Читать книгу The Story of Antony Grace - Fenn George Manville - Страница 13

In my blind fear of capture I did not study which way I went, but doubling down the first turning I came to, I ran on, and then along the next, to stop short directly afterwards, being sharply caught by the constable from whom I had fled, and who now held me fast.

“Ah! you thought it, did you?” he said coolly, while, panting and breathless, I feebly struggled to get away. “But it won’t do, my lad. You’ve got to come along o’ me.”

“And then I shall be sent back,” I cried, as I tried to wrestle myself free. “I’ve never done any harm, sir; and he’ll half kill me. You don’t know him. Pray let me go.”

“I know you to be a reglar young coward,” he said roughly. “Why, when I was your age, I shouldn’t have begun snivelling like this. Now, then, look here. You ain’t come to London only to see your Mr Hot Roll, or whatever you call him. Is there any one else you know as I can take you to? I don’t want to lock you up.”

“No, sir, nobody,” I faltered. “Yes, there is – there’s Mr Revitts.”

“Mr who?”

“Mr Revitts, sir,” I said excitedly. “He’s a policeman, like you.”

“Ah, that’s something like a respectable reference!” he said. “What division?”

“What did you say, sir?”

“I said what division?”

“Please, sir, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you know P.C. Revitts, VV division?”

“No, sir,” I said, with my heart sinking. “It’s Mr William Revitts I know.”

“Which his name is William,” he muttered. Then, aloud, “Here, come along.”

“No, no, sir,” I cried in alarm. “Don’t send me back.”

“Come along, I tell yer.”

“What’s up?” said a gruff voice; and a second policeman joined us.

“Don’t quite know yet,” said the first man; and then he said something in a low voice to the other, with the result that, without another word, I was hurried up and down street after street till I felt ready to drop. Suddenly my guide turned into a great blank-looking building and spoke to another policeman, and soon, after a little shouting, a tall, burly-looking constable in his buttoned-up greatcoat came slowly towards us in the whitewashed room.

“Here’s a lad been absconding,” said my guide, “and he says he’ll give you for a reference.”

“Eh! me?” said the newcomer, making me start as he stared hard in my face. “Who are you, boy. I don’t know you.”

“Antony Grace, please, sir,” I faltered.

“And who’s Antony Grace?”

“There, I thought it was a do,” said the first constable roughly. “What d’yer mean by gammoning me in this way? Come along.”

“No, sir, please. Pray give me time,” I cried. “Don’t send me back. Please, Mr Revitts, I have run away from Mr Blakeford, and if I am sent back to Rowford he’ll kill me. I know he will.”

“’Old ’ard, Smith,” said the big constable. “Look here, boy. What did you say? Where did you come from?”

“Rowford, sir. Pray don’t send me back.”

“And what’s the name of the chap as you’re afraid on?”

“Mr Blakeford, sir.”

“I’m blest!”

“What did you say, sir?”

“I said I’m blest, boy.”

“Then you do know him?” said the first constable.

“I don’t quite know as I do, yet,” was the reply.

“Well, look here, I want to get back. You take charge of him. I found him on a doorstep in Great Coram Street. There’s his bundle. If he don’t give a good account of himself, have it entered and lock him up.”

“All right,” said the other, after a few moments’ hesitation.

“Then I’m off,” said the first man; and he left me in charge of the big constable, who stood staring down at me so fiercely, as I thought, that I looked to right and left for a way of escape.

“None o’ that, sir,” he said sharply, in the words and way of the other, whose heavy footsteps were now echoing down the passage. “Lookye here, if you try to run away, I’ve only got to shout, and hundreds of thousands of pleecemen will start round about to stop yer.”

As he spoke he pushed me into a Windsor arm-chair, where I sat as if in a cage, while he held up one finger to shake in my face.

“As the Clerkenwell magistrate said t’other day, the law’s a great network, and spreads wide. You’re new in the net o’ the law, young fellow, and you can’t get out. Just look here, we knows a deal in the law and police, and I can find out in two twos whether you are telling me the truth or doing the artful.”

“Please, sir – ”

“Hold your tongue, sir! You can make your defence when your time comes; and mind this, it’s my dooty to tell you that what you says now may be used in evidence again you.”

Thus silenced, I stood gazing up in his big-whiskered face, that seemed to loom over me, in the gaslight, and wondered why there should be so much form and ceremony over taking my word.

“Now look here,” he said pulling out a notebook and pencil, like the auctioneer’s, only smaller, and seeming as if he were going to take an inventory of my small person. “Now, look here,” he repeated, moistening the point of his pencil, “you told Joe Smith you knowed me, and I never set eyes on you afore.”

“Please, sir,” I said hastily, “I told him I know Mr Revitts, who’s in the police.”

“Yes, and you said you had run away from Rowford and a Mr Blake – Blake – What’s his name?”

“Blakeford, sir,” I said despondently, for it seemed that this was not my Mr Revitts.

“Blakeford. That’s right; and he ill-used you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’s a little fair man, ain’t he, with blue eyes?” And he rustled the leaves of his notebook as if about to take down my answer.

“No, sir,” I cried eagerly; “he’s tall and dark, and has short hair, and very white teeth.”

“Ho! Tall, is he?” said the constable, making believe to write, and then holding out his pencil at me. “He’s a nice, kind, amiable man, ain’t he, as wouldn’t say an unkind word to a dorg?”

“Oh no, sir,” I said, shuddering; “that’s not my Mr Blakeford.”

“Ho! Now, then, once more. There’s a servant lives there at that house, and her name’s Jane – ain’t it?”

“No, sir, Mary.”

“And she’s got red hair and freckles, and she – she’s very little and – ”

“No, no,” I cried excitedly, for after my heart had seemed to sink terribly low, it now leaped at his words. “That isn’t Mary, and you are saying all this to try me, sir. You – you are Mr William Revitts, I know you are;” and I caught him eagerly by the arm.

“Which I don’t deny it, boy,” he said, still looking at me suspiciously, and removing my hand. “Revitts is my name. P.C. Revitts, VV 240; and I ain’t ashamed of it. But only to think of it. How did you know of me, though?”

“I wrote Mary’s letters for her, sir.”

“Whew! That’s how it was she had so improved in her writing. And so you’ve been living in the same house along a her?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, “and she was so good and kind.”

“When she wasn’t in a tantrum, eh?”

“Yes, sir, when she wasn’t in a – ”

“Tantrum, that’s it, boy. We should ha’ been spliced afore now if it hadn’t been for her tantrums. But only to think o’ your being picked up in the street like this. And what am I to do now? You’ve absconded, you have; you know you’ve absconded in the eyes of the law.”

“Write to Mary, please, sir, and ask her if it wasn’t enough to make me run away.”

“Abscond, my lad, abscond,” said the constable.

“Yes, sir,” I said, with a shiver, “abscond.”

“You didn’t – you didn’t,” he said in a half hesitating way, as he felt and pinched my bundle, and then ran his hand down by my jacket-pocket. “You didn’t – these are all your own things in this, are they?”

“Oh yes, sir!” I said.

“Because some boys when they absconds, makes mistakes, and takes what isn’t theirs.”

“Do they, sir?”

“Yes, my lad, and I’m puzzled about you. You see, it’s my duty to treat you like a runaway ’prentice, and I’m uneasy in my mind about what to do. You see, you did run away.”

“Oh yes, sir, I did run away. I was obliged to. Mr Blakeford wanted me to tell lies.”

“Well, that seems to come easy enough to most people,” he said.

“But I am telling the truth, sir,” I said. “Write down to Rowford, and ask Mary if I’m not telling the truth.”

“Truth! Oh, I know that, my boy,” he said kindly. “Here, give’s your hand. Come along.”

“But you won’t send me back, sir?”

“Send you back? Not I, boy. He’s a blackguard, that Blakeford. I know him, and I only wish he’d do something, and I had him to take up for it. Mary’s told me all about him, and if ever we meets, even if it’s five pounds or a month, I’ll punch his head: that’s what I’ll do for him. Do yer hear?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Now, what’s to be done with you?”

I shook my head and looked at him helplessly.

He stood looking at me for a few moments and then went into another room, where there was a policeman sitting at a desk, like a clerk, with a big book before him. I could see him through the other doorway, and they talked for a few minutes; and then Mr Revitts came back, and stood staring at me.

“P’r’aps I’m a fool,” he muttered. “P’r’aps I ain’t. Anyhow, I’ll do it. Look here, youngster, I’m going to trust you, though as you’ve absconded I ought to take you before a magistrate or the inspector, but I won’t, as you’re a friend of my Mary.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

“And if you turn out badly, why, woe betide you.”

“Please, sir, I won’t turn out badly if I can help it; but Mr Blakeford said I was good for nothing.”

“Mr Blakeford be blowed! I wouldn’t ask him for a character for a dorg; and as for Mary, she don’t want his character, and he may keep it. I’ll take her without. I wouldn’t speak to any one like this, youngster; but you know that gal’s got a temper, though she’s that good at heart that – that – ”

“She’d nurse you so tenderly if you were ill,” I said enthusiastically, “that you wouldn’t wish to be better.”

He held out his hand and gave mine a long and solemn shake.

“Thankye, youngster,” he said, “thankye for that. You and I will be good friends, I see. I will trust your word, hang me if I don’t. Here, come along.”

“Are you – are you going to take me up, sir?” I faltered, with a shiver of apprehension.

“I’m a-going to give you the door-key where I lodges, my lad. I’m on night duty, and shan’t be home till quarter-past six, so you may have my bed and welcome. Now, look here,” he said, “don’t you go and let anybody fool you. I’m going to show you the end of a long street, and you’ll go right to the top, then turn to the right along the road till you come to the fourth turning, and on the right-hand side, number twenty-seven, is where I lodges. Here’s the key. You puts it in the lock, turns it, shuts the door after you, and then goes gently upstairs to the second-pair back.”

“Second-pair back, sir?” I said dubiously.

“Well there, then, to the back room atop of the house, and there you may sleep till I come. Now then, this way out.”

It was a change that I could not have believed in, and I accompanied the constable wonderingly as he led me out of the police-station and through several dark-looking streets, till he stopped short before a long dim vista, where straight before me two lines of gaslights stretched right away till they seemed to end in a bright point.

“Now, then,” he said, “you can’t make any mistake there.”

“No, sir.”

“Off you go then to the top, and then you’ll find yourself in a big road.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Turn to the right, and then count four streets on the right-hand side. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go down that street about halfway, till you see a gaslight shining on a door with number twenty-seven upon it. Twenty-seven Caroline Street. Now, do you understand? Straight up to the top, and then it’s right, right, right, all the way.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good luck to you then, be off; here’s my sergeant.”

I should have stopped to thank him, but he hurried me away; and half forgetting my weariness, I went along the street, found at last the road at the end, followed it as directed, and then in the street of little houses found one where the light from the lamp shone as my guide had said.

I paused with the key in my hand, half fearing to use it, but summoning up my courage, I found the door opened easily and closed quietly, when I stood in a narrow passage with the stairs before me, and following them to the top, I hesitated, hardly knowing back from front. A deep heavy breathing from one room, however, convinced me that that could not be the back, so I tried the other door, to find it yield, and there was just light enough from the window to enable me to find the bed, on which I threw myself half dressed, and slept soundly till morning, when I opened my eyes to find Mr Revitts taking off his stiff uniform coat.

“Look here, youngster,” he said, throwing himself upon the bed, “I dessay you’re tired, so don’t you get up. Have another nap, and then call me at ten, and we’ll have some breakfast. How – how – ” he said, yawning.

“What did you say, sir?”

“How – Mary look?”

“Very well indeed, sir. She has looked much better lately, and – ”

I stopped short, for a long-drawn breath from where Mr Revitts had thrown himself upon the bed told me plainly enough that he was asleep.

I was too wakeful now to follow his example, and raising myself softly upon my elbow, I had a good look at my new friend, to see that he did not look so big and burly without his greatcoat, but all the same he was a stoutly built, fine-looking man, with a bluff, honest expression of countenance.

I stayed there for some minutes, thinking about him, and then about Mary, and Mr Blakeford, and Hetty, and I wondered how the lawyer had got on before the magistrates without me. Then, rising as quietly as I could, I washed and finished dressing myself before sitting down to wait patiently for my host’s awakening.

The first hour passed very tediously, for there was nothing to see from the window but chimney-pots, and though it was early I began to feel that I had not breakfasted, and three hours or so was a long time to wait. The room was clean, but shabbily furnished, and as I glanced round offered little in the way of recreation, till my eyes lit on a set of hanging shelves with a few books thereon, and going on tiptoe across the room, I began to read their backs, considering which I should choose.

There was the “Farmer of Inglewood Forest,” close by the “Old English Baron,” with the “Children of the Abbey,” and “Robinson Crusoe.” Side by side with them was a gilt-edged Prayer-book, upon opening which I found that it was the property of “Mr William Revitts, a present from his effectinat friend Mary Bloxam.” On the opposite leaf was the following verse: —

The Bible on the shelf was from the same source. Besides these were several books in shabby covers – Bogatsky’s “Golden Treasury,” the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and the “Young Man’s Best Companion.”

I stood looking at them for a few minutes, and then reached down poor old “Robinson Crusoe,” bore it to the window, and for the fourth time in my life began its perusal.

In a very short time my past troubles, my precarious future, and my present hunger were all forgotten, and I was far away from the attic in North London, watching the proceedings of Robinson in that wonderful island, having skipped over a good many of the early adventures for the sake of getting as soon as possible into that far-away home of mystery and romance.

The strengthening of his house, the coming of the savages, the intensely interesting occurrences of the story, so enchained me, that I read on and on till I was suddenly startled by the voice of Mr Revitts exclaiming:

“Hallo, you! I say, what’s o’clock?”