When Cora had departed, after handing me in a pillow and a blanket of the true work-house texture, and crossing herself with a strange expression, meaning, as I interpreted, "Now keep alive if possible till breakfast time, young woman," I sat me down upon the floor at one end of the room, and began my labours. First. I put on a pair of tan-leather gloves; for small as my vanity is, I do not like my hands to look altogether like a hodman's. Then I removed a strip of the felt with which the wall was covered. It was nearly dark, but I could easily feel the joints between the bricks. The mortar was not very good, but my work was rendered doubly difficult by the bricks being all set cross-wise to the line of the wall; this, I suppose, is what he meant when he described them as "headers." By reason of this arrangement, I had to dig and dig for hours, before I could loosen a single brick; and working all in the dark as I was, I feared every moment to break the stick-blade of my knife. The fingers of my gloves were very soon worn away, and even the palm where the heel of the knife was chafing; nor was it long before my skin was full of weals, and raspy, like the knobs I have seen inside the legs of a horse. At last, to my wonderful delight, one brick began to tremble. In another half-hour, I eased it out most carefully, kissed my trusty blade, now worn almost to a skewer, and with stiff and aching muscles, and the trophy brick upon my lap, fell off into as sound a sleep as ever I was blest with.
CHAPTER X
When I awoke, the summer dawn was stealing faintly through the barricaded windows. Oh! how I longed for one draught of air, even as London imports it! My head was burning and my eyes distended from the tainted stuff around me, and my hands, and arms, and even shoulders were stiff from over exertion. Languidly regarding the brick I had worked so hard for, and commiserating much the plight of my tender hands, I felt inclined to give it up, till I thought of all at stake. My poor Uncle in deadly peril through my desperate folly; Conrad too, as that murderer implied, in a critical position. My own life also-it might be a week before the monster returned; and I felt sure that I could not live more than three days in that corruption. The oppression was so horrible, especially when I stood up, that I resolved at all hazards to break one of the windows. I had tried to do so the night before, but they were beyond my reach, and I had no stick, for I durst not touch the poles that propped the unlucky porpoise. Now, I had a good missile, and after two or three vain attempts from the closeness of the bars, I hurled the brick-bat through the glass; and, as it raised the sacks a little, I obtained more light, as well as a breath of air. The taint upon the glass, the reek of the deadly gases, even cleared away for a short distance round the fracture.
Cora was fast asleep no doubt, and the crash of the glass did not disturb her; so I fell to again, and worked very hard till breakfast time. If I could only get out by noon, in time for the two o'clock train! When I expected my jailor, I hid away under the porpoise the seven bricks I had removed since daylight-for I could work much faster as the aperture increased-and then I fastened my blanket over the hole. After drinking the milk with some relish-eat I could not in that pestilential den-I returned to my labour, and prepared to attack the second course in the thickness of the wall. By this time I had contrived, with the help of a brick, to extract the hold-fast from the bench, which I could not do the night before; and very useful I found it, both as a hammer and lever. So with rising hopes, I resumed.
Oh, cruel disappointment! The second course was bedded in cement harder than the bricks themselves. Most likely they had formed the outside of the wall, until Lepardo added the nine-inch lining of headers. I was utterly dismayed; and now my beloved knife, which had stood like a hero-martyr all its grinding indignities, broke off short at the haft, and left me helpless and hopeless. And I was getting on so well, and so proud of all I had done. There was nothing for it but a storm of crying. It served me right for ill-treating my dear father's knife so shockingly.
I cried for at least a quarter of an hour, before it occurred to me what a great baby I was. Then, with the tears in my swollen eyes, and sobs that made my net-pressed bosom sore, I began to grope and peer again along the sides of my prison. There was more light now than had hitherto entered, since Cora dropped the curtain. This was partly owing to the position of the sun, and partly to the interposition of the brick. Just opposite that window, on a shelf where lay an old Penguin looking very bilious, I spied the corner of a little box, half covered with tow and moth-eaten feathers. Snatching it eagerly, I found it to be a match-box. But alas, how light! With trembling fingers I pulled it open, for it was one of those that slide. There were three, and only three, fine stout lucifer matches, with the precious blue still on them. But even if they should prove dry enough to kindle, what good would they be to me?
"All the good in the world," said hope, looking towards the door, "if you had shown sense enough, Clara, to fall to at that door, before your knife was broken, you might have cut through it by this time. Now you can't, that is certain; but why shouldn't you burn it down?"
At any rate, I would try; that is, if my matches would only strike fire. I had felt last night a piece of candle on the floor near the crocodile. This I soon laid hands upon; and now for operations. No fear of old Cora smelling the smoke, for she spent all the forenoon, as I knew well, in a little chapel she had established quite at the top of the house; and this being the festival of St. Bottle-imp, she would be twice as devout as usual. As for suffocating myself, that I must take the chance of. Much better to die of curling wood smoke than of these crawling odours.
To give the wood, which was hard and solid, every inclination to burn, I channeled it first in a fan from the bottom with my little pen-blade. Then I cut off the lower half of my precious candle, and smeared the tallow in the shallow grooves I had made. This being done, I broke, with as little noise as possible, some other panes of glass, to admit the air to my fire, procured all the wool and tow that I could reach, and a pile of paper, and steeped them, though it sickened me to do it, in the rank oil from some of the specimens.
All this being ready at hand, I prepared, with a beating heart, to try the matches, on which the whole depended. I had taken the precaution of slipping them just inside my frock, hoping that the warmth of my body might serve to dry them a little. The first, as I rubbed it on the sandpaper, flashed for a moment, but did not kindle; the second just kindled with a sputter, but did not ignite its stick: the third-I was so nervous that I durst not attempt it then; but trembled as I looked at it. I would not even breathe for fear of damping the phosphorus. Perhaps three lives depended on the behaviour of that match. In desperation at last I struck boldly! a broad blue flame leaped upon the air, and in a moment my candle was lighted. In the hollow of my hand I carried it round the room, to search for anything likely to be of service to me. Oh! grand discovery-behind a great tabby cat, I found a bottle containing nearly a pint of naphtha, used, I suppose, for singeing some of the hair off. Now I need not fear, but what I could burn the door down; the only thing to fear was that I should burn myself as well, used the naphtha very cautiously, keeping most of it as a last resource.
Then commending the result to God, I set my candle carefully at the foot of the door, just below the spot where all my little grooves converged. At once the flame ran up them, the naphtha kindling angrily with a spatter and a hiss. The blue light showed in livid ghastliness all the horrors of the chamber. The naphtha was burnt in a moment, it seemed to go off like gunpowder; from a prudent distance I threw more upon it, and soon I had the delight of seeing a steady flame established. The lumps of tallow were burning now, and the wood began to smoulder. Several times I thought that I must be choked by the smoke, till it went in a cloud to the windows, and streamed away under the sacks.
As the fire grew and grew, and required no more feeding, I lay on my face, to get all the air possible, at the further end of the room, where my loose mortar was scattered. I could feel my heart thumping heavily on the pavement, and my breath was shorter and shorter, as much from fear as from smoke. If once I became insensible, or even if I retained my senses but failed to extinguish the fire, nothing more would ever be known or heard of Clara Vaughan; there would be nothing even to hold an inquest upon. I must burn ignobly, in the fat of that dreadful porpoise, and with the crocodile, and all those grinning beasts, so awful in the firelight, making faces at me! Surely it must be time, high time to put it out; that is to say if I could. Once let the flame gather head on the other side of the door, and with my scanty means I never could hope to quench it.
At last, I became so frightened, that I hardly let it burn long enough. It was flaring beautifully, and licking deeper and deeper (with ductile wreathing tongues and jets like a pushing crocus), the channels prepared to tempt it; and now the black wood was reddened, and a strong heat was given out, and the blazes began to roar; when I cast on the centre suddenly my doubled blanket, and propped it there with the pillow. After a few vain efforts, the flames, deprived of air, expired in gray smoke; then I removed the scorched blanket, and let the smouldering proceed.
The charring went on nicely for perhaps a quarter of an hour, and the smell made me think of bonfires and roast potatoes; and I gouged away with the claw of the holdfast, until I saw that, by a vigorous onset, a large piece might be detached; so I stepped back and ran at it with a mighty kick, and with a shower of dust and sparks, a great triangle flew out before my "military heel."
At the risk of setting myself on fire, though gathered in the smallest possible compass for a girl rather full in the chest, I squeezed through the hole in the door, and met face to face old Cora.
She could not speak, but fell back upon the steps, and rolled in fits of terror. I thought her black eyes would have leaped from their sockets; they came out like hat-pegs japanned. Pressed as I was for time, I could not leave her so. I ran up to the pump-trough for water, and put out the fire first, and then poor Cora's hysterics.
I cannot repeat her exclamations, to our ears they are so impious; but the mildest of them were these, as rendered weakly into English.
"Holy Madonna, most sacred mother, take back your blessed heart. Take it back, for the sake of the God that loved you, take it back, and trample on the wicked stomach of her who dared to steal it. You have come through the fires of hell to fetch it, mother of the beloved one, lo I hold it out to you."
I gladly received my poor gordit, and left the old lady, as there was now no danger, to recover her wits at leisure; for I had not a moment to spare.
As I entered Mrs. Shelfer's door, the church clock at the top of the Square was striking twelve. By the two o'clock train I must go, or I might as well have stopped in my dungeon. Though the smoke had purified me a little, I still felt conscious of a nasty clinging smell; but it would have surprised me, if there had been time, when the little woman cried,
"Lor bless my soul, Miss Vaughan, where ever have you been? Why, Mr. Chumps the butcher-"
"The bath in one moment, and all the water in the house. And as I throw my things out, burn them in the garden."
In twenty minutes I was reclad from head to foot, and as sweet as any girl in Gloucestershire; my eyes were bright with energy, and my dripping hair in billows, like a rapid under the pine-trees. I had no time to tell Mrs. Shelfer, who was off her legs with excitement, one word of what had happened, or what I was going to do; but flung on myself another hat and cloak, then her old bonnet and little green shawl on her, dragged her out of the house, and locked the door behind us; for Mrs. Fletcher, after waiting and wondering long about me, was gone to consult Ann Maples. If Mrs. Shelfer's best bonnet was twenty-two years old, her second-best must have been forty-four; at any rate it appeared coeval with herself.
Patty trotted along at my side, wondering what would come next. Her thin little lips were working, and her face was like a kaleidoscope of expressions; but whenever I glanced toward her, she cast her eyes up, with a scared weird look, as if she was watching a ghost through a skylight, and trudged still faster, and muttered, "Yes, yes, Miss Vaughan. Quite right, my good friend; not a moment to lose."
"And pray, Mrs. Shelfer, where do you suppose we are going?"
"Oh, I knows well enough " – with her eyes like corks drawn by distance-"I knowed it all the time. Yes, yes. Let me alone for that. Patty Shelfer wasn't born yesterday. Why only Tuesday was a week-"
"If you guess right, I will tell you."
"Why going to Charley, Miss Vaughan, to be sure. Going for Charley's opinion. And very wise of you too; and what a most every one does; particular when he have money. But how you knowed he were there-"
"Where?"
"At the great wrestling match to be sure. And he wanted to take me; a thing he ain't offered to do fifteen year next oyster-day. No, no, says I, with Miss Vaughan away, and most likely among them resurrectioners-"
Here she cast at me a glance, like a flash of lightning, to see if the hit had told. In a moment I understood all that I had not cared to ask about; why she trembled and shrunk from my hand, why she feared to look at me, and fixed her eyes away so. She believed that I had been burked, and that what she saw walking beside was my spirit come to claim burial. I could not stop to disprove it, any more than I could stop to laugh.
"And his grandfather were a sexton, Miss; and our Charley himself a first-rate hand at the spade."
"Mrs. Shelfer, we are close to the place. Now, listen to what I say. It is not your husband I want, but Farmer Huxtable, whom you saw at the door. Nothing but a question of life and death would bring me among this rabble. No doubt there are many respectable men, but it is no place for a lady. The farmer himself knows that, and has never dared to ask me; though his wife and daughter, in ignorance, have. It is half-past twelve exactly; in a quarter of an hour at the utmost, I must speak to, and what is more, carry off the Devonshire competitor. Your husband is here, and on the Committee, you told me. I expect you to manage it. Go in at once and find him. Stop, here is plenty of money."
In her supreme astonishment, she even dared to look at me. But she feared to take the money, although her eyes glistened at it, for I offered more gold than silver.
"Come back to me at once; I shall not move from here. Mind, if the farmer loses the match through me, I will pay all, and give the money for another."
For once the little woman obeyed me, without discussion. She pushed through a canvass door into the vast marquee, or whatever it ought to be called, and was admitted readily on giving her husband's name. I hung back, but with a sense of the urgency of my case, which turned my shame into pride. Many eyes were on me already of loungers and outsiders. In two or three minutes poor Patty came back, bringing Mr. Shelfer himself, who ever since his ducking had shown me the rose and pink of respect. He even went the length now of removing his pipe from his mouth.
"Very sorry indeed, Miss Vaughan, very sorry, you know. But we darrn't interrupt the men now. Our lives wouldn't be worth it, and they'd kill both the umpires and the referee too you know. Why it's fall for fall, only think of that, Miss Vaughan, it's fall for fall!" And the perspiration stood upon his forehead, and he wanted to run back.
"What do you mean?" In spite of my hurry, I felt deeply interested. How could I help it, loving the farmer so?
"Why, the Great Northern won the first throw by a bit of foul play, a foul stroke altogether, and no back at all, say I, and my eyes is pretty good; however, the umpires give it, and you should see John Huxtable's face, the colour of a scythe-stone; he knew it was unfair you know. And you should see him go in again for the second fall. 'I could ha dooed it,' I hear him say, 'I could ha dooed it aisy, only I wudn't try Abraham, and I wun't nother if can help it now.' None of us knows what he mean, but in he go again, Miss, and three times he throw Sam Richardson clean over his shoulder, and one as fair a back as ever was in sawdust. But the umpires wouldn't give it, till just now he turn him over straight for'ard, just the same as a sod in a spade, and they couldn't get out of that. And now they be just in for the finishing bout, and if you want him, your only way is to come. May be, he'll try Abraham, when he see you. Ah they've catched."
A shout inside proclaimed some crisis; Mr. Shelfer, in his excitement, actually pulled me in without knowing it. Once there, I could not go back; and the scene was a grand and thrilling one.
In the centre of a roped arena, hedged by countless faces, all rigid, flushed, and straining with suspense, stood two mighty forms; the strongest men in England and perhaps in all the world. A loose sack, or jerkin, of the toughest canvass, thrown back clear of the throat, half-sleeved, and open in front, showed the bole of the pollard neck, the solid brawn of the chest, and the cords of the outstretched arm. Stout fustian breeches, belted at waist, and strapped at knee, cased their vast limbs so exactly, yet so easily, that every curve was thew, and every wrinkle sinew. Thin white stockings, flaked with sawdust and looking rather wet, rolled and stood out, like the loops of a mace, with the rampant muscles of the huge calf, and the bulge of the broad foreleg.
As the shout proclaimed, they had caught or clutched; a thing which is done with much fencing and feinting, each foining to get the best grasp. Where I went, or what happened to me, I never noticed at all, so absorbed at once I became in this rare and noble probation of glorious strength, trained skill, and emulous manhood.
Round and round the ring they went, as in musical measure, holding each other at arms' length, pacing warily and in distance, skilfully poised to throw the weight for either attack or defence. Each with his left hand clutched the jerkin of the other, between the neck and shoulder, each kept his right arm lightly bent, and the palm like a butterfly quivering. Neither dared to move his eyes from the pupils of the other; for though they were not built alike, each knew the strength of his fellow. The Northern Champion was at least three inches taller than the Son of Devon, quite as broad in the shoulders and large of limb, but not so thick-set and close-jointed, not quite so stanch in the loins and quarters. But he was longer in the reach, and made the most of that advantage. On his breast he bore the mark of a hug as hard as a bear's; and his face, though a fine and manly one, looked rather savage and spiteful.
The farmer was smiling pleasantly, an honest but anxious smile. For the first time he had met with a man of almost his own power; and on a turn of the heel depended at least four hundred pounds, and what was more than four million to him, the fame of the county that nursed him. Above them hung the champion's belt, not of the west or north, but of England and of the world.
Suddenly, ere I could see how they did it, they had closed in the crowning struggle. Breast to breast, and thigh to thigh, they tugged, and strained, and panted. Nothing though I knew of the matter, I saw that the North-man had won the best hold, and as his huge arms enwrapped my friend, a tremble went through my own frame. The men of the North and their backers saw it, and a loud hurrah pealed forth; deep silence ensued, and every eye was intent. Though giant arms were round him and Titan legs inlocked, never a foot he budged. John Huxtable stood like a buttress. He tried not to throw the other; placed as he was, he durst not; but he made up his mind to stand, and stand he did with a vengeance. In vain the giant jerked and twisted, levered, heaved, and laboured, till his very eyeballs strained; all the result was ropes and bunches in the wide-spread Devonshire calves, and a tightening of the clench that threatened to crush the Northern ribs. As well might a coiling snake expect to uproot an oak.
As this exertion of grand stability lasted and outlasted, shouts arose and rang alike from friend and foe, from north, and west, and east; even I could not help clapping my feeble hands. But the trial was nearly over. The assailant's strength was ebbing; I could hear him gasp for breath under the fearful pressure. By great address he had won that hold, and made sure of victory from it, it had never failed before; but to use a Devonshire word, the farmer was too "stuggy." Now, the latter watched his time, and his motive power waxed as the other's waned. At length he lifted him bodily off his legs, and cast him flat on his back. A flat and perfectly level cast, as ever pancake crackled at. Thunders of applause broke forth, and scarcely could I keep quiet.
With amazement the farmer espied me as he was bowing on all sides, and amid the tumult and uproar that shook the canvass like a lark's wing, he ran across the ring full speed. Then he stopped short, remembering his laboured and unpresentable plight, and he would have blushed, if he had not been as red as fire already. None of such nonsense for me. I called him by name, took his hand, and with all my heart congratulated.
"But, farmer, I want you immediately, on a matter of life and death." Beany Dawe and the children came, but I only stopped to kiss Sally, and motioned them all away. "If you remember your promise to me, get ready for a journey in a moment, and run all the way to my lodgings. We must leave London, at two o'clock, to save my Uncle's life."
Mr. Huxtable looked astounded, and his understanding, unlike his legs, for the moment was carried away. Meanwhile up came Sally again, caught hold of my hand, and silently implored for some little notice, if only of her costume, violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. I could only kiss her again.
"Oh do come, farmer Huxtable, do come at once, I entreat you; or I must go alone and helpless."
"That you shan't, my dearie, dang Jan Uxtable for a girt lout."
"Please, sir, I am sent to tell you that the umpires gives it no fall, and you must play again."
The man looked abased by his errand; even he knew better. In my hurry I had paid no attention to the ominous hissing and hooting around a knot of men on the benches at the end.
The farmer's face I shall never forget; as he slowly gathered the truth, it became majestic with honest indignation. A strong man's wrath at deceit and foul play sat upon it, like a king on his throne.
"For the chillers-" he stammered at last-"ony for the poor chiller's sake-else I'd never stand it, danged if I wud, Miss Clara; it make a man feel like a rogue and a cheat himself."
Then, with all the power of his mighty voice he shouted, so that every fold of the canvass shook, and every heart thrilled fearfully:
"Men of Lunnon, if men you be, no chap can have fair play with you. It be all along of your swindling bets about things you don't know nothing of. You offered me five hunder pound, afore ever here I come, to sell my back to the Northman. A good honest man he be, and the best cross-buttock as ever I met with; but a set of rogues and cowards that's what you be; and no sport can live with you. As for your danged belt, I wun't have it, no tino, it wud be a disgrace to the family; it shan't never go along side the Devonshire and Cornwall leather. But I'll throw your man over again, and any six of you to once as plases."
Then, thorough gentleman as he was, he apologized to me for his honest anger, and for having drawn all eyes upon me, as there I stood at his side.
"But never fear about the time, Miss Clara, I won't kape you two minutes. I'll give him Abraham's staylace this time. They have a drove me to it, as us hasn't a moment to spare."
Proudly he stepped into the ring again, and again the North Country giant, looking rather ashamed, confronted him. No fencing or feinting this time; but the Devonshire wrestler, appealing thus to the public,
"Now look here, Lunnoners, wull e, and zee if this here be a back," rushed straight at his antagonist, grappled him in some peculiar manner, seemed to get round his back, and then spun him up over his own left shoulder, in such a way that he twirled in the air and came down dead on his spine. Dead indeed he appeared to be, and a dozen surgeons came forward, in the midst of a horrible silence, and some were preparing to bleed him, when the farmer moved them aside; he knew that the poor man was only stunned by concussion of the spine. Awhile he knelt over him sadly, with the tears in his own brave eyes:
"I wudn't have doed it, lad; indade and indade I wudn't, ony they forced me to it; and you didn't say nought agin them. It be all fair enough, but it do hoort so tarble. That there trick was invented by a better man nor I be, and it be karled 'Abraham Cann's staylace.' I'll show e how to do it, if ever us mates again. Now tak the belt, man, tak it-" he leaped up, and tore it down, with very little respect, "I resigns it over to you; zimth they arl wants you to have it and you be a better man nor deserves it. And I'll never wrastle no more; Jan Uxtable's time be over. Give us your hond, old chap. We two never mate again, unless you comes down our wai, and us han't got a man to bate e, now I be off the play. There be dacent zider and bakkon to Tossil's Barton Farm. Give us your hond like a man, there be no ill will atween us, for this here little skumdoover." Perhaps he meant skirmish and manoeuvre, all in one. Sam Richardson, slowly recovering, put out his great hand, all white and clammy, and John Huxtable took it tenderly, amid such uproarious cheering, that I expected the tent on our heads. Even Shelfer's sharp eyes had a drop of moisture in them. As for Beany Dawe, he flung to the winds all dithyrambic gravity, and chanted and danced incoherently, Cassandra and Chorus in one; while Sally Huxtable blotted all her rainbow in heavy drops.
Hundreds of pipes were smashed, even the Stoic Shelfer's, in the rush to get at the farmer; but he parted the crowd right and left, as I might part willow-sprays, and came at once to me. Whether by his aid, or by the sympathies of the multitude, I am sure I cannot tell, but I found myself in a cab, with Sally at my side, and Mrs. Shelfer on the box, and the farmer's face at the window.
"Twenty minutes, Miss, I'll be there, raddy to go where you plases. It bain't quite one o'clock yet. I must put myself dacent like, avore I can go with you, Miss; and git the money for the sake of them poor chiller, if so be they Lunnoners be honest enough to pai. Jan Uxtable never come to Lunnon town no more."
With thousands of people hurraing, we set off full gallop for Albert Street.