Rogues and Vagabonds. George R. Sims

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СКАЧАТЬ not given that calm to his mind which retirement from business is supposed to give. Towards the close of his illness, and just before he was allowed to go out, a vigorous playfulness had set in, which was very badly appreciated by the inhabitants, biped and quadruped. Mr. Heckett had playfully hurled his pillows at the rabbit-hutches, and had taken to pelt the dogs with such handy trifles as the candlestick, a plate, a cup, a pair of snuffers, or a boot.

      The dogs growled and put their tails between their legs, crouched in corners and behind anything that yielded a temporary barricade.

      Gertie and Lion usually retired when these fits set in. Not that he threw things at either of them—he knew better than that. But he swore fearfully, and that frightened Gertie worse than the boots and the pillows; so she would motion to her dear old Lion, and they would creep out quietly and leave grandfather to it.

      It had been a whim of Heckett’s when he was brought home with a cracked skull from one of his midnight wanderings to have his bed brought in among the animals. ‘They’d be company,’ he said. ‘He didn’t want to lie alone, with no end of horrible things dancing across his brain.’ Gertie’s little room was upstairs. She had slept there ever since she could remember. They had two other rooms—one on the same floor as Gertie’s, and one behind the animals’ room, where Heckett slept when he was well.

      The house was three floors high, so that Heckett occupied two, and the ground floor, with an open shop, was let to a gentleman in the old clothes line, who shut it up at night, and went to another shop of his higher up the street, where he lived.

      When Gertie and Lion, were gone away, Heckett would lie and curse to his heart’s content, and he had a companion who used to curse in chorus.

      There was a parrot among this strange collection who swore like a trooper, and who, since he had come to live with Heckett, had considerably improved his vocabulary. It was grotesque but supremely awful to listen to the grey-haired reprobate shrieking and blaspheming and the parrot mocking him. Sometimes Heckett would lose his temper and swear at the bird, then the bird would swear back at him, and a cursing match, not to be equalled in the Dials, would take place. Heckett would get so mad while he lay there helpless, that he would threaten the bird with summary vengeance. The bird caught up his threats at last, and occasionally Mr. Heckett’s visitors would be startled to hear a voice from somewhere in the corner suddenly shriek out—‘Bless you, I’ll have your blood!’ or ‘Bless your beautiful eyes, you screeching devil, I’ll wring your beautiful neck!’

      The adjectives are slightly altered, but the sense of the parrot’s mild observations remains unimpaired.

      As Heckett grew better, the wordy warfare between himself and the parrot increased in vigour, till a person, listening outside, would have believed that two horribly depraved wretches were about to commence a murderous struggle.

      What with grandfather’s language and the parrot’s language, poor Gertie got more uncomfortable every day. The child had one of those sensitive natures which are quick to appreciate the difference between right and wrong.

      Left alone almost from babyhood with the animals and the birds, she had grown to love them and look upon them as her playmates. Into their ears she poured her troubles. It was her task to feed them all, and give them their water, and never was handmaiden more faithful to her duties.

      It shocked her terribly that the parrot should swear. Grandfather she expected it from, but that this wicked, depraved bird should come to pollute the atmosphere was too bad.

      She used to put her hands over Lion’s ears, so that he shouldn’t understand. She blushed sometimes when she was alone with her pets to think that Lion should be in the room with her when such language was going on.

      How Gertie came to be so clean and pure, and to have so much modesty and good sense, amid such surroundings, was a mystery to everybody but Gertie herself and one other person.

      That person was a lady who came in the day time, often when the old man was out. She came first with the police to look for a stolen dog, and Gertie’s sweet face and gentle manner struck her.

      She was a woman of the world, and guessed that any open offer of sympathy would be resented by the child’s guardian. So she found out when Gertie was alone, and came to see her. She was a good customer, for she bought canaries, and white mice, and guinea-pigs; but really she came to see Gertie and to rescue her from the contamination around.

      Miss Adrian, Gertie’s protectress, found out what times her protégée was most likely to be alone, and she made various excuses to visit her, and taught her to read and write unknown to the grandfather.

      She taught the child more than this. She gradually imparted to her the outlines of the beautiful Christian faith, and under her fostering care the little wild, uncultivated bud blossomed into a sweet and delicate flower.

      Seeing his granddaughter in a clean face, and finding her always tidy and civil, and loth to go into the street and play with the other children, old Heckett had been surprised at first, but he had put it down to the contrariness of the female nature, and had not troubled himself to inquire further into the matter. Once when he was asked how it was Gertie was always so clean and tidy and good, he had growled out something about breed, and had hinted darkly that Gertie’s father must have been a gentleman.

      This observation points to the fact that Gertie’s birth was shrouded in some slight mystery. What that mystery was the reader will learn in due course. She was old Heckett’s granddaughter; of that there was not the slightest doubt.

      It was a strange sight to see Gertie at her lessons among the animals. These hours were the happiest of the poor child’s life. When the day came round for Miss Adrian’s visit, Gertie would wait anxiously for grandfather’s departure. Then she would go and stand at the door and look up the street, and Lion would stand beside her.

      If Miss Adrian saw the dog and the child together she knew that she might come in. If Gertie was alone she would pass by, just speaking a few words to the child as she went along.

      Gertie spoke of Miss Adrian to Lion as ‘the beautiful lady,’ and Gertie’s description would hardly have been disputed by any one who knew what real beauty was. Ruth Adrian, at the age of twenty-eight, was as young looking as many a girl of eighteen. If it ever comes into fashion to print actual coloured photographs of an author’s characters in his story, it will save the male writer much vexation of spirit. Ladies can tell you at a glance the colour of everybody’s hair and eyes, the modelling of the chin, the expression of the lips, and the character of the nose. The present writer, if asked suddenly, when away from his domestic circle, the colour of his nearest female relative’s eyes, would have to telegraph home for the information. To such a one the minute personal description of his characters is indeed a task, but he is bound to attempt it. What would the ladies say if he left them in doubt as to the colour of his hero’s eyes? What would the gentlemen say if he failed properly to describe the beautiful features of sweet Ruth Adrian?

      Picture, then, a tall young lady, with soft grey eyes, fair cheeks, in which the delicate white and pink had never been marred by the pernicious adjuncts of the modern belle’s dressing-table; a small, almost baby mouth, that seemed specially designed to spread a perpetual smile over the face; brown hair, neatly and smoothly arranged over a forehead almost too high for a woman’s; and a nose which a Greek sculptor might have borrowed for his Diana.

      Here you have what the auctioneers would call a catalogue of the features of Ruth Adrian. Picture her thus and you will behold a marble statue; to see her as she was, a sweet and noble English woman, the beautiful spirit that was hers must animate the lifeless clay. СКАЧАТЬ