A Hero of Romance

by Richard Marsh

  Chapter XIV

  IN TROUBLE

  Through the Broadway, along the Hammersmith Road, on, and on, and on.Every step he took made the next seem harder. He was conscious that hecould hardly walk much more. The crowd, the lights, the strangeness ofthe place, confused him. He wondered where he was. Was this London?and was it nothing else but streets? and was this the Land of GoldenDreams?

  When he reached the Cedars, where the great pile of school buildingsis now standing, he saw, peering through the railings, a little arabof the streets. To him he applied for information.

  "Is this London?"

  The urchin withdrew his head from between the two iron rails throughwhich he had managed to squeeze it, and eyed his questioner. He was alittle lad, smaller than Bertie, hatless, shoeless, in a ragged pairof trousers which were several sizes too large for him, and which wererolled up in a bunch about his ankles to enable him to put his feetfar enough through to touch the ground.

  "What, this? this 'ere? no, this ain't London."

  "How far is it then?"

  "How far is it? what, London? It just depends what part of Londonmight you be wanting?"

  "Any part; I don't care."

  The urchin whistled. His small, keen eyes had been reading hisquestioner all the time, and Bertie was conscious of a sense ofdiscomfort as he observed the curious gaze. In some odd way he feltthat this little lad was bigger and stronger, and older than himself;that he looked down at him, as it were, from a height.

  "Say, matey, where might you be going to? You don't look as though youknowed your way about, not much, you don't."

  The cool tone of superiority irritated Bertie. Tired and weary as hewas, and a little sick at heart, he was not going to allow a littleshrimp like this to look down on him.

  "If you won't tell me the way, why, that's enough. I don't want any ofyour cheek."

  Bertie moved on, but the other called after him.

  "You needn't turn rusty, you needn't; I didn't mean no harm. I'm goingto London, I am, and if you like you can come along o' me."

  The urchin was by his side again. Bertie looked at him with disgustedeyes. He had not set out upon his journey with the intention oftravelling with such tag-rag and bobtail as this lad. So far thesociety into which he had fallen had been of an unfortunate kind; hehad had enough of Sam Slater, and of Sam Slater's sort.

  "I'm not going with you; I'm going by myself."

  "Alright, matey, every bloke's free to choose his pals."

  The urchin turned a series of catherine-wheels right under Bertie'snose. Then, with a whistle of unearthly shrillness, he set offrunning, and disappeared into the night. Bertie was left no wiser thanbefore.

  He dragged along till he reached Addison Road A gentleman in eveningdress came across the road, smoking a cigar. He was of middle age,irreproachably attired, with nothing of Sam Slater about him.

  "If you please, sir, can you tell me how far it is to London?"

  The gentleman stopped short, puffing at his cigar.

  "What's that?"

  Bertie repeated his inquiry. For answer, the gentleman took him by theshoulder, led him to a neighbouring lamp-post, and looked him in theface.

  "What are you doing here? You look respectable; you're from thecountry, aren't you?"

  Bertie hesitated; he remembered the effect produced by his incautiousfrankness on Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins.

  "Speak up; you have got a tongue, haven't you? What are you doinghere? run away from home?"

  The lad, giving a sudden twist, freed himself from the gentleman'sgrasp, and ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. The stranger,puffing at his cigar as he stood under the lamp-post, laughed as hepeered after the retreating boy. But Bertie, despite his weariness,still ran on. He dimly wondered, whether he bore about with him someoutward sign by which any one could tell he was a runaway. He made uphis mind that he would ask no more questions if he ran the risk ofmeeting such home thrusts in reply.

  He wandered onwards till he reached Kensington Gardens, and then theAlbert Hall. There was a concert going on, and the place was all litup. He stared with amazement at the enormous building, imperfectlyrevealed in the darkness of the night. Carriages and cabs were goingto and fro. Some one touched him on the shoulder. It was a gorgeousfootman, with powdered hair, in splendid livery. His magnificencedazzled him.

  "I say, you boy, do you know Thurloe Square?"

  "No, sir."

  "What do you mean? are you gettin' at me? You take a message for me toThurloe Square, and there'll be a bob when you get there."

  "But I don't know Thurloe Square; I'm a stranger, sir."

  "A stranger, are you? Then what do you mean by standing there, asthough you was born just over the way? Get on out of it! I shouldn'tbe surprised if you was after pockethandkerchiefs;--what's your littlelay? I'll tell the policeman to keep an eye on you, telling me youdon't know Thurloe Square;--oh yes, I jest dersay!"

  The footman appeared to be angry; Bertie slunk away. He crossed theroad to the park; a gate was open; people were going in and out. Heentered too. It looked quiet inside; perhaps there was grass to situpon. He went up towards the Serpentine, and had not gone far when hecame to a seat. On this he sat. Never was seat more welcome; it wasecstasy to rest. He was dimly conscious of what was going on; beforehe knew it he was fast asleep.

  Time passed; still he slept. A perfect sleep untroubled by dreams.Some one else approached the seat, some one in the last stage ofraggedness, so exhausted that he seemed hardly able to drag one footbehind the other. He, too, sat down; he, too, fell fast asleep.

  Some one else approached,--a woman with a baby and a watercressbasket. The baby was crying faintly; the woman tried to comfort it,speaking to in a droning monotone:

  "I've nothing to give you, bairn," she said; "I've nothing to giveyou, bairn! God help us all!"

  A policeman came along. When he reached the seat he stopped, andflashed the bull's-eye lantern in the faces of the sleepers. The womanwoke up instantly, perhaps used to such a visitation.

  "I'm going, sir; I only sat down for a moment to rest awhile."

  The baby began to cry again.

  "I've nothing to give you, bairn," she said; "I've nothing to giveyou, bairn! God help us all!"

  It seemed to be a stereotyped form of speech. She got up, with thebaby and her basket, and walked away, the baby crying as she went. Thepoliceman remained behind, flashing his bull's-eye.

  "Now then, this won't do, you know; wake up, you two."

  He took the ragged sleeper by the shoulder, and shook him; he seemedto wake in a kind of stupor, and staggered off without a word. Thepoliceman turned to Bertie.

  "Now then!"

  The lad woke with a start; he thought some one was playing tricks withhim.

  "What do you want?"

  "I want you to clear out of this, that's what I want."

  Opening his eyes Bertie was for a moment dazzled by the glaring light;then he saw at the back the policeman's form, looming grim and awful.Possessed by a sudden fear, he sprang to his feet, and ran as for hislife.

  "Now I wonder what you've been up to?" murmured the policeman. "Idon't remember seeing your face before; I should say you was a newhand, you was."

  Bertie ran, without knowing where he was running to; across the road,under a rail. He found himself upon the grass. It was quite dark,mysterious, strange. He could hardly be followed there, so he thoughtat least, and strolled more slowly on. But he was very tired still,and, yielding to his weariness, when he had gone a little farther, hesat down upon the grass to rest.

  And this was the Land of Golden Dreams! this was his entrance into thepromised land! A gentle breeze murmured through the night; there was asound as of rippling grass and of rustling leaves; he could see nostars; a heavy dew was falling; the grass was damp; it was chilly; thebreeze blew cold; he shivered with hunger and with cold. His head wasnodding on his breast; almost unconsciously he lay full
length uponthe sodden grass, and again fell fast asleep.

  But this time it was not a dreamless slumber; it was a continuednightmare. He was oppressed with horrid visions, with continuousstrugglings against hideous forms of terror. Unrefreshed he woke. Itwas broad day; but there had come a sudden change of weather, theskies were overcast and dull. His limbs were aching; he was stiff, andwet, and cold; he was soaked to the skin; his clothes stuck to hisbody. Shivering, he struggled to his feet, rising with pain. The placewas deserted. Three was a solitary horseman in the distance; thehorseman and the lad were the only living things in sight.

  It began to drizzle; the wind had risen; it whistled in the air. Thefine weather had departed as though never to return. Bertie's teethwere chattering; he felt dull and stupid, ignorant of what he ought todo.

  He began walking through the rain across the grass. How cold he was,and oh! how hungry. He must have something to eat, and something warmto drink. He thought of his money; he felt for his fourpence; it wasgone!

  The discovery stunned him. He could not realize the fact at once, butsearched in each of his pockets laboriously, one after the other. Heturned them inside out; felt for holes through which it might havefallen. He remembered that he had put it in the right hand pocket ofhis trousers; he examined it again and again, in a sort of stupor. Invain; it was gone!

  He retraced his steps. It might have fallen out of his pockets in thenight; he fell upon his knees and searched. There was no sign of itabout. He was without a sou, and he was so hungry and so cold, and itwas raining, and he was wet to the skin.

  He could not realize his loss. He wandered stupidly on, stopping attimes, feeling in his pockets again and again. It could not be gone.But there was no money there. This was his Land of Golden Dreams; thiswas the object of his journey; this was the result of his dash intothe world; he was cold, and he was hungry, and he saw no signs ofanything to eat.

  At last he left the park behind. He went out by the Piccadilly gate,as miserable a figure as any to be seen, stained with mud, soaked withwet, hungry and forlorn. It was early. The early omnibuses werebringing crowds of business men to town. The drivers were muffled intheir mackintoshes, the outside passengers crouched beneath theirumbrellas. Everything and every one looked cold, and miserable, andwet; Bertie looked worst of all, for he looked hungry too.

  How hungry! There had been moments at Mecklemburg House when hungerhad made itself felt, but never hunger such as this. The very worstmeal Mr. Fletcher had ever set before his pupils--and his system ofdietary was not his strongest point--Bertie would have welcomed as afeast. Even a dry crust of stale bread would have been welcome; a cupof the wishy-washiest tea would have been nectar of the gods.

  He was footsore too. As he wandered by the Piccadilly mansions andapproached the shops, he became conscious that his feet wereblistered. It was a discomfort to be obliged to put them to theground. His right foot, in particular, had a blister on the heel, andanother on the ball of the foot. It seemed to him that every momentthese were getting larger. He would have liked to have taken his bootand sock off and examine his injuries. He was aware, too, that he wasdirty; more than two days had passed since he had come in contact withsoap and water. Once upon a time he had had a vague idea that it was aglorious sport of the heroic character to be dirty; now he would haveliked to have had a wash. But he could neither wash nor examine hisfeet in the middle of Piccadilly.

  The presence of the shops caused him an additional pang. The displayof costly goods in their windows seemed to add to his misery. Even thepossession of his fourpence, as compared to the value of suchtreasures, would have placed him at a disadvantage.

  But without it he was poor indeed. He was fascinated by the fruitshops; all the fruits of the earth, those in season and those out,seemed gathered there. He glued his nose to the window and looked andlonged.

  "Now then, what are you doing there? move on out of that!"

  A policeman, in a shiny cape, from which the wet was dripping, roughlyshouldered him on. He was not even allowed to look. This was not atall the sort of thing he had expected. His idea of his entry into thegreat city had been altogether different. He was to come as the kingof boys, if not of men; as something remarkable, as a heaven-bornconqueror; something to be talked of; the centre of all eyes directlyhe was seen. To sleep upon the sodden grass, to be penniless, cold,wet, and hungry, to be shouldered by policemen, to be bidden to moveon, these things had not entered into his calculations when that nightat Mecklemburg House he had dreamed those golden dreams.

  He struggled on; his feet became more painful; he was limping; rest hemust. He turned down a bye-street, and then down a friendly entry, andleaned against the wall. Was this what he had come for, to lean in therain against a wall, and to be thankful for the chance of leaning? Hehad not read in lives of Robin Hood, and Turpin, and Crusoe, and Jackthe Giant-Killer, of episodes like this. But then, perhaps, hisacquaintance with the histories of those gentlemen was not so perfectas it might have been.

  Suddenly he heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Some onewas coming along the side-street as though racing for his life. A ladabout his own age came darting round the corner in such terrific hastethat he almost ran into Bertie's arms.

  "Catch hold! here's a present for you."

  The runner gasped out the words, without pausing in his flight. Likean arrow from a bow he darted on, leaving Bertie standing there. Tohis amazement Bailey found that he had thrust something in his hand;his surprise was intensified when he discovered what it was,--it was apurse. The runner had turned another corner and was already out ofsight.

  Bertie, in his bewilderment, could do nothing else but gaze. Suchunexpected generosity, coming at such a moment, was so astonishingthat it was almost as though the gift had fallen from the skies. Agood fat purse! It was like the stories after all. He could feel thatit was heavy; he almost thought that he could feel that it was full.Suppose it were full of gold! Had it fallen from the skies?

  All this occupied an instant. The next he was conscious that some oneelse was coming up the street; apparently some one else in equalhaste; apparently more than one. Cries rang in his ears; he could notquite distinguish the words which were shouted, but at their sound,for some reason, a cold chill went down his back.

  Some one came round the corner; some one who seized him as though hewere some wild thing.

  "Got you, have I! thought you'd double, did you, and slip out when I'drun past? Artful, but it didn't quite do,--not this time, at anyrate."

  His captor shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. It was a policeman, ahuge, bearded fellow, six feet high. Bertie was like a plaything inhis hands. On hearing some one coming, the boy, without any thought ofwhat he was doing, had slipped the hand which held the purse behindhis back. The policeman was down on it at once.

  "What's that you've got there?"

  He twisted the boy round, revealing the hand which held the purse. Hetook it away.

  "Oh, that's it, is it? You hadn't got time to throw it away, Isuppose, or perhaps you thought it was too good to lose--worth runninga little risk for, eh? Well, you've run the risk just once too often."

  By this time others had come into the entry, and now Bertie recognisedthe words which he had heard. What they had been shouting was, "Stopthief!"

  The new comers showed a lively interest in the captive. A man, wholooked like a respectable mechanic, reckoned him up.

  "That's not the boy," he said.

  "Oh, isn't it? It doesn't look like it, not when he was hiding here,and holding the purse in his hand!"

  The policeman held up the purse with an air of smiling scorn.

  "Had he got the purse? Well, whether he had or whether he hadn't, allI can say is he isn't the boy who took it; I'm willing to take my oathto that. He was a different-looking sort of boy altogether, and I wasstanding as close to him as I am to you."

  "I never took the purse," said Bertie, with dogged lips and doggedeyes. He realized that great trouble had come
upon him, as he writhedand twisted in the policeman's hand. "It was given to me."

  "Yes, I daresay, and by a particular friend, no doubt. You come alongwith me, my lad, and tell that tale elsewhere."

  The policeman began to drag the lad along the entry.

  "The boy will go quietly, I daresay, if you give him a chance,"observed the man who had previously spoken. "However it may be aboutthe purse being found upon him, I'm prepared to prove that that's notthe boy who took it."

  "Well, you can come and give your evidence, can't you? It's no goodstanding arguing here; the lad had got the purse, and I've got thelad, and that's quite enough for me."

  "Where are you going to take him to?"

  "Marlborough Street Police Court."

  "All right, I'll come round and say what I've got to say. My name'sWilliam Standing,--I'm a picture framer; I'll go and tell my governorwhere I'm off to, and I'll be there as soon as you are."

  The man walked away. The policeman proceeded to haul Bertie off withhim again. The boy was speechless. He was tired, his feet were sore;the policeman's pace was almost more than he could manage. Inconsequence, every now and then he received a jerk, which all butpitched him forward on his nose.

  "Why don't you leave the boy alone?" inquired a man in the littlecrowd, which walked alongside in a sort of procession, whose ideas ofa policeman's duty were apparently vague. "He ain't done no 'arm toyou."

  "Why, bless yer, if it wasn't for them little 'uns them policemenwould have no one to collar; they daren't lay a finger on a man ofyour build, old pal."

  This remark, from another member of the crowd, produced a laugh. Theoriginal speaker was a diminutive specimen of his kind, whom thepoliceman could have carried in his arms with the greatest of ease.

  When they regained Piccadilly they came upon the victim of therobbery. This was a portly, middle-aged female, who was a pleasantcombination of mackintoshes and agitation. She was the centre of aninterested circle, into whose sympathetic ears she was pouring hertale of woe. The arrival of the policeman with his captive created adiversion.

  "Is this the boy?" inquired the constable.

  "Have you got my purse?" replied the lady. "It contained thirty-sevenpounds, fifteen shillings, and threepence, in two ten pound notes, twofives,--I've got the numbers in my purse,--seven pounds in gold, fourof them half-sovereigns, fifteen shillings in silver, and a threepennybit; and whatever I shall do without it I don't know. I'm the landladyof the 'Rising Sun,' and I was going to pay my wine-merchant's bill,and I said to my daughter only this morning, 'Take all that moneyloose I didn't ought to do. No, Mary Ann, a cheque it ought to be.'But Mary Ann's that flighty, though she's in her thirties, thoughtwenty-two she tries to pass herself to be----"

  The policeman endeavoured to stop the lady's flood of eloquence.

  "You can tell us all that when we get to the station. You'll have tocome with me to identify the purse and charge the boy."

  "I don't want to charge the boy, all I want is to identify the purse.As for the young limb of a boy, I'd like to give him a good bangingwith my unbrella, that I would!"

  The lady shook her umbrella at the boy in a way which caused the crowdto laugh. But there was no laughter left in Bertie.

  "We can't have any banging here," said the policeman, who was anxiousto get on. "If you take my advice, you'll call a cab and let us all gocomfortably together."

  "Me go in a cab with a policeman and that there limb of a boy; not ifI know it! I've kept the 'Rising Sun' respectable these six-and-twentyyears,--sixteen years in my husband's time,--as respectable a man asever breathed, though cherry brandy was his failing,--and ten longyears a widow, and go to prison with a policeman and that there limbof a boy in a cab----"

  "Nobody's asked you to go to prison," said the policeman, whosepatience was beginning to fade. "I can't stand talking here all day.Now then, boy, best foot forward, march!"

  Bertie's poor best foot was blistered, so that the policeman had toassist him, with occasional awkward jerks, to march to jail.