True Tilda Part 8

"Yes," Tilda nodded. "We're goin' to the 'orspital all right.

That's why I came to fetch yer. There's someone wants to see yer, ever so bad."

"I know about the Good Samaritan," announced the boy.

Tilda stared.

"I bet yer don't," she contradicted.

"He found a man, a traveller, that some thieves had hurt and left by the road. Going down to Jericho, it was; and he poured oil and wine into his wounds."

"Oh, cheese it!" said Tilda. "Oo's a-kiddin' now? An' see 'ere, Arthur Miles--it don't matter with me, a lie up or down; I'm on'y Tilda.

But don't you pick up the 'abit, or else you'll annoy me. I can't tell why ezactly, but it don't _sit_ on you."

"Tilda?" The boy caught up her name like an echo. "Tilda what?"

"The Lord knows. Tilda _nothin'_--Tilda o' Maggs's, if you like, an'

n.o.body's child, anyway."

"But that isn't _possible_," he said, after thinking a moment.

"They called me that sometimes, back--back--"

"At the Orph'nige, eh? 'Oo called you that? The Doctor? No," said Tilda hurriedly, as he halted with a s.h.i.+ver, "don't look be'ind; 'e's not anywhere near. An' as for the Good Samaritan, you're wrong about that, too; for _'ere's_ the Good Samaritan!"

She pointed at the building, and he stared. He could not comprehend at all, but she had switched him off the current of his deadly fear.

"Now you just wait 'ere by the steps," she commanded, "an' 'Dolph'll wait by you an' see you come to no 'arm. Understand, 'Dolph? I'm goin'

inside for a minute--only a minute, mind; but if anybody touches Arthur Miles, you _pin_ 'im!"

'Dolph looked up at his mistress, then at the boy. He wagged his tail, not enthusiastically. He would fain have followed her, but he understood, and would obey.

Tilda went up the steps, and up the stairs. On the landing, as chance would have it, she met the Second Nurse coming out from the ward, with a sheet in one hand and a tray of medicines in the other.

"You extremely naughty child!" began the Second Nurse, but not in the shrill tone nor with quite the stern disapproval the child had expected.

"When the doctor told you half an hour exactly, and you have been _hours!_ What _have_ you been doing?"

"Lookin' up the old folks," she answered, and took note first that the medicine bottles were those that had stood on the sick woman's table, and next that the Second Nurse, as she came out, transferred the sheet to her arm and closed the door behind her.

"You must wait here for a moment, now you have come so late. I have had to give you another bed; and now I've to fetch some hot water, but I'll be back in a minute."

"Folks don't make beds up with hot water," thought Tilda.

She watched the nurse down the pa.s.sage, stepped to the door, and turned the handle softly.

There was no change in the ward except that a tall screen stood by the sick woman's bed. Tilda crept to the screen on tip-toe, and peered around it.

Ten seconds--twenty seconds--pa.s.sed, and then she drew back and stole out to the landing, closing the door as softly as she had opened it.

In the light of the great staircase window her face was pale and serious.

She went down the stairs slowly.

"Seems I made a mistake," she said, speaking as carelessly as she could, but avoiding the boy's eyes. "You wasn' wanted up there, after all."

But he gazed at her, and flung out both arms with a strangling sob.

"You won't take me back! You'll hide me--you won't take me back!"

"Oh, 'us.h.!.+" said Tilda. "No, I won't take yer back, an' I'll do my best, but--oh, 'Dolph!"--she brushed the back of her hand across her eyes and turned to the dog with the bravest smile she could contrive-- "to think of me bein' a mother, at _my_ time o' life!"

CHAPTER V

TEMPORARY EMBARRa.s.sMENTS OF A THESPIAN.

"_Sinner that I am," said the Showman, "see how you are destroying and ruining my whole livelihood!_"--DON QUIXOTE.

Mr. Sam Bossom, having poled back to the towpath, stepped ash.o.r.e, made fast his bow moorings, stood and watched the two childish figures as they pa.s.sed up the last slope of the garden out of sight, and proceeded to deliver his remaining hundredweights of coal--first, however, peering down the manhole and listening, to a.s.sure himself that all was quiet below.

"If," said he thoughtfully, "a man was to come an' tell me a story like that, I'd call 'im a liar."

Twice or thrice before finis.h.i.+ng his job he paused to listen again, but heard nothing. Still in musing mood, he sc.r.a.ped up the loose coal that lay around the manhole, shovelled it in, re-fixed the cover, and tossed his shovel on board. His next business was to fetch a horse from the stables at the Ca.n.a.l End and tow the boat back to her quarters; and having taken another glance around, he set off and up the towpath at a pretty brisk pace. It would be five o'clock before he finished his work: at six he had an engagement, and it would take him some time to wash and t.i.tivate.

Ca.n.a.l End Basin lay hard upon three-quarters of a mile up stream, and about half that distance beyond the bend of the Great Brewery--a malodorous pool packed with narrow barges or monkey-boats--a few loading leisurably, the rest moored in tiers awaiting their cargoes.

They belonged to many owners, but their type was well nigh uniform.

Each measured seventy feet in length, or a trifle over, with a beam of about seven; each was built with rounded bilges, and would carry from twenty-five to thirty tons of cargo; each provided, aft of its hold or cargo-well, a small cabin for the accommodation of its crew by day; and for five-sixths of its length each was black as a gondola of Venice.

Only, where the business part of the boat ended and its cabin began, a painted ribbon of curious pattern ornamented the gunwale, and terminated in two pictured stern-panels.

Wharves and storehouses surrounded the basin, or rather enclosed three sides of it, and looked upon the water across a dead avenue (so to speak) of cranes and bollards; buildings of exceedingly various height and construction, some tiled, others roofed with galvanised iron.

Almost every one proclaimed on its front, for the information of the stranger, its owner's name and what he traded in; and the stranger, while making his choice between these announcements, had ample time to contrast their diversity of size and style with the sober uniformity that prevailed afloat.

The store and yard of Mr. Christopher Hucks stood at the head of the basin, within a stone's-throw of the Weigh Dock, and but two doors away from the Ca.n.a.l Company's office. It was approached through folding-doors, in one of which a smaller opening had been cut for pedestrians, and through this, on his way to the stables in the rear, Mr. Sam Bossom entered. He entered and halted, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, which, grimed as it was with coal grit, but further inflamed their red rims. In the centre of the yard, which had been empty when he went to work, stood a large yellow caravan; and on the steps of the caravan sat a man--a stranger--peeling potatoes over a bucket.

"Hullo!" said Sam.

The stranger--a long-faced man with a dead complexion, an abundance of dark hair, and a blue chin--nodded gloomily.

"The surprise," he answered, "is mutual. If it comes to _that_, young man, you are not looking your best either; though doubtless, if washed off, it would reveal a countenance not sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought--thought such as, alas! must be mine--thought which, if acquainted with the poets, you will recognise as lying too deep for tears."

"Governor settin' up in a new line?" asked Sam, slowly contemplating the caravan and a large tarpaulin-covered wagon that stood beside it with shafts resting on the ground.

"If, my friend, you allude to Mr. Christopher Hucks, he is not setting up in any new line, but pursuing a fell career on principles which (I am credibly informed) are habitual to him, and for which I can only hope he will be sorry when he is dead. The food, sir, of Mr. Christopher Hucks is still the bread of dest.i.tution; his drink, the tears of widows; and the groans of the temporarily embarra.s.sed supply the music of his unhallowed feast."

"There is a bit o' that about the old man, until you get to know him,"

a.s.sented Sam cheerfully.

"Mr. Christopher Hucks--" began the stranger with slow emphasis, dropping a peeled potato into the bucket and lifting a hand with an open clasp-knife towards heaven.