A Little World

“No,” he answered, but hesitatingly, as if it were possible that he whom they sought might, after all, be in the steamer; but it was too late now to search, for two men seized the gangway to draw it back, as the signal was given to go on. The wheels creaked, and the first beat of the paddle was heard, when the figure of a man bearing a valise was seen to hurry down towards the boat.

What followed seemed to occupy but a moment or two, and Harry felt powerless to do more than look on. For, as he first caught sight of and recognised the figure in spite of its wrappings, he was suddenly thrust back, and his companion darted forward, half shrieking, “My child! where is she?”

Richard Pellet stopped, turned, as if to hurry back; but the next moment he dropped the valise and ran a few steps forward along the edge of the landing-stage, as if to leap the distance between that and the steamer as she came by. Then he turned for an instant, just in time to see a woman wrest herself from a man who had tried to stay her: in another second she was upon him, crying, as she grasped at his breast, “Give me my child!”

Then there was a shout, a shriek, and Richard Pellet had stepped backward to fall from the wharf in front of one of the paddle-boxes, where his wife would have followed, but for one of the men, who dragged her away.

And what saw those who had rushed to the edge of the wharf, holding their lanthorns, and swinging them to and fro, while others flung ropes, or rushed to the places where boats were moored? The black, gliding hull of the steamer, the turbulent water, churned into a white foam by the beating paddles, and a momentary glimpse of a grey head and two raised hands, as they were sucked into the stream, and beaten beneath the floats, which crashed down heavily upon the drowning man’s head, before there was a clank, clanking noise in the engine-room, and the huge wheels ceased to revolve.

Then, as the white foam was swept away, and the steamer lay to, the life-buoy was thrown over, men were seen with lanthorns in boats rising and falling upon the black water, which reflected the gleam of the light; but in spite of searchings here and there, backwards and forwards, no one was seen clinging to the life-buoy, or hauled into either of the boats; no grey head or appealing hands were visible at the summit of a wave or in its hollow; black water only, everywhere, save when it curled back in a creamy foam from shore or pile.

Then came once more the order, “Go on a-head!” the “clink, clank, clank,” in the engine-room, where there was a warm red glow from furnace-doors, and the hot smell of oil and steam, a loud hiss or two, the huge cylinders, beginning to swing to and fro, and the pistons to rise and fall with their cranks, churning the black water again into white foam. Then the stern lights of the steamer might be seen rising and falling as she passed out of the harbour mouth, and slowly, one by one the boats returned to their moorings, and those who had manned them, to the landing-stage.

“Name on portmanter, R. Pellet,” said one man in wet oilskins, holding down his lanthorn, and examining the little black valise as it lay upon the pier, now covered with snow-flakes. “Very shocking, but I don’t see as we could have saved him, or done more than we did.”

“Get his body to-morrow, d’ye think?” said a bystander with a short pipe to a fishy-looking man in a blue jersey and a sou’wester.

“May be yes, may be no,” said the man addressed; “but most like no, for he’ll be carried out to sea, safe as wheat.”

Then there was a buzz of voices as fresh faces appeared on the scene.

“Here, for God’s sake, help!” exclaimed Harry Clayton, sick himself almost unto death; “this lady has fainted.”

Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Four.

After a Lapse

“I cannot refrain from writing to congratulate you, my dear Clayton,” wrote Sir Francis Redgrave, in a letter the young man sat reading in his rooms at Cambridge, as he leaned back, his temples throbbing, worn out with the arduous mental struggle in which he had been engaged. “Such an honour,” said Sir Francis, “is, I know, not easily earned, and I feel that yours has been a long and gallant fight. It would have afforded me great pleasure if Lionel had been gifted with your assiduity, and been possessed of similar tastes; but I have never tried to force him. I can get from him but few letters now, so can readily suppose that you have not been more favoured, and are therefore, most likely, not aware of his engagement. I enter into these details with you, on account of the interest you have always displayed in all concerning him. The lady is one whom he has

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many months since he had seen Patty, she had never been long absent from his thoughts even in his busy college life. He had, however, refrained from seeking the Pellet family in the new home to which they had removed on the sudden accession of wealth consequent on his stepfather’s death, until his industry and perseverance had brought forth fruit of which he might be justly proud.

On the day after the receipt of Sir Francis Redgrave’s letter, Harry had taken up his temporary abode in one of the hotels in the neighbourhood of the Strand, and set out at once to find Jared’s new residence at Highgate. He was disappointed, however, in his hope of seeing Patty, and there was something like constraint in the manner in which Mrs Jared informed him of her absence.

He made a second visit early the next day, but with no better success; and on coming away shaped his course towards the scene of so many adventures. First, he had a look at the old Duplex Street house, and then went on, intending to call on the little Frenchman and Janet, who, as the former had resolved, had left the naturalist’s house as soon as he was sufficiently recovered from the effects of his accident.

Finding that he would be within a short distance of Brownjohn Street, he altered his route in a degree so as to stroll through the well-remembered locality, and pay a visit, en passant, to the shop of the naturalist, should he still find it in the occupation of its old tenant.

As Harry Clayton entered the close neighbourhood of Decadia, he could scarcely fancy but that he had left London a week since – the aspect of the district seemed the same.

There was the squalid teeming place as of old, rejoicing in all its minglings of animated nature; the children tumbled still in the gutters; the gin-palaces drove thriving trades; costermongers’ barrows were piled with shellfish; and the slatternly women and hulking soft-handed men, hung about or sat on the doorsteps.

But Brownjohn Street was not quite the same, for there was a brightness about D. Wragg’s house, evidently due to paint; and upon approaching more closely, Harry found that D. Wragg seemed to be fuller of “natur’” than ever.

He was in the shop as Harry entered the doorway, and his face brightened with genuine pleasure as he recognised his visitor, and he commenced jigging and working about at a tremendous rate; but the next minute he had spread the newspaper he was reading upon the counter, and began to smooth it over a few times, and make it perfectly straight.

“You’re just in time, sir,” he said. “Only look here,” and he tapped the paper over and over again. “Isn’t it a game? Five years’ penal. Came out after his twelvemonth for your job, and then got in for it again. I always said he must come to it. ‘Don’t you make no mistake, Jack Screwby,’ I says, ‘you’ll be dropped on hotter yet some day; mark my words if you won’t.’ For, you see, as soon as he was out, he used to come worrying and cheeking me again. ‘It’ll come to you, my lad, see if it won’t.’ And now there it all is down in black and white: ‘Violent assault and ’tempt to murder.’ Lots o’ that sort o’ thing about here, bless you! And I could take you out here of an evening, and point you out half a hundred o’ birds o’ that sort as want the same kind o’ salt put on their tails. But there! Jack Screwby’s gone, and we shan’t see no more of him for five years certain.”

“And how is Mrs Winks?” said Harry.

“There ain’t no such person living here at all now, sir,” said D. Wragg, pulling up his collars, and speaking with dignity. “Don’t you make no mistake, sir. Mrs Winks is no more; and busy as a bee has she been this very week, marking all her linen over again in big letters – W, r, a, g, g – though I kep’ on telling her – such is the beautiful, clean, tidy, mending natur’ of that woman – as there wasn’t a rag among ’em.”

“What! married?” ejaculated Harry, with real surprise.

“Married it is, sir. Don’t you make no mistake. We both found the place awful lonely as soon as our lodgers had gone; and what with the theayter getting unpleasant on account of Mrs Winks being stouter than she used to, and people’s knees getting a deed in her way when she went round with her basket, and me having so much natur’ in hand to attend to, we agreed between ourselves as she should give the theayter up, and take a share in this here business, sir, and all under one name, sir.”

“And a very wise act too,” said Harry, smiling.

“Twenty years did I know her, sir, before I made the venter; and I don’t mind tellin’ you, sir, as is a gent I respex, if Mrs D. Wragg wasn’t quite so stout, she’d be an angel. But there, sir, don’t you make no mistake. I’m as happy as the day’s long; and talk about people’s pussonal appearance! why, look at me!”

In his modest self-disparagement, D. Wragg again became quite mechanical in his fits and starts, ending by crumpling up the newspaper, and sweeping an empty cage from the counter with his turnip-sowing arm.

“Looks are nothing, Mr Wragg, if the heart is right,” said Harry, smiling; “but I must be going. I thought I would look in as I passed.”

“Thanky, sir, thanky, which it’s very kind; but just a minute, sir. I wanted to tell you as I’ve quite done with the dorg business, and refused lots of commissions; and now, though I say it, as didn’t oughter, there ain’t a squarer shop in all London than this here. You’d hardly believe it, sir, but if I didn’t sell that there Sergeant Falkner a canary bird and cage last week, I’m a Dutchman. Brings his missus with him to choose it, he does, and calls agen yesterday – no, the day afore – to say as it sings splendid, and shook hands when he went, quite friendly. But won’t you take just a taste o’ something before you go, sir? The missus will be put out at not seeing you; stepped out, she has, for a few potatoes. And how we have talked about you, surely! Look here, sir, here’s the werry thing as I hung up in that winder as soon as he was found – and none too soon neither, for I was obligated to have my shutters up for a week, and they did smash half a dozen of the first-floor panes as it was. ‘There,’ says I to the people, ‘don’t you make no mistake: I ain’t burked the gent as took it into his head to dress up and come to see – ’ But there! I won’t say no more – and I hung out that, sir.”

As D. Wragg spoke, he produced a dusty, smoke and fly-stained card, upon which, in large type, was printed —

THE GENT IS FOUND.

HE WAS RUN OVER

by

A CAB!!!

(Signed) D. Wragg.

“That there cost me two-and-six, sir; but don’t you make no mistake, it saved me one pound two and six in winders, and ever so much more in character. But is there anything in my way before you go, sir? Always happy to supply you, and can do a stroke of almost everything in natur’, except dorgs, which, as I said afore, I’ve quite done with; for, you see, sir, dorgs ain’t respectable, and don’t do now.”

Harry had some difficulty in getting away without seeing Mrs D. Wragg; but he urged that his time was precious, and at last, after a hearty hand-shake, he was allowed to continue his way, thinking very deeply, as he wandered slowly on, till he reached a quiet little street near to that named after the great Northumbrian earl – a tame, empty, flat, and apparently, to a spectator, highly unprofitable, double row of houses, upon the door of one of which was a brass-plate bearing the words —

MONSIEUR CANAU,

Professor of Music.

Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Five.

Vive L’amour

“Yes, Mr Canau is at home,” said a very mealy-faced girl, who replied to Harry Clayton’s knock; and he was shown into a barely-furnished but neat parlour, to wait while, apparently, some lesson was being concluded in the back room, where a voice could be heard counting loudly: – “One, two, three; one, two, three;” and a duet between pianoforte and violin appeared to be in fierce progress. Then there was silence, a buzz of voices, and very tightly dressed, very fierce-looking – with his closely-cut hair, as he walked behind an enormous moustache, – the little exile entered.

“Ah! mon cher, cher ami!” he exclaimed; and in a moment his arms were round his visitor. But directly after, he seemed to recollect himself, and drew back hastily to hold out his hand. “I beg pardon – thousand pardons; but I shall never be an Englishman.”

Then, running to the door, he cried in a loud voice, “Mes amis – mes amis – entrez.”

Harry Clayton’s heart beat, as the next minute Jared Pellet entered with Patty and Janet, who both started with surprise, Patty colouring deeply, and the latter looking from one to the other with something nearly akin to anger.