Again the Doctor laughed, wondered why the Captain had touched on such a theme, and said that he couldn’t exactly say what he might or might not do if circumstances were altered.
The Captain was baffled. However, he said that circumstances were altered, and, after reading over the latter part of Willum’s letter, left Lawrence to digest it at his leisure.
We need not follow him on his mission. Suffice it to say that he carried no small amount of relief to the minds of Mrs Stoutley and her household; and, thereafter, met Gillie by appointment at Charing Cross, whence he went to Kensington to see a villa, with a view to purchasing it.
At night he again essayed to move Mrs Roby’s resolution, and many a time afterwards attacked her, but always with the same result. Although, as he said, he fought like a true-blue British seaman, and gave her broadside after broadside as fast as he could load and fire, he made no impression on her whatever. She had nailed her colours to the mast and would never give in.
Chapter Twenty Four.
In which Tremendous Forces come to the Captain’s Aid
It is probable that most people can recall occasions when “circumstances” have done for them that which they have utterly failed to effect for themselves.
Some time after the failure of Captain Wopper’s little plots and plans in regard to Mrs Roby, “circumstances” favoured him—the wind shifted round, so to speak, and blew right astern. To continue our metaphor, it blew a tremendous gale, and the Captain’s ends were gained at last only by the sinking of the ship!
This is how it happened. One afternoon the Captain was walking rather disconsolately down the Strand in company with his satellite—we might almost say, his confidant. The street was very crowded, insomuch that at one or two crossings they were obliged to stand a few minutes before venturing over,—not that the difficulty was great, many active men being seen to dodge among the carts, drays, vans, and busses with marvellous ease and safety, but the Captain was cautious. He was wont to say that he warn’t used to sail in such crowded waters—there warn’t enough o’ sea room for him—he’d rather lay-to, or stand—off-an’-on for half a day than risk being run down by them shore-goin’ crafts.
“Everything in life seems to go wrong at times,” muttered the Captain, as he and the satellite lay-to at one of these crossings.
“Yes, it’s coorious, ain’t it, sir,” said Gillie, “an’ at other times everything seems to go right—don’t it, sir?”
“True, my lad, that’s a better view to take of it,” returned the Captain, cheerfully, “come, we’ll heave ahead.”
As they were “heaving” along in silence, the rattle and noise around them being unsuited to conversation, they suddenly became aware that the ordinary din of the Strand swelled into a furious roar. Gillie was half way up a lamp-post in an instant! from which elevated position he looked down on the Captain, and said—
“A ingine!”
“What sort of a ingine, my lad?”
“A fire! hooray!” shouted Gillie, with glittering eyes and flushed countenance, “look out, Cappen, keep close ’longside o’ me, under the lee o’ the lamp-post. It’s not a bad buffer, though never quite a sure one, bein’ carried clean away sometimes by the wheels w’en there’s a bad driver.”
As he spoke, the most intense excitement was manifested in the crowded thoroughfare. Whips were flourished, cabmen shouted, horses reared, vehicles of all kinds scattered right and left even although there had seemed almost a “block” two seconds before. Timid foot passengers rushed into shops, bold ones mounted steps and kerb-stones, or stood on tip-toe, and the Captain, towering over the crowd, saw the gleam of brass helmets as the charioteer clove his way through the swaying mass.
There is something powerfully exciting to most minds in the sight of men rushing into violent action, especially when the action may possibly involve life and death. The natural excitement aroused in the Captain’s breast was increased by the deep bass nautical roar that met his ear. Every man in the London fire-brigade is, or used to be, a picked man-of-war’s-man, and the shouting necessary in such a thoroughfare to make people get out of the way was not only tremendous but unceasing. It was as though a dozen mad “bo’s’ns,” capped with brazen war-helmets, had been let loose on London society, through which they tore at full gallop behind three powerful horses on a hissing and smoking monster of brass and iron. A bomb shell from a twenty-five-ton gun could scarce have cut a lane more effectually. The Captain took off his hat and cheered in sympathy. The satellite almost dropped from the lamp-post with excess of feeling. The crash and roar increased, culminated, rushed past and gone in a moment.
Gillie dropped to the ground as if he had been shot, seized the Captain’s hand, and attempted to drag him along. He might as well have tried to drag Vesuvius from its base, but the Captain was willing. A hansom-cab chanced to be in front of them as they dashed into the road, the driver smoking and cool as a cucumber, being used to such incidents. He held up a finger.
“Quick, in with you, Cappen!”
Gillie got behind his patron, and in attempting to expedite his movements with a push, almost sent him out at the other side.
“After the ingine—slap!” yelled Gillie to the face which looked down through the conversation-hole in the roof, “double extra fare if you look sharp.”
The cabman was evidently a sympathetic soul. He followed in the wake of the fire-engine as well as he could; but it was a difficult process, for, while the world at large made way for it, nobody cared a straw for him!
“Ain’t it fun?” said Gillie, as he settled his panting little body on the cushion beside his friend and master.
“Not bad,” responded the Captain, who half laughed at the thought of being so led away by excitement and a small boy.
“I’d give up all my bright prospects of advancement in life,” continued Gillie, “to be a fireman. There’s no fun goin’ equal to a fire.”
“P’r’aps it don’t seem quite so funny to them as is bein’ burnt out,” suggested the Captain.
“Of course it don’t, but that can’t be helped, you know—can it, sir? What can’t be cured must be endoored, as the proverb says. Get along, old fellow, don’t spare his ribs—double fare, you know; we’ll lose ’em if you don’t.”
The latter part of the remark was shouted through the hole to the cabman, who however, pulled up instead of complying.
“It’s of no use, sir,” he said, looking down at the Captain, “I’ve lost sight of ’em.”
Gillie was on the pavement in a moment.
“Never mind, Cappen, give him five bob, an’ decline the change; come along. I see ’em go past the Bridge, so ten to one it’s down about the docks somewheres—the wust place in London for a fire w’ich, of course, means the best.”
The idea of its being so afforded such unalloyed pleasure to Gillie, that he found it hard to restrain himself and accommodate his pace to that of his friend.
It soon became very evident that the fire was in truth somewhere about the docks, for not only was a dense cloud of smoke seen rising in that direction, but fire-engines began to dash from side streets everywhere, and to rush towards the smoke as if they were sentient things impatient for the fray.
The cause of such unusual vigour and accumulation of power was, that a fire anywhere about the docks is deemed pre-eminently dangerous, owing to the great and crowded warehouses being stuffed from cellars to roof-trees with combustibles. The docks, in regard to fire, form the citadel of London. If the enemy gets a footing there, he must be expelled at all hazards and at any cost.
As the Captain and his protégé hurried along, they were naturally led in the direction of their home. A vague undefined fear at the same instant took possession of both, for they glanced gravely at each other without speaking, and, as if by mutual consent, began to run. Gillie had no need now to complain of his companion’s pace. He had enough to do to keep up with it. There were many runners besides themselves now, for the fire was obviously near at hand, and the entire population of the streets seemed to be pressing towards it. A few steps more brought them in sight of the head of Grubb’s Court. Here several fire-engines were standing in full play surrounded by a swaying mass of human beings. Still there was no sign of the precise locality of the fires for the tall houses hid everything from view save the dense cloud which overshadowed them all.
Even Captain Wopper’s great strength would have been neutralised in such a crowd if it had not now been seconded by an excitement and anxiety that nothing could resist. He crushed his way through as if he had been one of the steam fire-engines, Gillie holding tight to the stout tails of his monkey jacket. Several powerful roughs came in his way, and sought to check him. The Captain had hitherto merely used his shoulders and his weight. To the roughs he applied a fist—right and left—and two went down. A few seconds brought him to the cordon of policemen. They had seen him approaching, and one placed himself in front of the Captain with the quiet air of a man who is accustomed never to give way to physical force!
“I live down Grubb’s Court, my man,” said the Captain, with an eager respectful air, for he was of a law-abiding spirit.
The constable stepped aside, and nodded gravely. The Captain passed the line, but Gillie was pounced upon as if he had been a mouse and the constable a cat.
“He belongs to me,” cried the Captain, turning back on hearing Gillie’s yell of despair.
The boy was released, and both flew down the Court, on the pavement of which the snake-like water-hose lay spirting at its seams.
“It’s in the cabin,” said the Captain, in a low deep voice, as he dashed into the Court, where a crowd of firemen were toiling with cool, quiet, yet tremendous energy. No crowd interrupted them here, save the few frantic inhabitants of the Court, who were screaming advice and doing nothing; but no attention whatever was paid to them. A foreman of the brigade stood looking calmly upwards engaged in low-toned conversation with a brother fireman, as if they were discussing theories of the picturesque and beautiful with special application to chimney-cans, clouds of smoke, and leaping tongues of fire.
Immense engine power had been brought to bear, and one of the gigantic floating-engines of the Thames had got near enough to shower tons of water over the buildings, still it was a matter of uncertainty whether the fire could be confined to the Court where it had originated.
The result of the foreman’s quiet talk was that the brother-fireman suddenly seized a nozzle from a comrade, and made a dash at the door leading up to “the cabin.” Flames and smoke drove him back instantly.
It was at this moment that Captain Wopper came on the scene. Without a moment’s hesitation he rushed towards the same door. The foreman seized his arm.
“It’s of no use, sir, you can’t do it.”
The Captain shook him off and sprang in. A few seconds and he rushed out choking, scorched, and with his eyes starting almost out of their sockets.
“It is of no use, sir,” remonstrated the foreman, “besides, the people have all bin got out, I’m told.”
“No, they ’aven’t,” cried Mrs White, coming up at the moment, frantically wringing the last article of linen on which she had been professionally engaged, “Mrs Roby’s there yet.”
“All right, sir,” said the foreman, with that quiet comforting intonation which is peculiar to men of power, resource, and self-reliance, “come to the back. The escape will be up immediately. It couldn’t get down the Court, owin’ to some masonry that was piled there, and had to be sent round.”
Quick to understand, the Captain followed the fireman, and reached the back of the house, on the riverside, just as the towering head of the escape emerged from a flanking alley.
“This way. The small window on the right at the top—so.”
The ladder was barely placed when the Captain sprang upon it and ran up as, many a time before, he had run up the shrouds of his own vessel. A cheer from the crowd below greeted this display of activity, but it was changed into a laugh when the Captain, finding the window shut and bolted, want into the room head first, carrying frame and glass along with him! Divesting himself of the uncomfortable necklace, he looked hastily round. The smoke was pretty thick, but not sufficiently so to prevent his seeing poor Mrs Roby lying on the floor as if she had fallen down suffocated.
“Cheer up, old lass,” he cried, kneeling and raising her head tenderly.
“Is that you, Cappen?” said the old woman, in a weak voice.
“Come, we’ve no time to lose. Let me lift you; the place is all alight. I thought you was choked.”
“Choked! oh dear, no,” replied the old woman, “but I’ve always heard that in a fire you should keep your face close to the ground for air—Ah! gently, Cappen, dear!”
While she was speaking, the Captain was getting her tucked under his strong right arm. He could have whisked her on his shoulder in a moment, but was afraid of her poor old bones, and treated her as if she had been a fragile China tea-cup of great value.
Next moment he was out on the escape, and reached the ground amid ringing cheers. He carried her at once to the nearest place of safety, and, committing her to the care of Mrs White, rushed back to the scene of conflagration just as they were about to remove the escape.
“Stop!” shouted the Captain, springing on it.
“There’s nobody else up, is there?” cried a fireman, as the Captain ran up.
“No, nobody.”
“Come down then, directly,” roared the fireman, “the escape is wanted elsewhere. Come down, I say, or we’ll leave you.”
“You’re welcome to leave me,” roared the Captain, as he stepped into the window, “only hold your noise, an’ mind your own business.”
With a mingled feeling of amusement and indignation they hurried away with the escape. It had been urgently wanted to reach a commanding position whence to assail the fire. The order to send it was peremptory, so the Captain was left in his uncomfortable situation, with the smoke increasing around him, and the fire roaring underneath.
The actions of our seaman were now curious as well as prompt. Taking a blanket from his old friend’s bed, he spread it below the chimney-piece, and in a remarkably short time pulled down, without damaging, every object on the wall and threw it into the blanket. He then added to the heap the Chinese lantern, the Turkish scimitar, the New Zealand club, the Eastern shield, the ornamented dagger, the worsted work sampler, the sou’-wester, the oiled coat, the telescope, the framed sheet of the flags of all nations, and the small portrait of the sea-captain in his “go-to-meetin’” clothes; also the big Bible and a very small box, which latter contained Mrs Roby’s limited wardrobe. He tied all up in a tight bundle. A coil of rope hung on a peg on the wall. The bundle was fastened to the end of it and lowered to the ground, amid a fire of remarks from the crowd, which were rather caustic and humorous than complimentary.
“Gillie,” shouted the Captain, “cast off the rope, lad, and look well after the property.”
“Ay, ay, Cappen,” replied the youth, taking up a thick cart-pin, or something of the sort, that lay near, and mounting guard.
There was another laugh, from crowd and firemen, at the nautical brevity and promptitude of Gillie.
At every large fire in London there may be seen a few firemen standing about in what an ignorant spectator might imagine to be easy indifference and idleness, but these men are not idlers. They are resting. The men who first arrive at a fire go into action with the utmost vigour, and toil until their powers are nearly—sometimes quite—exhausted. As time passes fresh men are continually arriving from the more distant stations. These go into action as they come up, thus relieving the others, who stand aloof for a time looking on, or doing easy work, and recruiting their energies. It was these men who watched the Captain’s proceedings with much amusement while their comrades were doing battle with the foe.
Presently the Captain reappeared at the window and lowered a huge sea-chest. A third time he appeared with the model of a full-rigged ship in his hand. This time he let the end of the rope down, and then getting over the window, slid easily to the ground.
“You’re uncommon careful o’ your property,” exclaimed one of the onlookers, with a broad grin.
“’Taint all my property, lad,” replied the Captain, with a good-humoured nod, “most of it is a poor old ’ooman’s belongings.”
So saying, he got a man to carry his sea-chest, himself shouldered the bundle, Gillie was intrusted with the full-rigged model, and thus laden they left the scene followed by another laugh and a hearty cheer.
But our bluff seaman was not content with rescuing Mrs Roby and her property. He afterwards proceeded to lend his effective aid to all who desired his assistance, and did not cease his exertions until evening, by which time the fire was happily subdued.
“She must not be moved to-night Captain,” said Dr Lawrence, for whom Gillie had been sent; “the place where she lies is doubtless far from comfortable, but I have got her to sleep, and it would be a pity to awake her. To-morrow we shall get her into more comfortable quarters.”
“Could she bear movin’ to-morrow, a mile or so?” asked the Captain.
“Certainly, but there is no occasion to go so far. Lodgings are to be had—”
“All right, Doctor; I’ve got a lodging ready for her, and will ask you to come an’ have pot-luck with us before long. Gillie, my lad, you go hail a cab, and then come back to lend a hand wi’ the cargo.”
In a few minutes the pair were whirling towards the west end of London, and were finally landed with their “cargo” on the banks of the Thames above the bridges, near the new building which Captain Wopper had named, after its prototype, “the cabin.”
To fit this up after the fashion of the old place was a comparatively short and easy work for two such handy labourers. Before they left that night it was so like its predecessor in all respects, except dirt, that both declared it to be the “identical same craft, in shape and rig, even to the little bed and curtains.” Next afternoon Mrs Roby was brought to it by Captain Wopper, in a specially easy carriage hired for the purpose.
The poor old woman had received more of a shock than she was willing to admit, and did exactly as she was bid, with many a sigh, however, at the thought of having been burnt out of the old home. She was carried up the stair in a chair by two porters, and permitted the Captain to draw a thick veil over her head to conceal, as he said, her blushes from the men. He also took particular care to draw the curtains of the bed close round her after she had been laid in it and then retired to allow her to be disrobed by Netta, who had been obtained from Mrs Stoutley on loan expressly for the occasion.
Much of this care to prevent her seeing the place that day, however, was unnecessary. The poor old creature was too much wearied by the short journey to look at anything. After partaking of a little tea and toast she fell into a quiet sleep, which was not broken till late on the following morning.
Her first thought on waking was the fire. Her second, the Captain. He was in the room, she knew, because he was whistling in his usual low tone while moving about the fireplace preparing breakfast. She glanced at the curtains; her own curtains certainly,—and the bed too! Much surprised, she quietly put out her thin hand and drew the curtain slightly aside. The Captain in his shirt sleeves, as usual, preparing buttered toast, the fireplace, the old kettle with the defiant spout singing away as defiantly as ever, the various photographs, pot-lids, and other ornaments above the fireplace, the two little windows commanding an extensive prospect of the sky from the spot where she lay, the full-rigged ship, the Chinese lantern hanging from the beam—everything just as it should be!
“Well, well,” thought Mrs Roby, with a sigh of relief; “the fire must have been a dream after all! but what a vivid one!”
She coughed. The Captain was at her side instantly.
“Slept well, old girl?”
“Very well, thank you. I’ve had such a queer dream, d’you know?”
“Have you? Take your breakfast, mother, before tellin’ it. It’s all ready—there, fire away.”
“It was such a vivid one,” she resumed, when half through her third cup, “all about a fire, and you were in it too.”
Here she proceeded to relate her dream with the most circumstantial care. The Captain listened with patient attention till she had finished, and then said—
“It was no dream, mother. It’s said that the great fire of London was a real blessin’ to the city. The last fire in London will, I hope, be a blessin’ to you an’ me. It was real enough and terrible too, but through God’s mercy you have been saved from it. I managed to save your little odds and ends too. This is the noo ‘cabin,’ mother, that you wouldn’t consent to come to. Something like the old one, ain’t it?”
Mrs Roby spoke never a word, but looked round the room in bewilderment. Taking the Captain’s hand she kissed it, and gazed at him and the room until she fell asleep. Awaking again in half an hour, she finished her breakfast, asked for the old Bible, and, declaring herself content, fell straightway into her old ways and habits.