Part 89 (1/2)

He added that even talent was not saleable unless it got into the Great Grooves; and then looked at Mrs. Dodd, she replied that unfortunately those Grooves were not always accessible. The City firm had received her stiffly, and inquired for whom she had worked. ”Children, my heart fell at that question. I was obliged to own myself an amateur and beg a trial. However, I gave Madame Blanch's card: but Mr.--I don't know which partner it was--said he was not acquainted with her: then he looked a little embarra.s.sed, I thought, and said the Firm did not care to send its stuff to ladies not in the business. I might cut it to waste, or--he said no more; but I do really think he meant I might purloin it.”

”Why wasn't I there to look him into the earth? Oh, mamma, that you should be subjected to all this!”

”Be quiet, child; I had only to put on my armour; and do you know what my armour is? Thinking of my children. So I put on my armour, and said quietly, we were not so poor but we could pay for a piece of cloth should I be so unfortunate as to spoil it; and I offered in plain terms to deposit the price as security. But he turned as stiff at that as his yard measure; 'that was not Cross and Co.'s way of doing business,' he said. But it is unreasonable to be dejected at a repulse or two; and I am not out of spirits; not much:” with this her gentle mouth smiled; and her patient eyes were moist.

The next day, just after breakfast, was announced a gentleman from the City. He made his bow and produced a parcel, which proved to be a pattern cloak. ”Order, ladies,” said he briskly, ”from Cross, Fitchett, and Co., Primrose Lane. Porter outside with the piece. You can come in, sir.” Porter entered with a bale. ”Please sign this, ma'am.” Mrs. Dodd signed a receipt for the stuff, with an undertaking to deliver it in cloaks, at 11 Primrose Lane, in such a time. Porter retreated. The other said, ”Our Mr. Fitchett wishes you to observe this fall in the pattern.

It is new.”

”I will, sir. Am I to trouble you with any money--by way of deposit, sir?”

”No orders about it, ma'am. Ladies, your most obedient. Good morning, sir.”

And he was away.

All this seemed like a click or two of City clock-work: followed by rural silence. Yet in that minute Commerce had walked in upon genteel poverty, and left honest labour and modest income behind her.

Great was the thankfulness, strange and new the excitement. Edward was employed to set up a very long deal table for his mother to work on, Julia to go and buy tailors' scissors. Calculations were made how to cut the stuff to advantage, and in due course the heavy scissors were heard snick, snick, snicking all day long.

Julia painted zealously, and Edward, without saying a word to them, walked twenty miles a day hunting for a guinea a week; and finding it not. Not but what employment was often bobbed before his eyes: but there was no grasping it. At last he heard of a place peculiarly suited to him; a packing foreman's in a warehouse at Southwark; he went there, and was referred to Mr. A.'s private house. Mr. A. was in the country for a day. Try Mr. B. Mr. B. was dining with the Lord Mayor. Returning belated, he fell in with a fire; and, sad to say, life was in jeopardy: a little old man had run out at the first alarm, when there was no danger, and, as soon as the fire was hot, had run in again for his stockings, or some such treasure. Fire does put out some people's reason; clean. While he was rummaging madly, the staircase caught, and the smoke cut off his second exit, and drove him up to a little staircase window at the side of the house. Here he stood, hose in hand, scorching behind and screeching in front. A ladder had been brought: but it was a yard short: and the poor old man danced on the window-ledge and dare not come down to a gallant fireman who stood ready to receive him at great personal peril. In the midst of shrieks and cries and shouts of encouragement, Edward, a practised gymnast, saw a chance. He ran up the ladder like a cat, begged the fireman to clasp it tight; then got on his shoulders and managed to grasp the window-sill. He could always draw his own weight up by his hands: so he soon had his knee on the sill, and presently stood erect. He then put his left arm inside the window, collared the old fellow with his right, and, half persuasion, half force, actually lowered him to the ladder with one Herculean arm amidst a roar that made the Borough ring. Such a strain could not long be endured; but the fireman speedily relieved him by seizing the old fellow's feet and directing them on to the ladder, and so, propping him by the waist, went down before him, and landed him safe. Edward waited till they were down: then begged them to hold the ladder tight below; he hung from the ledge, got his eye well on the ladder below him, let himself quietly drop, and caught hold of it with hands of iron, and twisting round, came down the ladder on the inside hand over head without using his feet, a favourite gymnastic exercise of his learnt at the Modern Athens. He was warmly received by the crowd and by the firemen. ”You should be one of us, sir,” said a fine young fellow who had cheered him and advised him all through. ”I wish to Heaven I was,”

said Edward. The other thought he was joking, but laughed and said, ”Then you should talk to our head man after the business; there is a vacancy, you know.”

Edward saw the fire out, and rode home on the engine. There he applied to the head man for the vacancy.

”You are a stranger to me, sir,” said the head man. ”And I am sure it is no place for you; you are a gentleman.”

”Well; is there anything ungentlemanly in saving people's lives and property?”

”Hear! hear!” said a comic fireman.

The compliment began to tell, though. Others put in their word. ”Why, Mr. Baldwin, if a gentleman ain't ashamed of us, why should we be ashamed of him?”

”Where will ye get a better?” asked another; and added, ”He is no stranger; we've seen him work.”

”Stop a bit,” said the comic fireman: ”what does the dog say? Just call him, sir, if you please; his name is Charlie.”

Edward called the fire-dog kindly; he came and fawned on him; then gravely snuffed him all round, and retired wagging his tail gently, as much as to say, ”I was rather taken by surprise at first, but, on the whole, I see no reason to recall my judgment.”

”It is all right,” said the firemen in chorus; and one that had not yet spoken to Edward now whispered him mysteriously, ”Ye see that there dog--he knows more than we do.”

After the dog, a biped oracle at head-quarters was communicated with, and late that very night Edward was actually enrolled a fireman; and went home warmer at heart than he had been for some time. They were all in bed; and when he came down in the morning, Julia was reading out of the _'Tiser_ a spirited and magniloquent description of a fire in Southwark, and of the heroism displayed by a young gentleman unknown, but whose name the writer hoped at so much the line would never be allowed to pa.s.s into oblivion, and be forgotten. In short, the _'Tiser_ paid him in one column, for years of devotion. Now Edward, of course, was going to relate his adventure; but the journal told it so gloriously, he hesitated to say, ”I did all that.” He just sat and stared, and wondered, and blushed, and grinned like an imbecile.

Unfortunately looks seldom escaped the Doddesses. ”What is that for?”

inquired Julia reproachfully. ”Is that sheepish face the thing to wear when a sister is reading out an heroic action? Ah, these are the things that make one long to be a man, to do them. What are you thinking about, dear?”

”Well, I am thinking the _'Tiser_ is pitching it rather strong.”

”My love, what an expression!”

”Well, then, to be honest, I agree with you that it is a jolly thing to fight with fire and save men's lives; and I am glad you see it in that light; for now you will approve the step I have taken. Ladies, I have put myself in the way of doing this sort of thing every week of my life.

I'm a fireman.”