girl to the top rung, and found the trap-door padlocked, but a thrust from his powerful shoulder wrenched hasp and padlock from their hold, and next moment a wild cheer greeted him as he stood on a corner of the gable. But a depth of forty or fifty feet was below him with nothing to break his fall to the hard earth.

“Jump!” yelled one of the onlookers. “No, don’t!” cried another, “you’ll be killed.”

“Hold your noise,” roared Hunky Ben, “and lend a hand here—sharp!—the house’ll blow up in a minute.”

He ran as he spoke towards a cart which was partly filled with hay. Seizing the trams he raised them. Willing hands helped, and the cart was run violently up against the gable—Hunky shouting to some of the men to fetch more hay.

But there was no time for that. Another explosion took place inside the building, which Charlie knew must have driven in the sides of more casks and let loose fresh fuel. A terrible roar, followed by ominous cracking of the roof, warned him that there was no time to lose. He looked steadily at the cart for a moment and leaped. His friends held their breath as the pair descended. The hay would not have sufficed to break the fall sufficiently, but happily the cart was an old one. When they came down on it like a thunderbolt, the bottom gave way. Crashing through it the pair came to the ground, heavily indeed, but uninjured!

The fall, which almost stunned our hero, had the curious effect of reviving Buttercup, for she muttered something to the effect that, “dat was a mos’ drefful smash,” as they conveyed her and her rescuer from the vicinity of danger.

This had scarcely been done when the house blew up—its walls were driven outwards, its roof was blown off, its bottles were shattered, all its baleful contents were scattered around, and, amid an appropriate hurricane of blue fire, that drinking and gambling saloon was blown to atoms.

Would that a like fate might overtake every similar establishment in the world!

This was the first and last attempt to disturb the peace of Sweetwater Bluff. It is said, indeed, that Crux and some of his men did, long afterwards, make their appearance in that happy and flourishing town, but they came as reformed men, not as foes—men who had found out that in very truth sobriety tends to felicity, that honesty is the best policy, and that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

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