To do Martha Reading justice, she had fallen in love with Sparks before intemperance had rendered his countenance repulsive and his conduct brutal. When, perceiving the power he had over her, he was mean enough to borrow and squander the slender gains she made by the laborious work of dress-making—compared to which coal-heaving must be mere child’s play—she experienced a change in her feelings towards him, which she could not easily understand or define. Her thoughts of him were mingled with intense regrets and anxieties, and she looked forward to his visits with alarm. Yet those thoughts were not the result of dying affection; she felt quite certain of that, having learned from experience that, “many waters cannot quench love.”
One evening, about eight o’clock, Phil Sparks, having prosecuted his “business” up to that hour without success, tapped at the door of Martha’s garret and entered without waiting for permission; indeed, his tapping at all was a rather unwonted piece of politeness.
“Come in, Phil,” said Martha, rising and shaking hands, after which she resumed her work.
“You seem busy to-night,” remarked Sparks, sitting down on a broken chair beside the fireless grate, and taking out his bosom companion, a short black pipe, which he began to fill.
“I am always busy,” said Martha, with a sigh.
“An’ it don’t seem to agree with you, to judge from your looks,” rejoined the man.
This was true. The poor girl’s pretty face was thin and very pale and haggard.
“I was up all last night,” she said, “and feel tired now, and there’s not much chance of my getting to bed to-night either, because the lady for whom I am making this must have it by to-morrow afternoon at latest.”
Here Mr Sparks muttered something very like a malediction on ladies in general, and on ladies who “must” have dresses in particular.
“Your fire’s dead out, Martha,” he added, poking among the ashes in search of a live ember.
“Yes, Phil, it’s out. I can’t afford fire of an evening; besides it ain’t cold just now.”
“You can afford matches, I suppose,” growled Phil; “ah, here they are. Useful things matches, not only for lightin’ a feller’s pipe with, but also for—well; so she must have it by to-morrow afternoon, must she?”
“Yes, so my employer tells me.”
“An’ she’ll not take no denial, won’t she?”
“I believe not,” replied Martha, with a faint smile, which, like a gleam of sunshine on a dark landscape, gave indication of the brightness that might have been if grey clouds of sorrow had not overspread her sky.
“What’s the lady’s name, Martha?”
“Middleton.”
“And w’ere abouts may she live?”
“In Conway Street, Knightsbridge.”
“The number?”
“Number 6, I believe; but why are you so particular in your inquiries about her?” said Martha, looking up for a moment from her work, while the faint gleam of sunshine again flitted over her face.
“Why, you see, Martha,” replied Phil, gazing through the smoke of his pipe with a sinister smile, “it makes a feller feel koorious to hear the partiklers about a lady wot must have things, an’ won’t take no denial! If I was you, now, I’d disappoint her, an’ see how she’d take it.”
He wound up his remark, which was made in a bantering tone, with another malediction, which was earnest enough—savagely so.
“Oh! Phil,” cried the girl, in an earnest tone of entreaty; “don’t, oh, don’t swear so. It is awful to think that God hears you, is near you—at your very elbow—while you thus insult Him to his face.”
The man made no reply, but smoked with increasing intensity, while he frowned at the empty fire-place.
“Well, Martha,” he said, after a prolonged silence, “I’ve got work at last.”
“Have you?” cried the girl, with a look of interest.
“Yes; it ain’t much to boast of, to be sure, but it pays, and, as it ties me to nothin’ an’ nobody, it suits my taste well. I’m wot you may call a appendage o’ the fire-brigade. I hangs about the streets till I sees a fire, w’en, off I goes full split to the nearest fire-station, calls out the engine, and gits the reward for bein’ first to give the alarm.”
“Indeed,” said Martha, whose face, which had kindled up at first with pleasure, assumed a somewhat disappointed look; “I—I fear you won’t make much by that, Phil?”
“You don’t seem to make much by that,” retorted Phil, pointing with the bowl of his pipe to the dress which lay in her lap and streamed in a profusion of rich folds down to the floor.
“Not much,” assented Martha, with a sigh. “Well, then,” continued Phil, re-lighting his pipe, and pausing occasionally in his remarks to admire the bowl, “that bein’ so, you and I are much in the same fix, so if we unites our small incomes, of course that’ll make ’em just double the size.”
“Phil,” said Martha, in a lower voice, as she let her hands and the work on which they were engaged fall on her lap, “I think, now, that it will never be.”
“What’ll never be?” demanded the man rudely, looking at the girl in surprise.
“Our marriage.”
“What! are you going to jilt me?”
“Heaven forbid,” said Martha, earnestly. “But you and I are not as we once were, Phil, we differ on many points. I feel sure that our union would make us more miserable than we are.”
“Come, come,” cried the man, half in jest and half in earnest. “This kind of thing will never do. You mustn’t joke about that, old girl, else I’ll have you up for breach of promise.”
Mr Sparks rose as he spoke, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, put it in his waistcoat pocket, and prepared to go.
“Martha,” he said, “I’m goin’ off now to attend to my business, but I haven’t made a rap yet to-day, and its hard working on a empty stomach, so I just looked in to light my pipe, and enquire if you hadn’t got a shillin’ about you, eh!”
The girl looked troubled.
“Oh, very well,” cried Sparks, with an offended air, “if you don’t want to accommodate me, never mind, I can get it elsewhere.”
“Stop!” cried Martha, taking a leathern purse from her pocket.
“Well, it would have been rather hard,” he said, returning and holding out his hand.
“There, take it,” said Martha, “You shouldn’t judge too quickly. You don’t know why I looked put out. It is my—”
She stopped short, and then said hurriedly, “Don’t drink it, Phil.”
“No, I won’t. I’m hungry. I’ll eat it. Thankee.”
With a coarse laugh he left the room, and poor Martha sat down again to her weary toil, which was not in any degree lightened by the fact that she had just given away her last shilling.
A moment after, the door opened suddenly and Mr Sparks looked in with a grin, which did not improve the expression of his countenance.
“I say, I wouldn’t finish that dress to-night if I was you.”
“Why not, Phil?” asked the girl in surprise.
“’Cause the lady won’t want it to-morrow arternoon.”
“How do you know that?”
“No matter. It’s by means of a kind of second-sight I’ve got, that I find out a-many things. All I can say is that I’ve got a strong suspicion—a what d’ye call it—a presentiment that Mrs Middleton, of Number 6, Conway Street, Knightsbridge, won’t want her dress to-morrow, so I advise you to go to bed to-night.”
Without waiting for a reply Mr Sparks shut the door and descended to the street. Purchasing and lighting a cheroot at the nearest tobacco shop with part of Martha’s last shilling, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and sauntering along various small streets and squares, gave his undivided attention to business.
For a man whose wants were rather extensive and urgent, the “business” did not seem a very promising one. He glanced up at the houses as he sauntered along, appearing almost to expect that some of them would undergo spontaneous combustion for his special accommodation. Occasionally he paused and gazed at a particular house with rapt intensity, as if he hoped the light which flashed from his own eyes would set it on fire; but the houses being all regular bricks refused to flare up at such a weak insult.
Finding his way to Trafalgar Square, Mr Sparks threw away the end of his cheroot, and, mending his pace, walked smartly along Piccadilly until he gained the neighbourhood of Knightsbridge. Here he purchased another cheroot, and while lighting it took occasion to ask if there was a street thereabouts named Conway Street.
“Yes, sir, there is,” said a small and exceedingly pert crossing-sweeper, who chanced to be standing near the open door of the shop, and overheard the question. “I’ll show you the way for a copper, sir, but silver preferred, if you’re so disposed.”
“Whereabouts is it?” asked Mr Sparks of the shopman, regardless of the boy.
“Round the corner to your right, and after that second turning to your left.”
“Oh, that’s all wrong,” cried the boy. “W’y, ’ow should ’ee know hanythink about streets? Never goes nowheres, does nothink but sell snuff an’ pigtail, mornin’, noon, and night. ’Ee should have said, right round the corner to your right, and ’ee should have added ‘sir,’ for that’s right w’en a gen’l’m’n’s spoke to, arter w’ich, w’en you’ve left this ’ere street, take second turnin’ to your left, if you’re left-’anded, an’ then you come hall right. That’s ’ow ’ee ought to have said it, sir.”
In the midst of this flow of information, Mr Sparks emerged into the street.
“I’ll show you the way for love, sir, if you ain’t got no money,” said the boy in a tone of mock sincerity, stepping up and touching his cap.
“Let ’im alone, Bloater,” cried another and smaller boy, “don’t you see ee’s one of the swell mob, an’ don’t want to ’ave too much attention drawed to him?”
“No ’ee ain’t, Little Jim, ee’s only a gen’l’m’n in disguise,” replied the Bloater, sidling up to Mr Sparks, and urgently repeating, “show you the way for a copper, sir, only a copper.”
Mr Sparks, being, as we have said, an irascible man, and particularly out of humour that evening, did not vouchsafe a reply, but, turning suddenly round, gave the Bloater a savage kick that turned him head over heels into the road.
The Bloater, whose proper name was Robert Herring, from which were derived the aliases, Raw Herring and the Bloater, immediately recovered himself and rushed at Mr Sparks with his broom. He was a strong, resolute, passionate boy, yet withal good-humoured and placable. In the first burst of indignation he certainly meant to commit a violent assault, but he suddenly changed his mind. Perhaps the look and attitude of his antagonist had something to do with the change; perhaps the squeaky voice of Little Jim, shouting “hooray, Bloater, go in an’ win,” may have aroused his sense of the ludicrous, which was very strong, and helped to check him. At all events, instead of bringing his broom down on the head of Mr Sparks, Bloater performed an impromptu war-dance round him and flourished his weapon with a rapidity that was only surpassed by the rapid flow of his language.
“Now then, Gunpowder, come on; wot do you mean by it—eh? You low-minded son of a pepper-castor! Who let you out o’ the cruet-stand? Wot d’ee mean by raisin’ yer dirty foot ag’in a honest man, w’ch you ain’t, an’ never was, an’ never will be, an’ never could be, seein’ that both your respected parients was ’anged afore you was born. Come on, I say. You ain’t a coward, air you? If so, I’ll ’and you over to Little Jim ’ere, an’ stand by to see fair play!”
During this outburst, Mr Sparks had quietly faced the excited boy, watching his opportunity to make a dash at him, but the appearance of a policeman put a sudden termination to the riot by inducing the Bloater and Little Jim to shoulder their brooms and fly. Mr Sparks, smiling grimly, (he never smiled otherwise), thrust his hands into his pockets, resumed his cheroot, and held on the even tenor of his way.
But he had not yet done with the Bloater. That volatile and revengeful youth, having run on in advance, ensconced himself behind a projection at the corner of the street close to which Sparks had to pass, and from that point of vantage suddenly shot into his ear a yell so excruciating that it caused the man to start and stagger off the pavement; before he could recover himself, his tormentor had doubled round the corner and vanished.
Growling savagely, he continued his walk. One of the turns to the left, which he had to make, led him through a dark and narrow street. Here, keeping carefully in the middle of the road for security, he looked sharply on either side, having his hands out of his pockets now, and clenched, for he fully expected another yell. He was wrong, however, in his expectations. The Bloater happened to know of a long ladder, whose nightly place of repose was on the ground in a certain dark passage, with its end pointing across that street. Taking up a position beside this ladder, with Little Jim—who followed him, almost bursting with delight—he bided his time and kept as quiet as a mouse. Just in the nick of time the ladder was run out, and Mr Sparks tripping over it, fell violently to the ground. He sprang up and gave chase, of course, but he might as well have followed a will-o’-the-wisp. The young scamps, doubling like hares, took refuge in a dark recess under a stair with which they were well acquainted, and from that position they watched their enemy. They heard him go growling past; knew, a moment or two later, from the disappointed tone of the growl, that he had found the opening at the other end of the passage; heard him return, growling, and saw him for a moment in the dim light of the entrance as he left the place. Then, swiftly issuing from their retreat, they followed.
“I say, Bloater,” whispered Little Jim, “ee’s got such an ugly mug that I do b’lieve ee’s up to some game or other.”
“P’raps ’ee is,” returned the Bloater, meditatively; “we’ll let ’im alone an’ foller ’im up.”
The prolonged season of peace that followed, induced Mr Sparks to believe that his tormentors had left him, he therefore dismissed them from his mind, and gave himself entirely to business. Arrived at Conway street, he found that it was one of those semi-genteel streets in the immediate neighbourhood of Kensington Gardens, wherein dwell thriving tradespeople who know themselves to be rising in the world, and unfortunate members of the “upper ten,” who know that they have come down in the world, but have not ceased the struggle to keep up appearances. It was a quiet, unfrequented street, in which the hum of the surrounding city sounded like the roar of a distant cataract. Here Mr Sparks checked his pace—stopped—and looked about him with evident caution.
“Ho, ho!” whispered Little Jim.
“We’ve tracked ’im down,” replied the Bloater with a chuckle.
Mr Sparks soon found Number 6. On the door a brass plate revealed “Mrs Middleton.”
“Ha! she must have it, must she, an’ won’t take no denial,” muttered the man between his teeth.
Mr Sparks observed that one of the lower windows was open, which was not to be wondered at, for the weather was rather warm at the time. He also observed that the curtains of the window were made of white flowered muslin, and that they swayed gently in the wind, not far from a couple of candles which stood on a small table. There was no one in the room at the time.
“Strange,” muttered Mr Sparks, with a grim smile, “that people will leave lights so near muslin curtains!”
Most ordinary people would have thought the candles in question at a sufficiently safe distance from the curtains, but Mr Sparks apparently thought otherwise. He entertained peculiar views about the danger of fire.
From the position which the two boys occupied they could not see the man while he was thus engaged in examining and commenting on Number 6, Conway Street, but they saw him quite well when he crossed the street, (which had only one side to it, a wall occupying the other), and they saw him still better in the course of a few seconds when a bright light suddenly streamed towards him, and illumined his villainous countenance, and they heard as well as saw him, the next instant, when he shouted “fire—fire!” and rushed frantically away.
“Hallo!” exclaimed the Bloater, and dashed off at full speed. Little Jim echoed the sentiment and followed.
Robert, alias Raw Herring, was a sharp-witted lad. He understood the case, (partly at least), in a moment, and proceeded to appropriate action. Being intimately acquainted with that part of London, he took a short cut, overshot Mr Sparks, and was first to give the alarm at the fire-station. When, therefore, Mr Sparks ran in, panting and shouting “fire!” great was his surprise to find the men already roused, and the horses being attached to the engine.
“Where away?” inquired one of the firemen, supposing that Sparks, perhaps, brought information of another fire.
“Number 6, Conway Street,” he gasped.
“All right, we’ve got the noos already. The boys brought it.”
The Bloater, with a mouth extending from ear to ear and all his teeth displayed, uttered the single word “sold!” as Mr Sparks turned his eyes on him. One glance was enough. The man became very pale, and suddenly left the station amid a shout of laughter from the firemen, as they leaped on the engine and drove away, followed by the two boys whose spirits were already excited to the highest pitch of ecstasy by a fire.
It was early morning before the fire was subdued, and Number 6 left the blackened skeleton of a house. Long before that, the Bloater and Little Jim had sought repose in the cart-shed of a neighbouring stable. Long before that Mr Philip Sparks had retired to rest, growling anathemas on the heads of boys in general, and crossing-sweepers in particular; and not very long before that poor Martha Reading had put in the last stitch of her work, and fallen into a profound sleep in her chair.
Mr Sparks turned out to be a true prophet. Mrs Middleton did not insist on having her dress home that afternoon, and when Martha, true to her promise, conveyed it to Number 6, Conway Street, she found no one there to receive it except a few drenched men of the Red Brigade, and the police.
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