Thereby Hangs a Tale Part 10

Another shake of the head, but the four legs seemed planted as if they were to grow.

"Well, there's one thing, Ratty," said the driver, "we're about square, mate; for if ever I've give yer too much of the whip, yer've had it outer me with obstinacy. Look at this now, just when yer oughter be on yer best manners, seeing as I've come about the mischief as yer did; and then, to make it wus, yer takes advantage of yer poor master's weakness, and goes a-leading of him inter temptation sore as can't be bore, and pulls up close aside of a public."

For the spot at which the horse had stopped was at the opening of one of those new suburban streets run up by speculative builders--a street of six and seven-roomed houses, with a flaring tavern at the corner; and the houses, starting from the commencement of the street, in every stage from finished and inhabited, through finished and uninhabited, down to unfinished skeletons with the bricks falling out--foundations just above the ground, foundations merely dug, to end only with a few scaffold poles, and a brick-field in frill work.

"Stops right in front of a public, yer do," said the driver; "and me as thirsty as a sack o' sawdust."

The cabman looked at the public-house, to read golden announcements of "Tipkin's Entire," of "The Celebrated Fourpenny Ale," and the "Brown London Stout, threepence per pot in your own jugs," and his whip-hand was drawn across his lips. Then the whip-hand was set free, and forced its way into his pockets, where it rattled some halfpence.

"Must have 'alf pint now, anyhow," he muttered, and he made as if to fasten the reins to the roof of the cab, but only to plump himself down into his seat again, jig the reins, and give his whip, a sharp crack.

"I'll tell the missus on you, Hatty, see if I don't?" he said, "a-trying to get your master back into his old ways. Get on with yer, or yer'll get it directly."

He gave his whip such a vigorous crack in the air that Ratty consented to go, and dragging the muddy cab partially down the new street, its driver pulled up by where a knot of shoeless boys were ornamenting, and amusing themselves with, the new ill-laid pavement. One was standing like a small Colossus of Rhodes, with his grimy feet at either corner of a loose slab, making the liquid mud beneath squirt out into a puddle, while a companion carefully turned a naked foot into a stamp, dipped it in the mud, and printed a pattern all along the pave, till a third smudged it out, and a fight ensued.

"Hallo, yer young dogs," roared the cabman, and his long whip gave a crack which stopped the fray; "a-fightin' like that! Where's Whaley's Place?"

"First turn to the left, and first to the right," shouted two boys.

"And is it all like this here?" said the cabman.

"No; you should have gone round Brick Street. I'll show yer."

"Hook on, then," said the cabman, turning his horse; and, to the extreme envy of his companions, the little speaker "hooked on" behind, his muddy feet slipping about on the step; but he clung fast, shouting his directions till the driver reached the main road, made a detour, and arrived at last in Whaley's Place, where the present of a copper sent the boy off in high glee to spend it in some coveted luxury.

"Nice sorter cheerful spot this," said the cabman, taking an observation of the street, which was of a similar cla.s.s to the new one he had left, only that the houses had fallen into a state of premature decay; quite half, too, had declined from the genteel private and taken to trade, with or without the bow window of shop life. For instance, one displayed a few penny ill.u.s.trated sheets and an a.s.sortment of fly-specked clay pipes, the gla.s.s panes bearing the legends, "Tobacco"

and "Cigars." Another house had the door wide open, and sundry squeaks issued therefrom--squeaks of a manufacturing tendency, indicative of grinding, the process being explained by a red and yellow board, having an artistic drawing of the machinery used, and the words, "Mangling Done Here." Then, after an interval of private houses, there was a fishmonger's, with a stock-in-trade of four plaice and ten bloaters, opposite to a purveyors, in whose open window--the parlour by rights, with the sashes out--were displayed two very unpleasant-looking decapitations of the gentle sheep, and three trays of pieces, labelled ninepence, sevenpence, and sixpence individually, apparently not from any variation of quality, but the amount of bone.

"A werry nice sorter place," said the cabman, gazing down at the numerous children, and the preternaturally big-headed, tadpoleish babies, whose porters were staring at him. "Said it was a little groshers shop. Ah, here we are."

It was only four doors farther on, and at this establishment there was a shop front, with the name "B. Sturt" on the facia. The stock here did not seem to be extensive, though the place was scrupulously clean.

There was a decorative and pictorial aspect about the trade carried on, which was evidently that of a chandler's shop; for, in attenuated letters over the door, you read that Barnabas Sturt was licenced by the Board of Inland Revenue to deal in tea, coffee, pepper, vinegar, and tobacco. The panes of the windows were gay with show cards, one of which displayed the effects of Tomkins's Baking Powder, while in another a lady was holding up fine linen got up with Winks's Prussian Blue, and smiling sweetly at a neighbouring damsel stiff with regal starch. There were pictorial cards, too, telling of the celebrated Unadulterated Mustard, the Ho-fi Tea Company, and Fort's Popular Coffee.

Descending from his perch, the cabman stroked and patted his horse, and then entered the shop, setting a bell jingling, and standing face to face with a counter, a pair of scales, and a box of red herrings.

n.o.body came, so he tapped the floor with his whip, and a voice growled savagely from beyond a half-gla.s.s door which guarded an inner room--

Waiting patiently for a few moments, the cabman became aware of the fact that Barnabas Sturt consumed his tobacco as well as dealt in it; and at last, growing impatient, he peered through the window, to perceive that a very thin, sour-looking woman, with high cheek bones, was dipping pieces of rag into a tea-cup of vinegar and water, and applying them to the contused countenance of a bull-headed gentleman, who lay back in a chair smoking, and making the woman wince and sneeze by puffing volumes of the coa.r.s.e, foul vapour into her face.

"Better mind what you are doing!" he growled.

"Can't help it, dear," said the woman, plaintively, "if you smoke me so.

Well, what now?" she said, waspishly, and changing her tone to the metallic aggressive common amongst some women.

"Been having a--?" the cabman finished his sentence by grinning, and giving his arms a pugilistic flourish.

"What's that got to do with you?" growled Mr Sturt. "What d' yer come into people's places like that for?"

"Because people says as they sells the werry best tobacco at threepence a hounce," said the cabman. "Give's half-hounce."

"Go an' weigh it," said Mr Sturt.

The woman dropped the piece of rag she held, and pa.s.sed shrinkingly into the shop, took the already weighed-out tobacco from a jar, and held out her hand for the money.

"Now then," growled Mr Sturt from the back room, "hand that over here, will yer?"

The cabman walked into the room and laid down the money, slowly emptying the paper afterwards into a pouch, which he took from a side pocket.

"This here's twenty-seven, ain't it?" said the cabman then.

"Yes, it is twenty-seven," cried Mr Sturt--our friend Barney of the steeplechase--and he seemed so much disturbed that he leaped up and backed into a corner of the room. "You ain't got nothin' again' me, come, now."

"No, I ain't got nothin' again' yer," said the cabman, quietly, but with his eye twinkling. "Did yer think I was--?"

He finished his sentence with a wink.

"Never you mind what I thought," said Barney. "What d' yer want here?"

"Only to know if Mrs Lane lives here."

"Yes, she do," cried the woman, spitefully; "and why couldn't you ring the side bell, and not come bothering us?"

"Because I wanted some tobacco, mum," said the cabman, quietly.

"Oh!" said the woman, in a loud voice; "with their cabs, indeed, a-comin' every day: there'll be kerridges next!"

"Just you come and go on with your job," said Barney, with a snarl.

"I'm coming!" said the woman, sharply. Then to the cabman--"You can go this way;" and she flung open a side door and called up the stairs--"Here, Mrs Lane, another cab's come for you. There, I s'pose you can go up," she added; and then, in a voice loud enough to be heard upstairs, "if people would only pay their way instead of riding in cabs, it would be better for some of us."

A door had been heard to open on the first floor, and then, as the vinegary remark of Mrs Sturt rose, voices were heard whispering. The cabman went straight up the uncarpeted stairs, to pause before the half-open door, as he heard, in a low conversation, the words--

"Mamma--dear mamma, pray don't notice it."

The next moment the door opened fully, and the pale, worn-looking woman of the accident stood before the cabman, who shuffled off his hat, and stood bowing.

"Jenkles, mum," he said--"Samuel Jenkles, nine 'underd seven six, as knocked you down in Pall Mall."

The woman stepped back and laid her hand upon her side, seeming about to fall, when the cabman started forward and caught her, helping her to a chair in the shabbily-furnished room, as the door swung to.

"Oh, mamma," cried a girl of about seventeen, springing forward, the work she had been engaged upon falling on the floor.

"It is nothing, my dear," gasped the other; though her cheek was ashy pale, and the dew gathered on her forehead.

"She's fainting, my dear," said the cabman. "Got anything in the house?"

"Yes, some water," said the girl, supporting the swooning woman, and fanning her face.

"Water!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the cabman, in a tone of disgust. "Here, I'll be back directly."