A Hero of Romance

"Or your life?" He looked in turn from one boy to the other, and finally his gaze rested on Bailey.

Bertie met his eyes with a sullen stare. "I tell you I'd nothing to do with it," he said.

"And I tell you I don't care that who had to do with it," and Mr. Huffham snapped his fingers. "You're that there pack of liars I wouldn't believe you on your oath before a judge and jury, not that I wouldn't!" and his fingers were snapped again. He and Bailey stood for a moment looking into each other's face.

"If you hit me for what I didn't do, I'll do something worth hitting for."

"Will you?" Mr. Huffham caught him by the shoulder, and held him as in a vice.

"Don't you hit me!"

Apparently Mrs. Huffham was impressed by something in his manner. "Don't you hit 'un hard! now don't you!"

"Won't I? I'll hit him so hard, I'll about do for him, that's about as hard as I'll hit him." A look came into Mr. Huffham's face which was not nice to see. Bailey never flinched; his hard-set jaw and sullen eyes made the resemblance to the bulldog more vivid still. "You pay me that pound!"

"I wouldn't if I had it!"

In an instant Mr. Huffham had swung him round, and was raining blows with his clenched fist upon the boy's back and shoulders. But he had reckoned without his host, if he had supposed the punishment would be taken quietly. The boy fought like a cat, and struggled and kicked with such unlooked-for vigour that Mr. Huffham, driven against the counter and not seeing what he was doing, struck out wildly, knocked the lamp off its nail with his fist, and in an instant the boy and the man were struggling in the darkness on the floor.

Just then a stentorian voice shouted through the glass window of the rickety door, -

"Bravo! that's the best plucked boy I've seen!"

Chapter IV

A LITTLE DRIVE

Those within the shop had been too much interested in their own proceedings to be conscious of a dog-cart, which came tearing through the darkening shadows at such a pace that startled pedestrians might be excused for thinking that it was a case of a horse running away with its driver. But such would have been convinced of their error when, in passing Mrs. Huffham's, on hearing Mr. Stephen bellowing with what seemed to be the full force of a pair of powerful lungs, the vehicle was brought to a standstill as suddenly as a regiment of soldiers halt at the word of command. The driver spoke to the horse, -

"Steady! stand still, old girl!" The speaker alighted. Approaching Mrs. Huffham's, he stood at the glass-windowed door, observing the proceedings within; and when Mr. Stephen, in his blind rage, struck the lamp from its place and plunged the scene in darkness, the unnoticed looker-on turned the handle of the door and entered the shop, shouting, in tones which made themselves audible above the din, -

"Bravo! that's the best plucked boy I've seen!" And standing on the threshold, he repeated his assertion, "Bravo! that's the best plucked boy I've seen." He drew a box of matches from his pocket, and striking one, he held the flickering flame above his head, so that some little light was shed upon what was going on within. "What's this little argument?" he asked.

Seeing that Mr. Huffman was still holding Bailey firmly in his grasp, "Hold hard, big one," he said; "let the little chap get up. You ought to have your little arguments outside; this place isn't above half large enough to swing a cat in. Granny, bring a light!"

As the match was just on the point of going out he struck another, and entered the shop with it flaming in his hand. Mrs. Huffham's nerves were too shaken to allow her to pay that instant attention to the new-comer's orders which he seemed to demand.

"Look alive, old lady; bring a light! This old band-box is as dark as pitch."

Thus urged, the old lady disappeared, presently reappearing with a little table-lamp in her trembling hands.

"Put it somewhere out of reach-if anything is out of reach in this dog-hole of a place. I shouldn't be surprised if you had a little bonfire with the next lamp that's upset."

Mrs. Huffman placed it on a shelf in the extreme corner of the shop, from which post of vantage it did not light the scene quite so brilliantly as it might have done. Mr. Stephen and the boy, relaxing a moment from the extreme vigour of discussion, availed themselves of the opportunity to see what sort of person the stranger might chance to be.

He was a man of gigantic stature, probably considerably over six feet high, but so broad in proportion that he seemed shorter than he actually was. A long waterproof, from which the rain was trickling in little streams, reached to his feet; the hood was drawn over his head, and under its shadow was seen a face which was excellently adapted to the enormous frame. A huge black beard streamed over the stranger's breast, and a pair of large black eyes looked out from overhanging brows. He was the first to break the silence.

"Well, what is this little argument?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued, addressing Mr. Huffham, "You're rather a large size, don't you think, for that sized boy?"

"Who are you? and what do you want? If there's anything you want to buy, perhaps you'll buy it, and take yourself outside."

The stranger put his hand up to his beard, and began pulling it.

"There's nothing I want to buy, not just now." He looked at Bailey. "What's he laying it on for?"

"Nothing."

"That's not bad, considering. What were you laying it on for?" This to Huffham.

"I've not finished yet, not by no manner of means; I mean to take it out of all the lot of 'em. Call themselves gents! Why, if a working-man's son was to behave as they does, he'd get five years at a reformatory. I've known it done before today."

"I daresay you have; you look like a man who knew a thing or two. What were you laying it on for?"

"What for? why, look here!" And Mr. Huffham pointed to the broken bottles and the damaged case.

"And I'm a hard-working woman, I am, sir, and I'm seventy-three this next July; and it's hard work I find it to pay my rent: and wherever I'm to get the money for them there things, goodness knows, I don't. It'll be the workhouse, after all!" Thus Mrs. Huffham lifted up her voice and wept.

"And they calls themselves gents, and they comes in here, and takes advantage of an old woman, and robs her right and left, and thinks they're going to get off scot free; not if I know it this time they won't." Mr. Stephen Huffham looked as though he meant it, every word.

"Did you do that?" asked the stranger of Bailey.

"No, I didn't."

"I don't care who did it; they're that there liars I wouldn't believe a word of theirs on oath; they did it between them, and that's quite enough for me."

"I suppose one of you did do it?" asked the stranger.

Bailey thrust his hands in his pockets, looking up at the stranger with the dogged look in his eyes.

"The place was pitch dark; why didn't they have a light in the place?"

"Because there didn't happen to be a light in the place, is that any reason why you should go smashing everything you could lay your hands on? Why couldn't you wait for a light? Go on with you! I'll take the skin off your back!"

"How much?" asked the stranger, paying no attention to Mr. Stephen's eloquence.

"There's a heap of mischief done, heap of mischief!" wailed the old lady in the rear.

"How am I to tell all the mischief that's been done? Just look at the place; a sovereign wouldn't cover it, no, that it wouldn't."

"There isn't five shillings' worth of harm," said Bertie. "If you were to get five shillings, you'd make a profit of half a crown."

The stranger laughed, and Mr. Huffham scowled; the look which he cast at Bertie was not exactly a look of love, but the boy met it without any sign of flinching.

"I'll be even with you yet, my lad!" Mr. Stephen said.

"If I give you a sovereign you will be even," suggested the stranger.

Mr. Stephen's eyes glistened; and his grandmother, clasping her old withered palms together, cast a look of rapture towards the ceiling.