The Garret and the Garden; Or, Low Life High Up

Sam turned to his daughter: “Ye could never cross that, Susy?” he said.

Although no coward, the poor girl shrank from the giddy ledge, which was rendered more dangerous and terrible by being now surrounded by occasional puffs of smoke and clouds of steam from the water of a dozen hydrants which by that time were playing into the raging flames. To add to the horrors of the situation, beams and masses of masonry were heard occasionally crashing in the interior of the building.

Sam advanced to take Susy in his arms, but Laidlaw stepped between them.

“Leave her t’ me,” he said; “the auld woman’s lichter, an’ ye’re no sae strong as me.”

Saying which, he lifted the girl in his left arm as if she had been but a little child, and mounted the parapet keeping his right arm free to balance himself or cling to anything if need be. Sam, who was quite equal to the emergency, took old Liz into his arms and followed, but cast one glance back at Tommy.

“Never mind me, Sam,” cried the boy, who, having got over his first panic, rose heroically to the occasion.

The crowd below saw what they were attempting, and gave them a cheer of encouragement, yet with bated breath, as if they dreaded the issue.

A few seconds and they were past that danger, but still stood on the burning house at another part of the roof. Here, being suddenly drenched by spray from one of the engines, Sam and Tommy made for the shelter of a chimney-stack. As there was not room behind it for more, Laidlaw carried his light burden to another stack, and looked hastily round to see what next could be done. Just at that moment there was a wild cheer below, in the midst of which a stentorian voice came to them, as it were, on the wings of fire and smoke—“Stay where you are a minute—the escape is coming!”

“Thank God!” exclaimed Laidlaw, looking down at the fair head which rested on his shoulder. The cheeks were deadly white and the eyes closed, but the pressure of her arms showed that the girl clung to him for very life. A bright shower of sparks at the moment flew around them. “Heeven an’ pandemonium brought thegither!” he thought as he bent over to protect her. His face was very near to hers!

“My puir wee doo!” he muttered, and placed a timid kiss upon the pale cheek, which instantly coloured as if the fires around had suddenly kindled them.

“O lassie, forgi’e me! I didna mean to do tha—I railly—did—not,—but I couldna help it! I wad hae waited till ye gie’d me leave. But after a’—what for no? I thought t’ ask ye t’ gie me the right this very day. And O lassie! if I might only hope that—”

He stopped, and something induced him to do that again. At the same moment another mighty roar ascended from the crowd, and the head of the great fire-escape rose like a solemn spectre through smoke, fire, and steam, not ten yards from where he stood.

“Hooray!” shouted Tommy, for he felt that they were saved. Laidlaw said nothing, but sprang to the head of the ladder, got carefully upon it, and began steadily to descend with Susy. Sam was about to follow with old Liz, but glanced at Tommy.

“Go first, lad.”

“Arter you, mate,” said the boy, stepping politely back; “you see, tigers, like captings, are always last to leave a sinkin’ ship.”

It was neither the time nor place for ceremony. With something approaching almost to a laugh, the seaman got on the ladder as smartly as he would have taken to the shrouds of a ship, and Tommy followed.

Half-way down they met a swirl of smoke, with an occasional tongue of flame shooting through it from a shattered window. At the same moment they encountered a brass-helmeted fellow springing boldly up through the same to the rescue.

“Gang doon again, freen’,” shouted Laidlaw, when his heel came in contact with the helmet. “We’re a’ safe here.”

He paused just a moment to draw the shawl completely over Susy’s head and arms, and to pull her dress well round her feet. Then, burying his face in the same shawl and shutting his eyes, he descended steadily but swiftly. For a moment or two the rounds of the ladder felt like heated iron bars, and there was a slight frizzling of his brown curly locks at the back. Then a fresh draught of air and a tremendous stream of water that nigh washed him off the ladder.

Next moment they were safe on the ground, in the midst of the wildly-cheering crowd, through which burst Mrs Rampy in a flood of joyful tears, and seized old Liz in her arms. Mrs Blathers followed close at her heels.

“My!” she exclaimed in sudden amazement, staring at old Liz’s, “it’s gone!”

“So it is,” cried Mrs Rampy, for once agreeing.

And so it was! The last fang belonging to chimney-pot Liz had perished in that great conflagration!

Many were the offers that old Liz received of house accommodation that night, from the lowest of washerwomen to the highest of tradesmen, but Sam Blake, in her behalf, declined them all, and proceeded to the main street to hail a cab.

“She ain’t ’urt, is she? You’re not takin’ ’er to a hospital?” cried one of the crowd. “You’ll come back agin to stay with us, Liz—won’t you?”

“No, we won’t,” cried a boy’s voice. “We’ve come into our fortins, an’ are a-goin’ to live in the vest end for ever an’ ever.”

“Who’s that blue spider?” asked a boy; “w’y—no—surely it ain’t—yes—I do b’lieve it’s Tommy Splint!”

“Don’t believe Tommy, friends,” said old Liz, as she was about to get into the cab. “I’ll soon be back again to see you. Trust me!”

This was received with a tremendous cheer, as they all got inside except Laidlaw, who mounted the box.

“Stop!” said the latter, as the coachman was about to drive off. He pointed to the burning house, where the raging fire had reached the roof-tree. The crowd seemed awed into silence as they gazed.

One swirl more of the flaming tongues and the Garret was consumed—another swirl, and the Garden was licked from the scene as effectually as though it had never been.

Chapter Thirteen.
The Last

How that wonderful man Detective Dean managed it all is best known to himself and those myrmidons of the law who aided and abetted him in his investigations, but certain it is that he prepared as pretty a little thunderbolt for John Lockhart, Esquire, as any man could wish to see.

He not only ferreted out all the details of the matter involving the Washab and Roria railway and chimney-pot Liz, but he obtained proof, through a clerk in the solicitor’s office, and a stain in a sheet of paper, and a half-finished signature, that the will by which Mr Lockhart intended to despoil Colonel Brentwood was a curiously-contrived forgery. As men in search of the true and beautiful frequently stumble by accident on truths for which they did not search, and beauties of which they had formed no conception, so our detective unearthed a considerable number of smaller crimes of which the lawyer had been guilty—to the satisfaction of all concerned and the establishment of Mrs Brentwood’s character as a prophetess, so that “didn’t I tell you so, Jack?” became a familiar arrangement of household words in the ears of the poor Colonel for some time afterwards.

But the man of law did not await the discharge of the thunderbolt. As Mr Dean expressed it, he was too ’cute for that. By some occult means, known only to legal men, he discovered what was in the air, took time by the forelock, and retired into privacy—perhaps to the back settlements of Peru—with all the available cash that he could righteously, or otherwise, scrape together. By so doing, however, he delivered Colonel Brentwood from all hindrance to the enjoyment of his rightful property, and opened the eyes of chimney-pot Liz to the true value of shares in the Washab and Roria railway.

A few days after the culminating of these events—for things came rapidly to a head—Mrs Rampy of Cherub Court issued invitations for a small tea-party. This was the more surprising that Mrs Rampy was extremely poor, and had hitherto been economical to an extent which deprived her of a sufficiency of food even for herself. But the neighbours soon came to know that a line of telegraph had been recently set up between Cherub Court and the West End, through which flowed continuously a series of communications that were more or less astounding and agreeable to the inhabitants. The posts of this telegraph were invisible, the wires passed high overhead, very high, and the particular kind of electricity used was—sympathy.

It must be explained here that it was the northern side of the court which had been burned, so that Mrs Rampy, inhabiting the south side, still occupied her suite of apartments—a parlour and a coal-hole. The parlour, having once been a ware-room, was unusually large and well adapted for a tea-party. The coal-hole, having been a mere recess, was well adapted for puzzling the curious as to what had been the object of its architect in contriving it.

The party was not large, but it was select. It included a washerwoman with very red arms; a care-taker who had obviously failed to take care of herself; a couple of chimney-sweeps with partially washed faces; a charwoman with her friend the female greengrocer, who had been burned out of the opposite side of the court; two or three coster-mongers, a burglar, several thieves, a footman in resplendent livery, a few noted drunkards, and chimney-pot Liz with her teapot—not the original teapot of course—that had perished in the flames—but one indistinguishably like it, which had been presented to her by Colonel Brentwood. She had insisted on carrying it with her to Cherub Court on that occasion, on the ground that they would hardly recognise her without it, especially now that the fang was gone.

The resplendent footman had been the first guest to arrive, along with Liz, and was welcomed by the hostess and Mrs Blathers—who aided and abetted her friend on that occasion—with effusive demonstrations of goodwill and surprise. Thereafter the footman, who seemed to be eccentric, sat in a corner with his face buried in his hands, and did not move while the other guests were assembling. When the room was full and the tea poured out, Mrs Rampy looked at Liz with a sly awkward air which was quite foreign to her nature.

“Ah, Mrs Rampy,” said Liz, “don’t be ashamed.”

“Lord, bless us—an’ our wittles,” said Mrs Rampy, suddenly shutting her eyes as she opened her mouth, to the intense surprise of her guests. “Now then,” she added, in a tone of great relief, “go a-’ead w’en you’ve got the chance. There’s more w’ere that come from. ’And about the cake, Mrs Blathers, like a good creetur. An’ it ain’t much o’ this blow-hout you owes to me. I on’y supplied the sugar, ’cause that was in the ’ouse anyways.”

“It is a good deed, Mrs Rampy,” said old Liz, with a smile, “if you’ve supplied all the sweetness to the feast.”

“That’s a lie!” cried the hostess sharply. “It was you that supplied it. If it ’adn’t bin for you, Liz, I’d never ’ave—”

Mrs Rampy broke down at this point and threw her apron over her head to conceal her feelings. At the same moment the eccentric footman raised his head, and something like a pistol-shot was heard as the burglar brought his palm down on his thigh, exclaiming—

“I know’d it! Trumps—or his ghost!”

“’E’s too fat for a ghost,” remarked a humorous thief.

“No, mate, I ain’t Trumps,” said the resplendent man, rising before the admiring gaze of the party. “My name is Rodgers, footman to Colonel Brentwood of Weston ’All. I’m a noo man, houtside an’ in; an’ I’ve come ere a-purpuse to surprise you, not only wi’ the change in my costoom, but wi’ the noos that my master’s comin’ down ’ere to see arter you a bit, an’ try if ’e can’t ’elp us hout of our difficulties; an’ e’s agoin’ to keep a missionary, hout of ’is own pocket, to wisit in this district an’ they’re both comin’ ’ere this wery night to take tea with us. An’ ’e’s bringin’ a lord with ’im—a live lord—”

“Wot better is a live lord than any other man?” growled a thief with radical proclivities.

“Right you are, Jim Scroodger,” said Trumps, turning sharply on the speaker; “a live lord is no better than any other man unless ’e is better! Indeed, considerin’ ’is circumstances, ’e’s a good deal wuss if ’e’s no better; but a live lord is better than a dead thief, w’ich you’ll be soon, Jim, if you don’t mend yer ways.”

“Hear! hear!” and a laugh from the company.

“Moreover,” continued Trumps, “the lord that’s a-comin’ is better than most other men. He’s a trump—”

“Not a brother o’ yourn—eh?” murmured the burglar. “W’y, Trumps, I thought you was a detective!”

“Not in plain clo’es, surely,” remarked the humorous thief.

“’Ave another cup o’ tea, man, and shut up,” cried Mrs Blathers, growing restive.

“Well, ladies and gen’lemen all,” resumed Trumps, with a benignant smile, “you know this lord that’s a-comin’. Some o’ you made ’im a present of a barrow an’ a hass once—”

“I know ’im! Bless ’is ’eart,” cried a coster-monger through a mouthful of cake.

At that moment the expected guests arrived.

But reader, we must not dwell upon what followed. There is no need. It is matter of history.

While the inhabitants of the slums were thus enjoying a social evening together, David Laidlaw was busy with one of his numerous epistles to that repository of all confidences—his mother.

“The deed is done, mither,” he wrote, “an’ the waux doll is mine, for better or waur, till death us do pairt. Of course I dinna mean that we’re mairried yet. Na, na! That event must be celebrated on the Braes o’ Yarrow, wi’ your help an’ blessin’. But we’re engaged, an’ that’s happiness enough the now. If I was to describe my state o’ mind in ae word, I wud say—thankfu’. But losh, woman, that gies ye but a faint notion o’ the whirligigs that hae been gaun on i’ my heed an’ hairt since I came to Bawbylon. Truly, it’s a wonderfu’ place—wi’ its palaces and dens; its rich an’ its puir; its miles upon miles o’ hooses an’ shops; its thoosands on thoosands o’ respectable folk, an’ its hundred o’ thoosands o’ thieves an’ pickpockets an’ burglars—to say naething o’ its prisons an’ lawyers an’ waux dolls!

“But I’m haverin’. Ye’ll be gled t’ hear that Colonel Brentwood—him that befreended me—is a’ richt. His lawyer turned oot to be a leear an’ a swindler. The will that was to turn the Colonel oot o’ a’ his possessions is a forgery. His bonny bairn Rosa, is, like mysel’, gaun’ to be mairried; an’ as the Colonel has nae mair bairns, he’s gaun’ to devote himsel’—so his wife says—to ‘considerin’ the poor.’ Frae my personal observation o’ Lunnon, he’ll hae mair than enough to consider, honest man!

“In my last letter I gied ye a full accoont o’ the fire, but I didna tell ’e that it was amang the chimley-pots and bleezes that I was moved to what they ca’ ‘pop the question’ to my Susy. It was a daft-like thing to do, I confess, especially for a sedate kin’ o’ man like me; but, woman, a man’s no jist himsel’ at sik a time! After a’, it was a graund climax to my somewhat queer sort o’ coortin’. The only thing I’m feart o’ in Bawbylon is that the wee crater Tammy Splint should come to ken aboot it, for I wad niver hear the end o’t if he did. Ye see, though he was there a’ the time, he didna ken what I was about. Speakin’ o’ that, the bairn has been made a flunkey by the Colonel—a teeger they ca’ him. What’s mair surprisin’ yet is, that he has ta’en the puir thief Trumps—alias Rodgers—into his hoosehold likewise, and made him a flunkey. Mrs Brentwood—Dory, as he ca’s her—didna quite like the notion at first; but the Colonel’s got a wonderfu’ wheedlin’ wey wi’ him, an’ whan he said, ‘If you an’ I have been redeemed an’ reinstated, why should not Rodgers?’ Dory, like a wise woman, gied in. The argement, ye ken, was unanswerable. Onywie, he’s in plush now, an white stockin’s.

“An’ that minds me that they’ve putt the wee laddie Splint into blue tights wi’ brass buttons. He just looks like an uncanny sort o’ speeder! It’s a daft-like dress for onything but a puggy, but the bairn’s as prood o’t as if it was quite reasonable. It maitters little what he putts on, hooiver, for he wad joke an’ cut capers, baith pheesical an’ intellectual, I verily believe, if he was gaun to be hanged!

“My faither-in-law to be, Sam Blake, says he’ll come to Scotland for the wadd’n, but he’ll no’ stop. He’s that fond o’ the sea that he canna leave ’t. It’s my opeenion that he’ll no’ rest till he gits a pirit’s knife in his breed-baskit. Mair’s the peety, for he’s a fine man. But the best news I’ve got to tell ’e, mither, is, that Colonel Brentwood an’ his wife an’ daughter an’ her guidman—a sensible sort o’ chiel, though he is English—are a’ comin’ doon to spend the autumn on the Braes o’ Yarrow.

“Noo, I’ll stop. Susy’s waitin’ for me, an’ sends her love.—Yer affectionate son, David Laidlaw.”

We must take the liberty now, good reader, of directing your attention to another time and place.

And, first, as regards time. One day, three weeks after the events which have just been narrated, Mrs Brentwood took Susan Blake through a stained glass door out upon a leaded roof and bade her look about her. The roof was not high up, however. It only covered the kitchen, which was a projection at the back of the Colonel’s mansion.

Susan, somewhat surprised, looked inquiringly in the lady’s face.

“A fine view, is it not?” asked Mrs Brentwood.

“Very fine indeed,” said Susy, and she was strictly correct, for the back of the house commanded an extensive view of one of the most beautiful parts of Hampstead Heath.

“Does it not remind you, Susan, a little, a very little, of the views from the garret-garden?” asked the lady, with a curious expression in her handsome eyes.

“Well, hardly!” replied Susan, scarce able to repress a smile. “You see, there is no river or shipping, and one misses the chimney-pots!”

“Chimney-pots!” exclaimed Mrs Brentwood, “why, what do you call these?” pointing to a row of one-storey stables not far off, the roofs of which were variously ornamented with red pots and iron zigzag pipes. “As to the river, don’t you see the glimmer of that sheet of water through the trees in the distance, a pond or canal it is, I’m not sure which, but I’m quite sure that the flag-staff of our eccentric naval neighbour is sufficiently suggestive of shipping, is it not?”

“Well, madam, if one tries to make believe very much—”

“Ah, Susan, I see you have not a powerful imagination! Perhaps it is as well! Now, I have brought you here to help me with a plot which is to be a great secret. You know it is arranged that dear old nurse is to spend the summer on the Braes of Yarrow with the Laidlaws, and the winter in London with me. So I want you to fit up this roof of the kitchen exactly in the way you arranged the garden on the roof at Cherub Court. I will send a carpenter to measure the place for flower-boxes, and our gardener will furnish you with whatever seeds you may require. Now, remember, exactly the same, even to the rustic chair if you can remember it.”

You may be very sure that Susy entered with right goodwill into this little plot. She had been temporarily engaged by Mrs Brentwood as lady’s-maid, so that she might have present employment and a home before her marriage, and then travel free of expense with the family to Scotland, where she should be handed over to her rightful owner. The office of lady’s-maid was, however, a mere sinecure, so the bride had plenty of time to devote to the garden. Old Liz, meanwhile, was carefully confined to another part of the house so that she might not discover the plot, and the tiger, from whom no secrets could by any possibility be kept, was forbidden to “blab” on pain of instant death and dismissal.

“Now, Da-a-a-vid,” remarked that Blue Spider, when he communicated the secret to him, “mum’s the word. If you mentions it, the kernel’s family will bu’st up. I will return to the streets from vich I came. Trumps, alias Rodgers, to the den hout of vich ’e was ’auled. Susan will take the wail and retire to a loonatic asylum, an’ Da-a-a-vid Laidlaw will be laid low for the rest of ’is mortial career.”

“Ne’er fash yer heed about me, Tammy, my man, I’m as close as an eyster.”

We pass now from the far south to the other side of the Borderland.

Great Bawbylon is far behind us. The breezy uplands around tell that we have reached the Braes of Yarrow. A huge travelling carriage is slowly toiling up the side of a hill. Inside are Colonel and Mrs Brentwood, Rosa and chimney-pot Liz. Beside the driver sits Trumps in travelling costume. In the rumble are Susan Blake and Tommy Splint. Rosa’s husband and Sam Blake are to follow in a few days.

“Oh, what a lovely scene!” exclaimed Susy, as the carriage gained the summit of an eminence, and pulled up to breathe the horses.

“Yaas. Not so bad—for Scotland,” said the tiger languidly.

“And what a pretty cottage!” added Susan, pointing to an eminence just beyond that on which they had halted, where a long low whitewashed dwelling lay bathed in sunshine.

“Yaas. And, I say, Susy, yonder is a native,” said Tommy, becoming suddenly animated, “and—well—I do believe, without a kilt! But he’s got the reg’lar orthodox shepherd’s—whew!”

A prolonged whistle ended the boy’s sentence, as he glanced quickly in Susan’s face. The flushed cheeks told eloquently that she also had made a discovery; and the rapid strides of the “native” showed that he was likewise affected in a similar way.

The Colonel’s head,—thrust out at the carriage window, and exclaiming, “Why, Dora, we’ve arrived! Here is Mr Laidlaw himself!”—completed, as it were, the tableau vivant.

Another moment and hands were being heartily shaken with the insides. But David did not linger. Nodding pleasantly to the tiger, he held up both hands. Being so tall, he just managed to reach those of Susan, as she stood up in the rumble.

“Jump!” he said; “ye needna fear, my lassie.”

Susan jumped, and was made to alight on Scottish soil like a feather of eider-down. Laidlaw stooped, apparently to whisper something in the girl’s ear, but, to the unspeakable delight of the observant tiger, he failed to get past the mouth, and whispered it there!

“Go it, Da-a-a-vid!” exclaimed the urchin, with a patronising wink and a broad smile.

“Look there, Susy,” said Laidlaw, pointing to the sun-bathed cottage.

“Home?” asked the maiden, with an inquiring glance.

“Hame!” responded David. “Mither is waiting for ’e there. Do ye see the track across the field where the burn rins? It’s a short cut. The coach’ll have to gang roond by the brig. Rin, lassie!”

He released Susy, who sprang down the bank, crossed the streamlet by a plank bridge, and ran into the cottage, where she found Mrs Laidlaw in the passage, with eager eyes, but labouring under powerful self-restraint.

“Mother!” exclaimed Susy, flinging her arms round the stout old woman’s neck.

“Eh!—my bonnie wee doo!” said Mrs Laidlaw, as she looked kindly down on the little head and stroked the fair hair with her toil-worn hands, while a venerable old man stood beside her, looking somewhat imbecile, and blowing his nose.

Just then the carriage rolled up to the door, and Mrs Laidlaw, leaving her “auld man” for a few minutes to do the honours of the house, retired to her chamber, and there on her knees confessed, thankfully, that she, like her son, had been effectually conquered by a “waux doll!”

Reader, what more can we say? Is it necessary to add that, the two principals in the business being well pleased, everybody else was satisfied? We think not. But it may not be uninteresting to state that, from that auspicious day, a regular system of annual visitation was established between Bawbylon and the Braes of Yarrow, which held good for many a year; one peculiarity of the visitation being that the Bawbylonians and their progeny revelled on the braes chiefly in summer, while the Yarrowites, with their bairns, always took their southern flight in winter. Thus our two old women, Mrs Laidlaw and chimney-pot Liz—who fought rather shy of each other at first, but became mutual admirers at last—led, as it were, a triple life; now on the sunny slopes and amid the sweet influences of the braes, anon in the smoke and the unsavoury odours of the slums, and sometimes amid the refinements and luxury of the “West End,” in all of which situations they were fain to confess that “the ways of God are wonderful and past finding out.”

Of course David Laidlaw did not fail to redeem his promise to revisit the thieves’ den, and many a man and youth was he the means of plucking from the jaws of spiritual death during his occasional and frequent visits to London—in which work he was ably seconded by Tommy Splint, when that volatile spirit grew up to manhood. And among their coadjutors none were more helpful in the work of bringing souls to Christ than Mrs Rampy and her bosom-friend Mrs Blathers.

Strange to say, Liz came to her end in a garret after all. On a raw November day she went, under the care of Susy, to visit an old friend near Cherub Court, in a garret not very unlike her old home. While there she was struck down. There was no pain—apparently no disease; simply a sudden sinking of the vital powers. They laid the dear old woman on her friend’s bed, and in half-an-hour she had passed away, while the faithful Susy held her hand and whispered words from the Master in her ear. Thus old Liz, having finished her grand work on earth, was transplanted from the Garret in the slums to the Garden of the Lord.

The End