The disreputable nature of the wind which blows good to nobody has been so frequently referred to and commented on by writers in general that it merits only passing notice here. The particular breeze which fanned the flames that consumed the property that belonged to Miss Lillycrop, and drove that lady to a charming retreat in the country thereby rescuing her from a trying existence in town, also blew small Peter Pax in the same direction.
“Boy,” said Miss Stivergill in stern tones, on the occasion of her first visit to the hospital in which Pax was laid up for a short time after his adventure, “you’re a good boy. I like you. The first of your sex I ever said that to.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I hope I shan’t be the last,” returned Pax languidly, for he was still weak from the effects of the partial roasting and suffocation he had undergone.
“Miss Lillycrop desired me to come and see you,” resumed Miss Stivergill. “She has told me how bravely you tried to rescue poor little Bones, who—”
“Not much hurt, I hope?” asked the boy eagerly.
“No, very little—scarcely at all, I’m glad to say. Those inexplicable creatures called firemen, who seem to me what you may call fire-fiends of a good-natured and recklessly hilarious type, say that her having fallen down with her nose close to the ground, where there is usually a free current of air, saved her. At all events she is saved, and quite well.”
“I hope I didn’t haul much of the hair out of her poor head?” said Pax.
“Apparently not, if one may judge from the very large quantity that remains,” replied his visitor.
“You see, ma’am, in neck-or-nothin’ scrimmages o’ that sort,” continued Pax, in the off-hand tone of one much experienced in such scrimmages, “one can’t well stop to pick and choose; besides, I couldn’t see well, d’ee see? an’ her hair came first to hand, you know, an’ was convenient. It’s well for both on us, however, that that six foot odd o’ magnificence came to the rescue in time. I like ’im, I do, an’ shall owe ’im a good turn for savin’ little Bones.—What was her other name, did you say, ma’am?”
“I didn’t mention any other name, but I believe it is Tottie.—Now, little Peter, when the doctor gives you leave to be moved, you are to come to me to recruit your health in the country.”
“Thank you, ma’am. You’re too good,” said Pax, becoming languid again. “Pray give my best respects to Tottie and Miss Lillycrop.”
“So small, and so pretty, and such a wise little thing,” murmured Miss Stivergill, unaware, apparently, that she soliloquised aloud.
“So big, and so ugly, and such a good-hearted stoopid old thing!” murmured Pax; but it is only just to add that he was too polite to allow the murmur to be heard.
“Good-bye, little Peter, till we meet again,” said Miss Stivergill, turning away abruptly.
“Farewell, ma’am,” said Pax, “farewell; and if for ever—”
He stopped, because his visitor was gone.
According to this arrangement, Pax found himself, not many days after, revelling in the enjoyment of what he styled “tooral-ooral” felicity—among cows and hay, sunshine and milk, buttercups and cream, green meadows and blue skies,—free as a butterfly from telegraphic messagery and other postal cares. He was allowed to ramble about at will, and, as little Bones was supposed to be slightly invalided by her late semi-suffocation, she was frequently allowed by her indulgent mistress to accompany him.
Seated on a stile one day, Pax drew Tottie out as to her early life, and afterwards gave an account of his own in exchange.
“How strange,” said Tottie, “that you and I should both have had bybies to nuss w’en we was young, ain’t it?”
“It is, Tot—very remarkable. And we’ve had a sad fate, both of us, in havin’ bin wrenched from our babbies. But the wrench couldn’t have bin so bad in your case as in mine, of course, for your babby was nobody to you, whereas mine was a full cousin, an’ such a dear one too. Oh, Tot, you’ve no notion what splendid games we used to have, an’ such c’lections of things I used to make for ’er! Of course she was too young to understand it, you know, for she could neither walk nor speak, and I don’t think could understand, though she crowed sometimes as if she did. My! how she crowed!—But what’s the matter, Tot?”
Tottie was pouting.
“I don’t like your bybie at all—not one bit,” she said emphatically.
“Not like my babby!” exclaimed Pax.
“No, I don’t, ’cause it isn’t ’alf so good as mine.”
“Well,” returned Pax, with a smile, “I was took from mine. I didn’t forsake it like you.”
“I didn’t forsake it,” cried Tottie, with flashing eyes, and shaking her thick curls indignantly—which latter, by the way, since her coming under the stern influence of Miss Stivergill, had been disentangled, and hung about her like a golden glory.—“I left it to go to service, and mother takes care of it till I return home. I won’t speak to you any more. I hate your bybie, and I adore mine!”
So saying, little Bones jumped up and ran away. Small Pax made no attempt to stop her or to follow. He was too much taken aback by the sudden burst of passion to be able for more than a prolonged whistle, followed by a still more prolonged stare. Thereafter he sauntered away slowly, ruminating, perhaps, on the fickle character of woman, even in her undeveloped stages.
Tottie climbed hastily over a stile and turned into a green lane, where she meant to give full vent to her feelings in a satisfactory cry, when she was met face to face by Mr Abel Bones.
“Why, father!” she exclaimed, running to her sire with a look of joyful surprise, for occasional bad treatment had failed to dry up the bottomless well of love in her little heart.
“Hush! Tottie; there—take my hand, an’ don’t kick up such a row. You needn’t look so scared at seein’ me here. I’m fond o’ the country, you know, an’ I’ve come out to ’ave a little walk and a little talk with you.—Who was that you was talkin’ with just now?”
Tottie told him.
“Stoppin’ here, I s’pose?”
“Yes. He’s bin here for some time, but goes away soon—now that he’s better. It was him as saved my life—at least him and Mr Aspel, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, Tot. Let’s hear all about it,” replied Mr Bones, with a look of unwonted gravity.
Tottie went off at once into a glowing account of the fire and the rescue, to which her father listened with profound attention, not unmingled with surprise. Then he reverted to the aspect of the surrounding country.
“It’s a pretty place you live in here, Tot, an’ a nice house. It’s there the lady lives, I suppose who has the strange fancy to keep her wealth in a box on the sideboard? Well, it is curious, but there’s no accountin’ for the fancies o’ the rich, Tot. An’ you say she keeps no men-servants about her? Well, that’s wise, for men are dangerous characters for women to ’ave about ’em. She’s quite right. There’s a dear little dog too, she keeps, I’m told. Is that the only one she owns?”
“Yes, it’s the only one, and such a darlin’ it is, and so fond of me!” exclaimed Tottie.
“Ah, yes, wery small, but wery noisy an’ vicious,” remarked Mr Bones, with a sudden scowl, which fortunately his daughter did not see.
“O no, father; little Floppart ain’t vicious, though it is awful noisy w’en it chooses.”
“Well, Tot, I’d give a good deal to see that dear little Floppart, and make friends with it. D’you think you could manage to get it to follow you here?”
“Oh, easily. I’ll run an’ fetch it; but p’r’aps you had better come to the house. I know they’d like to see you, for they’re so kind to me.”
Mr Bones laughed sarcastically, and expressed his belief that they wouldn’t like to see him at all.
Just at that moment Miss Stivergill came round the turn of the lane and confronted them.
“Well, little Bones, whom have you here?” asked the lady, with a stern look at Mr Bones.
“Please, ma’am, it’s father. He ’appened to be in this neighbourhood, and came to see me.”
“Your father!” exclaimed Miss Stivergill, with a look of surprise. “Indeed!”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Bones, politely taking off his hat and looking her coolly in the face. “I ’ope it’s no offence, but I came a bit out o’ my way to see ’er. She says you’ve bin’ wery kind to her.”
“Well, she says the truth. I mean to be kind to her,” returned Miss Stivergill, as sternly as before.—“Take your father to the cottage, child, and tell them to give him a glass of beer. If you see Miss Lillycrop, tell her I’ve gone to the village, and won’t be back for an hour.” So saying, Miss Stivergill walked down the lane with masculine strides, leaving Tottie pleased, and her father smiling.
“I don’t want no beer, Tot,” said the latter. “But you go to the cottage and fetch me that dear little dog. I want to see it; and don’t forget the lady’s message to Miss Lillycrop—but be sure you don’t say I’m waitin’ for you. Don’t mention me to nobody. D’ee understand?”
Poor Tottie, with a slight and undefined misgiving at her heart, professed to understand, and went off.
In a few minutes she returned with the little dog—a lively poodle—which at first showed violent and unmistakable objections to being friendly with Mr Bones. But a scrap of meat, which that worthy had brought in his pocket, and a few soothing words, soon modified the objection.
Presently Mr Bones pulled a small muzzle from his pocket.
“D’you think, now, that Floppart would let you put it on ’er, Tot?”
Tot was sure she would, and soon had the muzzle on.
“That’s right; now, hold ’er fast a moment—just a—there—!”
He sprang at and caught the dog by the throat, choked a snarling yelp in the bud, and held it fast.
“Dear, dear, how wild it has got all of a sudden! W’y, it must be ill—p’r’aps mad. It’s well you put that muzzle on, Tot.”
While he spoke Abel Bones thrust the dog into one of the capacious pockets of his coat.
“Now, Tot,” he said, somewhat sternly, “I durstn’t let this dog go. It wants a doctor very bad. You go back to the ’ouse and tell ’em a man said so. You needn’t say what man; call me a philanthropist if you choose, an’ tell ’em I’ll send it back w’en it recovers. But you needn’t tell ’em anything until you’re axed, you know—it might get me into trouble, d’ee see, an’ say to Miss Stivergill it wasn’t your father as took the dog, but another man.”
He leaped over a low part of the hedge and was gone, leaving poor Tottie in a state of bewildered anxiety on the other side.
Under the influence of fear Tottie told the lies her father had bid her tell, and thereafter dwelt at Rosebud Cottage with an evil conscience and a heavy heart.
Having gained the high-road, Mr Bones sauntered easily to the railway station, took a third-class ticket for Charing Cross, and in due time found himself passing along the Strand. In the course of that journey poor little Floppart lay on its back in the bottom of its captor’s pocket, with a finger and thumb gently pressing her windpipe. Whenever she became restive, the finger and thumb tightened, and this with such unvarying regularity that she soon came to understand the advantage of lying still. She did, however, make sundry attempts to escape—once very violently, when the guard was opening the carriage-door to let Mr Bones enter, and again almost as violently at Charing Cross, when Mr Bones got out. Indeed, the dog had well-nigh got off, and was restored to its former place and position with difficulty.
Turning into Chancery Lane, and crossing over to Holborn, Abel Bones continued his way to Newgate, where, appropriately enough, he stopped and gazed grimly up at the massive walls.
“Don’t be in a ’urry,” said a very small boy, with dirt and daring in equal proportions on his face, “it’ll wait for you.”
Mr Bones made a tremendous demonstration of an intention to rush at the boy, who precipitately fled, and the former passed quietly on.
At St. Martin’s-le-Grand he paused again.
“Strange,” he muttered, “there seems to be some sort o’ fate as links me wi’ that Post-Office. It was here I began my London life as a porter, and lost my situation because the Postmaster-General couldn’t see the propriety of my opening letters that contained coin and postage-stamps and fi’-pun’ notes, which was quite unreasonable, for I had a special talent that way, and even the clargy tell us that our talents was given us to be used. It wasn’t far from here where I sot my little nephy down, that time I got rid of him, and it was goin’ up these wery steps I met with the man I’m tryin’ my best to bring to grief, an’ that same man wants to marry one of the girls in the Post-Office, and now, I find, has saved my Tot from bein’ burnt alive! Wery odd! It was here, too, that—”
Floppart at this moment turned the flow of his meditations by making a final and desperate struggle to be free. She shot out of his pocket and dropped with a bursting yell on the pavement. Recovering her feet before Bones recovered from his surprise she fled. Thought is quick as the lightning-flash. Bones knew that dogs find their way home mysteriously from any distance. He knew himself to be unable to run down Floppart. He saw his schemes thwarted. He adopted a mean device, shouted “Mad dog!” and rushed after it. A small errand-boy shrieked with glee, flung his basket at it, and followed up the chase. Floppart took round by St. Paul’s Churchyard. However sane she might have been at starting, it is certain that she was mad with terror in five minutes. She threaded her way among wheels and legs at full speed in perfect safety. It was afterwards estimated that seventeen cabmen, four gentlemen, two apple-women, three-and-twenty errand-boys—more or less,—and one policeman, flung umbrellas, sticks, baskets, and various missiles at her, with the effect of damaging innumerable shins and overturning many individuals, but without hurting a hair of Floppart’s body during her wild but brief career. Bones did not wish to recapture her. He wished her dead, and for that end loudly reiterated the calumny as to madness. Floppart circled round the grand cathedral erected by Wren and got into Cheapside. Here, doubling like a hare, she careered round the statue of Peel and went blindly back to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, as if to add yet another link to the chain of fate which bound her arch-pursuer to the General Post-Office. By way of completing the chain, she turned in at the gate, rushed to the rear of the building, dashed in at an open door, and scurried along a passage. Here the crowd was stayed, but the policeman followed heroically. The passage was cut short by a glass door, but a narrow staircase descended to the left. “Any port in a storm” is a proverb as well known among dogs as men. Down went Floppart to the basement of the building, invading the sanctity of the letter-carriers’ kitchen or salle-à-manger. A dozen stalwart postmen leaped from their meals to rush at the intruder. In the midst of the confusion the policeman’s truncheon was seen to sway aloft. Next instant the vaulted roof rang with a terrible cry, which truth compels us to state was Floppart’s dying yell.
None of those who had begun the chase were in at the death—save the policeman,—not even Abel Bones, for that worthy did not by any means court publicity. Besides, he felt pretty sure that his end was gained. He remembered, no doubt, the rule of the Office, that no letters or other things that have been posted can be returned to the sender, and, having seen the dog safely posted, he went home with a relieved mind.
Meanwhile the policeman took the remains of poor Floppart by the tail, holding it at arm’s-length for fear of the deadly poison supposed to be on its lips; and left the kitchen by a long passage. The men of the Post-Office returned to their food and their duties. Those who manage the details of her Majesty’s mails cannot afford to waste time when on duty. The policeman, left to himself, lost himself in the labyrinth of the basement. He made his way at last into the warm and agreeable room in which are kept the boilers that drive the engine that works the lifts. He was accosted by a stalwart stoker, whose appearance and air were as genial as the atmosphere of his apartment.
“Hallo!” said he, “what ’ave you got there?”
“A mad dog,” answered the policeman.—“I say, stoker, have you any ashpit where I could bury him?”
“Couldn’t allow ’im burial in our ashpit,” replied the stoker, with a decided shake of the head; “altogether out of the question.”
The policeman looked at the dead dog and at the stoker with a perplexed air.
“I say, look here,” he said, “couldn’t we—ah—don’t you think that we might—”
He paused, and cast a furtive glance at the furnaces.
“What! you don’t mean—cremate ’im?”
The policeman nodded.
“Well, now, I don’t know that it’s actooally against the rules of the GPO,” replied the stoker, with a meditative frown, “but it seems to me a raither unconstitootional proceedin’. It’s out o’ the way of our usual line of business, but—”
“That’s right,” said the policeman, as the stoker, who was an obliging man, took up a great shovel and flung open the furnace-door.
A terrific glare of intense heat and light shot out, appearing as if desirous of licking the stoker and policeman into its dreadful embrace.
“I don’t half like it,” said the stoker, glancing in; “the Postmaster-General might object, you know.”
“Not a bit of it, he’s too much of a gentleman to object—come,” said the policeman encouragingly.
The stoker held up the shovel. The body of Floppart was put thereon, after the removal of its collar. There was one good swing of the shovel, followed by a heave, and the little dog fell into the heart of the fiery furnace. The stoker shut the great iron door with a clang, and looked at the policeman solemnly. The policeman returned the look, thanked him, and retired. In less probably than three minutes Floppart’s body was reduced to its gaseous elements, vomited forth from the furnace chimney, and finally dissipated by the winds of heaven.
Thus did this, the first recorded and authentic case of cremation in the United Kingdom, emanate—as many a new, advantageous, and national measure has emanated before—from the prolific womb of the General Post-Office.
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