Читать книгу Fighting the Flames - Robert Michael Ballantyne - Страница 5

During the progress of the fire, small Willie Willders was in a state of the wildest, we might almost say hilarious, excitement; he regarded not the loss of property; the fire never struck him in that light. His little body and big spirit rejoiced in the whole affair as a magnificent display of fireworks and heroism.

When the fire burst through the library windows he shouted; when Sam Forest, the conductor of the fire-escape, saved Mr Auberly and the women, he hurrahed; when the tall fireman and Baxmore rescued Louisa Auberly he cheered and cheered again until his shrill voice rose high above the shouting of the crowd. When the floors gave way he screamed with delight, and when the roof fell in he shrieked with ecstasy.

Sundry and persevering were the efforts he made to break through the police by fair means and foul; but, in his energy, he over-reached himself, for he made himself so conspicuous that the police paid special attention to him, and wherever he appeared he was snubbed and thrust back, so that his great desire to get close to the men while they were at work was frustrated.

Willie had a brother who was a fireman, and he wished earnestly that he might recognise him, if present; but he knew that, being attached to the southern district of the City, he was not likely to be there, and even if he were, the men were all so much alike in their uniform, that it was impossible at a distance to distinguish one from another. True it is that his brother was uncommonly tall, and very strong; but as the London firemen were all picked men, many of them were very tall, and all of them were strong.

Not until the last engine left the ground, did Willie Willders think it advisable to tear himself away, and hasten to his home in Notting Hill, where he found his mother sitting up for him in a state of considerable anxiety. She forebore to question him that night, however.

When Willie appeared next morning—or rather, the same morning, for it was nearly four o’clock when he went to bed—he found his mother sitting by the fire knitting a sock.

Mrs Willders was a widow, and was usually to be found seated by the fire, knitting a sock, or darning one, or mending some portion of male attire.

“So you were at a fire last night, Willie?” said the widow.

“Yes, I was,” replied the boy, going up to his mother, and giving her what he styled a “roystering” kiss, which she appeared to like, although she was scarcely able to bear it, being thin and delicately formed, and somewhat weak from bad health.

“No lives lost, I hope, Willie?”

“No; there ain’t often lives lost when Sam Forest, the fire-escape-man, is there. You know Forest, mother, the man that we’ve heard so much of? Ah, it was sitch fun! You’ve no notion! It would have made you split your sides wi’ laughin’ if you’d seen Sam come out o’ the smoke carryin’ the master o’ the house on his shoulder in his shirt and drawers, with only one sock on, an’ his nightcap tied so tight under his chin that they had to cut it off—him in a swound, too, hangin’ as limp as a dead eel on Sam’s shoulder, with his head down one side, an’ his legs down the other. Oh, it was a lark!”

The boy recalled “the lark” to his own mind so vividly, that he had to stop at this point, in order to give vent to an uproarious fit of laughter.

“Was Frank there?” inquired the widow, when the fit subsided.

“Not that I know of, mother; I looked hard for him, but didn’t see him. There was lots o’ men big enough to be him; but I couldn’t get near enough to see for the bobbies. I wonder what them bobbies were made for!” continued Willie, with a look of indignation, as he seated himself at the table, and began to eat a hearty breakfast; “the long lamp-posts! that are always in the way when nobody wants ’em. I do believe they was invented for nothin’ else than to aggravate small boys and snub their inquiring minds.”

“Where was the fire, Willie?”

“In Beverly Square. I say, mother, if that there grocer don’t send us better stuff than this here bacon in future, I’ll—I’ll have to give him up.”

“I can’t afford to get better, dear,” said the widow meekly.

“I know that, mother; but he could afford to give better. However, it’s down now, so it don’t much matter.”

“Did you hear whose house was burned, Willie?”

“A Mr Oberly, or somethin’ like that.”

“Auberly!” exclaimed the widow, with a start.

“Well, p’raps it is Auberly; but whichever it is, he’s got a pretty kettle o’ fish to look after this mornin’. You seem to have heard of him before, mother?”

“Yes, Willie, I—I know him a— at least I have met with him often. You see I was better off once, and used to mingle with— but I need not trouble you with that. On the strength of our former acquaintance, I thought I would write and ask him to get you a situation in an office, and I have got a letter from him, just before you came down to breakfast, saying that he will do what he can, and bidding me send you to him between eleven and twelve to-morrow.”

“Whew!” whistled Willie, “an’ he burnt out o’ house and home, without a coat to his back or a shoe to his foot. It strikes me I’ll have to try to get him a situation.”

“He won’t be found at the house, now, I dare say, my son, so we’ll have to wait a little; but the burning of his house and furniture won’t affect him much, for he’s rich.”

“Humph! p’raps not,” said Willie; “but the burnin’ of his little girl might have—”

“You said that no lives were lost,” cried Mrs Willders, turning pale.

“No more there was, mother; but if it hadn’t bin for one o’ the firemen that jumped in at a blazin’ winder an’ brought her out through fire an’ smoke, she’d have bin a cinder by this time, an’ money wouldn’t have bought the rich man another daughter, I know.”

“True, my son,” observed Mrs Willders, resting her forehead on her hand; then, as if suddenly recollecting something, she looked up and said, “Willie, I want you to go down to the City with these socks to Frank. This is his birthday, and I sat late last night on purpose to get them finished. His station is a long way off, I know, but you’ve nothing else to do, so—”

“Nothin’ else to do, mother!” exclaimed Willie; with an offended look. “Haven’t I got to converse in a friendly way with all the crossin’-sweepers an’ shoeblacks an’ stall-women as I go along, an’ chaff the cabbies, an’ look in at all the shop-windows, and insult the bobbies? I always insult the bobbies. It does me good. I hurt ’em, mentally, as much as I can, an’ I’d hurt ’em bodily if I could. But every dog has his day. When I grow up won’t I pitch into ’em!”

He struck the table with his fist, and, shaking back his curly hair, lifted his blue eyes to his mother’s face with a stern expression, which gradually relaxed into a smile.

“Ah, you needn’t grin, mother, an’ tell me that the ‘policemen’ are a fine set of men, and quite as brave and useful in their way as the firemen. I know all you respectable sort of people think that; but I don’t. They’re my natural enemies, and I hate ’em. Come, mother, give me the socks and let me be off.”

Soon the vigorous urchin was on his way to the City, whistling, as usual, with all his might. As he passed the corner of the British Museum a hand touched him on the shoulder, and its owner said:

“How much are ye paid a week, lad, for kicking up such a row?”

Willie looked round, and his eyes encountered the brass buckle of the waist-belt of a tall, strapping fellow in a blue uniform. Glancing upwards, he beheld the handsome countenance of his brother Frank looking down at him with a quiet smile. He wore no helmet, for except when attending a fire the firemen wear a sailor-like blue cloth cap.

“Hallo, Blazes! is that you?” cried the boy.

“Just so, Willie; goin’ down to Watling Street to attend drill.”

Willie (who had styled his brother “Blazes” ever since he joined the fire brigade) observed that he happened to be going in the same direction to deliver a message from his mother to a relation, which he would not speak about, however, just then, as he wished to tell him of a fire he had been at last night.

“A fire, lad; was it a big one?”

“Ay, that it was; a case o’ burnin’-out almost; and there were lives saved,” said the boy with a look of triumph; “and that’s more than you can say you’ve seen, though you are a fireman.”

“Well, you know I have not been long in the brigade, Willie, and as the escapes often do their work before the engines come up, I’ve not had much chance yet of seeing lives saved. How was it done?”

With glowing eyes and flushed cheeks Willie at once launched out into a vivid description of the scene he had so recently witnessed, and dwelt particularly on the brave deeds of Conductor Forest and the tall fireman. Suddenly he looked up at his brother.

“Why, what are you chucklin’ at, Blazes?”

“Nothing, lad. Was the fireman very tall?”

“That he certainly was—uncommon tall.”

“Something like me?” said Frank.

A gleam of intelligence shot across the boy’s face as he stopped and caught his brother by the sleeve, saying earnestly:

“It wasn’t you, Frank, was it?”

“It was, Willie, and right glad am I to have been in such good luck as to save Miss Auberly.”

Willie grasped his brother’s hand and shook it heartily.

“You’re a brick, Blazes,” said he, “and this is your birthday, an’ I wish you luck an’ long life, my boy. You’ll do me credit yet, if you go on as you’ve begun. Now, I’ll go right away back an’ tell mother. Won’t she be fit to bu’st?”

“But what about your message to the relation in the City?” inquired Frank.

“That relation is yourself, and here’s the message, in the shape of a pair o’ socks from mother; knitted with her own hands; and, by the way, that reminds me—how came you to be at the fire last night? It’s a long way from your station.”

“I’ve been changed recently,” said Frank; “poor Grove was badly hurt about the loins at a fire in New Bond Street last week, and I have been sent to take his place, so I’m at the King Street station now. But I have something more to tell you before you go, lad, so walk with me a bit farther.”

Willie consented, and Frank related to him his conversation with Mr Auberly in reference to himself.

“I thought of asking leave and running out this afternoon to tell you, so it’s as well we have met, as it will—Why, what are you chuckling at, Willie?”

This question was put in consequence of the boy’s eyes twinkling and his cheeks reddening with suppressed merriment.

“Never mind, Blazes. I haven’t time to tell you just now. I’ll tell you some other time. So old Auberly wants to see me to-morrow forenoon?”

“That’s what he said to me,” returned Frank.

“Very good; I’ll go. Adoo, Blazes—farewell.”

So saying, Willie Willders turned round and went off at a run, chuckling violently. He attempted to whistle once or twice, but his mouth refused to retain the necessary formation, so he contented himself with chuckling instead. And it is worthy of record that that small boy was so much engrossed with his own thoughts on this particular occasion that he did not make one observation, bad, good, or indifferent, to any one during his walk home. He even received a question from a boy smaller than himself as to whether “his mother knew he was out,” without making any reply, and passed innumerable policemen without even a thought of vengeance!

“Let me see,” said he, muttering to himself as he paused beside the Marble Arch at Hyde Park, and leaned his head against the railings of that structure; “Mr Auberly has been an’ ordered two boys to be sent to him to-morrow forenoon—ha! he! sk!” (the chuckling got the better of him here)—“very good. An’ my mother has ordered one o’ the boys to go, while a tall fireman has ordered the other. Now, the question is, which o’ the two boys am I—the one or the t’other—ha! sk! ho! Well, of course, both o’ the boys will go; they can’t help it, there’s no gittin’ over that; but, then, which of ’em will git the situation? There’s a scruncher for you, Mr Auberly. You’ll have to fill your house with tar an’ turpentine an’ set fire to it over again ’afore you’ll throw light on that pint. S’pose I should go in for both situations! It might be managed. The first boy could take a well-paid situation as a clerk, an the second boy might go in for night-watchman at a bank.” (Chuckling again interrupted the flow of thought.) “P’raps the two situations might be got in the same place o’ business; that would be handy! Oh! if one o’ the boys could only be a girl, what a lark that would—sk! ha! ha!”

He was interrupted at this point by a shoe-black, who remarked to his companion:

“I say, Bob, ’ere’s a lark. ’Ere’s a feller bin an got out o’ Bedlam, a larfin’ at nothink fit to burst hisself!”

So Willie resumed his walk with a chuckle that fully confirmed the member of the black brigade in his opinion.

He went home chuckling and went to bed chuckling, without informing his mother of the cause of his mirth. Chuckling he arose on the following morning, and, chuckling still, went at noon to Beverly Square, where he discovered Mr Auberly standing, gaunt and forlorn, in the midst of the ruins of his once elegant mansion.