"D'you know where they have gone to, mother?"

"No. They mean to move about from place to place, I believe."

"Nita said nothing about writing to you, did she?"

"Did they leave any address—a poste restante—anywhere, or any clew whatever as to their whereabouts?"

"None whatever."

So then, during the weary days of suffering that he knew full well lay before him, poor Lewis had no consolatory thought in regard to Nita save in her expressed "earnest hope" that they might meet again. It was not much, but it was better than nothing. Being an ingenious as well as daring architect, Lewis built amazing structures on that slight foundation—structures which charmed his mental eyes to look upon, and which, we verily believe, tended to facilitate his recovery—so potent is the power of true love!

"Captain Wopper," said Mrs Stoutley one morning, towards the end of their stay in Switzerland, Lewis having been pronounced sufficiently restored to travel homeward by easy stages, "I have sent for you to ask you to do me a favour—to give me your advice—your—"

Here, to the Captain's amazement, not to say consternation, Mrs Stoutley's voice trembled, and she burst into tears. If she had suddenly caught him by the nose, pulled his rugged face down and kissed it, he could not have been more taken aback.

"My dear madam," he stammered, sitting down inadvertently on Mrs Stoutley's bonnet—for it was to the good lady's private dressing-room that he had been summoned by Gillie White—"hold on! don't now, please! What ever have I done to—"

"You've done nothing, my dear Captain," said Mrs Stoutley, endeavouring to check her tears. "There, I'm very foolish, but I can't help it. Indeed I can't."

In proof of the truth of this assertion she broke down again, and the Captain, moving uneasily on his chair, ground the bonnet almost to powder—it was a straw one.

"You have been a kind friend, Captain Wopper," said Mrs Stoutley, drying her eyes, "a very kind friend."

"I'm glad you think so, ma'am; I've meant to be—anyhow."

"You have, you have," cried Mrs Stoutley, earnestly, as she looked through her tears into the seaman's rugged countenance, "and that is my reason for venturing to ask you now to trouble yourself with—with—"

There was an alarming symptom here of a recurrence of "squally weather," which caused the Captain to give the bonnet an "extra turn," but she recovered herself and went on—

"With my affairs. I would not have thought of troubling you, but with poor Lewie so ill, and Dr Lawrence being so young, and probably inexperienced in the ways of life, and Emma so innocent and helpless, and—in short I'm—hee!—that is to say—ho dear! I am so silly, but I can't—indeed I can't—hoo-o-o!"

It blew a regular gale now, and a very rain of straw debris fell through the cane-bottomed chair on which the Captain sat, as he vainly essayed to sooth his friend by earnest, pathetic, and even tender adjurations to "clap a stopper upon that," to "hold hard," to "belay", to "shut down the dead-lights of her peepers," and such-like expressive phrases.

At length, amid many sobs, the poor lady revealed the overwhelming fact that she was a beggar; that she had actually come down to her last franc; that her man of business had flatly declined to advance her another sovereign, informing her that the Gorong mine had declared "no dividend;" that the wreck of her shattered fortune had been swallowed up by the expenses of their ill-advised trip to Switzerland, and that she had not even funds enough to pay their travelling expenses home; in short that she was a miserable boulder, at the lowest level of the terminal moraine!

To all this Captain Wopper listened in perfect silence, with a blank expression on his face that revealed nothing of the state of feeling within.

"Oh! Captain Wopper," exclaimed the poor lady anxiously, "surely— surely you won't forsake me! I know that I have no claim on you beyond friendship, but you have always given us to understand that you were well off, and I merely wish to borrow a small sum. Just enough, and no more. Perhaps I may not be able to repay you just immediately, but I hope soon; and even if it came to the worst, there is the furniture in Euston Square, and the carriage and horses."

Poor Mrs Stoutley! She was not aware that her man of business had already had these resources appraised, and that they no more belonged to her at that moment than if they had been part of the personal estate of the celebrated man in the moon.

Still the Captain gazed at her in stolid silence.

"Even my personal wardrobe," proceeded Mrs Stoutley, beginning again to weep, "I will gladly dis—"

"Avast! Madam," cried the Captain, suddenly, thrusting his right hand into his breeches-pocket, and endeavouring to drag something therefrom with a series of wrenches that would have been terribly trying to the bonnet, had its ruin not been already complete, "don't talk to me of repayment. Ain't I your—your—husband's brother's buzzum friend— Willum's old chum an' messmate? See here."

He jerked the chair (without rising) close to a table which stood at his elbow, and placed thereon a large canvas bag, much soiled, and tied round the neck with a piece of rope-yarn, which smelt of tar even at a distance. This was the Captain's purse. He carried it always in his right trouser-pocket, and it contained his gold. As for such trifling metal as silver, he carried that loose, mixed with coppers, bits of tobacco, broken pipes, and a clasp-knife, in the other pocket. He was very fond of his purse. In California he had been wont to carry nuggets in it, that simple species of exchange being the chief currency of the country at the time he was there. Some of the Californian debris had stuck to it when he had filled it, at a place of exchange in London, with Napoleons. Emptying its glittering contents upon the table, he spread it out.

"There, madam," he said, with a hearty smile, "you're welcome to all I've got about me just at this moment, and you shall have more when that's done. Don't say 'not so much,' cause it ain't much, fifty pound, more or less, barrin' the nuggets, which I'll keep, as I dessay they would only worry you, and there's plenty more shot in the locker where that come from; an' don't talk about payin' back or thankin' me. You've no occasion to thank me. It's only a loan, an' I'll hold Willum, your brother-in-law, responsible. You wouldn't decline to take it from Willum, would you?"

"Indeed no; William Stout has always been so kind to us—kinder than I have deserved."

"Well, then, I'll write to Willum. I'll say to him, 'Willum, my boy, here's your brother's widdy bin caught in a squall, had her sails blown to ribbons, bin throw'd on her beam-ends, and every stick torn out of her. You've got more cash, Willum, than you knows what to do with, so, hand over, send me a power of attorney (is that the thing?) or an affydavy—whatever lawyer's dockiments is required—an' I'll stand by and do the needful.' An' Willum 'll write back, with that power an' brevity for which he is celebrated,—'Wopper, my lad, all right; fire away. Anything short o' ten thousand, more or less. Do yer w'ust. Yours to command,

"'Willum.'"

There was no resisting such arguments. Mrs Stoutley smiled through her tears as she accepted the money. Captain Wopper rose, crammed the empty canvas bag into his pocket, and hastily retired, with portions of the bonnet attached to him.

"Susan," said Mrs Stoutley, on the maid answering her summons, "we shall start for London tomorrow, or the day after, so, pray, set about packing up without delay."

"Very well, ma'am," replied Susan, whose eyes were riveted with an expression of surprised curiosity on the cane-bottomed chair.

"It is my bonnet Susan," said the lady, looking in the same direction with a sad smile. "Captain Wopper sat down on it by mistake. You had better remove it."

To remove it was a feat which even Susan, with all her ready wit and neatness of hand, could not have accomplished without the aid of brush and shovel. She, therefore, carried it off chair and all, to the regions below, where she and Gillie went into convulsions over it.

"Oh! Susan," exclaimed the blue spider, "wot would I not have given to have seed him a-doin' of it! Only think! The ribbons, flowers, and straw in one uniwarsal mush! Wot a grindin' there must ave bin! I heer'd the Purfesser the other day talkin' of wot he calls glacier-haction—how they flutes the rocks an' grinds in a most musical way over the boulders with crushin' wiolence; but wot's glacier haction to that?"

Susan admitted that it was nothing; and they both returned at intervals in the packing, during the remainder of that day, to have another look at the bonnet-debris, and enjoy a fresh explosion over it.



CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

MYSTERIOUS PROCEEDINGS OF THE CAPTAIN AND GILLIE.

We are back again in London—in Mrs Roby's little cabin at the top of the old tenement in Grubb's Court.

Captain Wopper is there, of course. So is Mrs Roby. Gillie White is there also, and Susan Quick. The Captain is at home. The two latter are on a visit—a social tea-party. Little Netta White, having deposited Baby White in the mud at the lowest corner of the Court for greater security, is waiting upon them—a temporary handmaiden, relieving, by means of variety, the cares of permanent nursehood. Mrs White is up to the elbows in soap-suds, taking at least ocular and vocal charge of the babe in the mud, and her husband is—"drunk, as usual?" No—there is a change there. Good of some kind has been somewhere at work. Either knowingly or unwittingly some one has been "overcoming evil with good," for Mrs White's husband is down at the docks toiling hard to earn a few pence wherewith to increase the family funds. And who can tell what a terrible yet hopeful war is going on within that care-worn, sin-worn man? To toil hard with shattered health is burden enough. What must it be when, along with the outward toil, there is a constant fight with a raging watchful devil within? But the man has given that devil some desperate falls of late. Oh, how often and how long he has fought with him, and been overcome, cast down, and his armoury of resolutions scattered to the winds! But he has been to see some one, or some one has been to see him, who has advised him to try another kind of armour—not his own. He knows the power of a "new affection" now. Despair was his portion not long ago. He is now animated by Hope, for the long uncared-for name of Jesus is now growing sweet to his ear. But the change has taken place recently, and he looks very weary as he toils and fights.

"Well, mother," said Captain Wopper, "now that I've given you a full, true, an' partikler account of Switzerland, what d'ee think of it?"

"It is a strange place—very, but I don't approve of people risking their lives and breaking their limbs for the mere pleasure of getting to the top of a mountain of ice."

"But we can't do anything in life without riskin' our lives an' breakin' our limbs more or less," said the Captain.

"An' think o' the interests of science," said Gillie, quoting the Professor.

Mrs Roby shook her tall cap and remained unconvinced. To have expected the old nurse to take an enlightened view on that point would have been as unreasonable as to have looked for just views in Gillie White on the subject of conic sections.

"Why, mother, a man may break a leg or an arm in going down stairs," said the Captain, pursuing the subject; "by the way, that reminds me to ask for Fred Leven. Didn't I hear that he broke his arm coming up his own stair? Is it true?"

"True enough," replied Mrs Roby.

"Was he the worse of liquor at the time?"

"No. It was dark, and he was carrying a heavy box of something or other for his mother. Fred is a reformed man. I think the sight of your poor father, Gillie, has had something to do with it, and that night when his mother nearly died. At all events he never touches drink now, and he has got a good situation in one of the warehouses at the docks."

"That's well," returned the Captain, with satisfaction. "I had hopes of that young feller from the night you mention. Now, mother, I'm off. Gillie and I have some business to transact up the water. Very particular business—eh, lad?"

"Oh! wery partickler," said Gillie, responding to his patron's glance with a powerful wink.

Expressing a hope that Susan would keep Mrs Roby company till he returned, the Captain left the room with his usual heavy roll, and the spider followed with imitative swagger.

Captain Wopper was fond of mystery. Although he had, to some extent made a confidant of the boy for whom he had taken so strong a fancy, he nevertheless usually maintained a dignified distance of demeanour towards him, and a certain amount of reticence, which, as a stern disciplinarian, he deemed to be essential. This, however, did not prevent him from indulging in occasional, not to say frequent, unbendings of disposition, which he condescended to exhibit by way of encouragement to his small protege; but these unbendings and confidences were always more or less shrouded in mystery. Many of them, indeed, consisted of nothing more intelligible than nods, grins, and winks.

"That'll be rather a nice cottage when it's launched," said the Captain, pointing to a building in process of erection, which stood so close to the edge of the Thames that its being launched seemed as much a literal allusion as a metaphor.

"Raither bobbish," assented the spider.

"Clean run fore and aft with bluff bows, like a good sea-boat," said the Captain. "Come, let's have a look at it."

Asking permission to enter of a workman who granted the same with, what appeared to Gillie, an unnecessarily broad grin, the Captain led the way up a spiral staircase. It bore such a strong resemblance to the familiar one of Grubb's Court that Gillie's eyes enlarged with surprise, and he looked involuntarily back for his soapy mother and the babe in the mud. There were, however, strong points of dissimilarity, inasmuch as there was no mud or filth of any kind near the new building except lime; and the stair, instead of leading like that of the Tower of Babel an interminable distance upwards, ended abruptly at the second floor. Here, however, there was a passage exactly similar to the passage leading to Mrs Roby's cabin, save that it was well lighted, and at the end thereof was an almost exact counterpart of the cabin itself. There was the same low roof, the same little fireplace, with the space above for ornaments, and the same couple of little windows looking out upon a stretch of the noble river, from which you might have fished. There was the same colour of paint on the walls, which had been so managed as to represent the dinginess of antiquity. There was also, to all appearance, Mrs Roby's own identical bed, with its chintz curtains. Here, however, resemblance ended, for there was none of the Grubb's Court dirt. The craft on the river were not so large or numerous, the reach being above the bridges. If you had fished you not have hooked rats or dead cats, and if you had put your head out and looked round, you would have encountered altogether a clean, airy, and respectable neighbourhood, populous enough to be quite cheery, with occasional gardens instead of mud-banks, and without interminable rows of tall chimney-pots excluding the light of heaven.

Gillie, not yet having been quite cured of his objectionable qualities, at once apostrophised his eye and Elizabeth Martin.

"As like as two peas, barrin' the dirt!"

The Captain evidently enjoyed the lad's astonishment.

"A ship-shape sort o' craft, ain't it? It wouldn't be a bad joke to buy it—eh?"

Gillie, who was rather perplexed, but too much a man of the world to disclose much of his state of mind, said that it wouldn't be a bad move for any feller who had got the blunt. "How much would it cost now?"

"A thousand pounds, more or less," said the Captain, with discreet allowance for latitude.

"Ha! a goodish lump, no doubt."

"I've half a mind to buy it," continued the Captain, looking round with a satisfied smile. "It would be an amoosin' sort o' thing, now, to bring old Mrs Roby here. The air would be fresher for her old lungs, wouldn't it?"

Gillie nodded, but was otherwise reticent.

"The stair, too, wouldn't be too high to get her down now and again, and a boat could be handy to shove her into without much exertion. For the matter of that," said the Captain, looking out, "we might have a slide made, like a Swiss couloir, you know, and she could glissade comfortably into the boat out o' the winder. Then, there's a beam to hang her ship an' Chinee lanterns from, an' a place over the fireplace to stick her knick-knacks. What d'ee think, my lad?"

Gillie, who had begun to allow a ray of light to enter his mind, gave, as his answer, an emphatic nod and a broad grin.

The Captain replied with a nod and a wink, whereupon the other retired behind his patron, for the purpose of giving himself a quiet hug of delight, in which act, however, he was caught; the Captain being one who always, according to his own showing, kept his weather-eye open.

"W'y, what's the matter with you, boy?"

"Pains in the stummick is aggrawatin' sometimes," answered Gillie.

"You haven't got 'em, have you?"

"Well, I can't exactly go for to say as I has," answered Gillie, with another grin.

"Now, look 'ee here, youngster," said the Captain, suddenly seizing the spider by his collar and trousers, and swinging him as though about to hurl him through the window into the river, "if you go an' let your tongue wag in regard to this matter, out you go, right through the port-hole—d'ee see?"

He set the spider quietly on his legs again, who replied, with unruffled coolness—

"Mum's the word, Cappen."

Gillie had been shorn of his blue tights and brass buttons, poor Mrs Stoutley having found it absolutely necessary, on her return home, to dismiss all her servants, dispose of all her belongings, and retire into the privacy of a poor lodging in a back street. Thus the spider had come to be suddenly thrown on the world again, but Captain Wopper had retained him, he said, as a mixture of errand-boy, cabin-boy, and powder-monkey, in which capacity he dwelt with his mother during the night and revolved like a satellite round the Captain during the day. A suit of much more appropriate pepper-and-salt had replaced the blue tights and buttons. Altogether, his tout-ensemble was what the Captain styled "more ship-shape."

We have said that Mrs Stoutley and her family had made a descent in life. As poor Lewis remarked, with a sad smile, they had quitted the gay and glittering heights, and gone, like a magnificent avalanche, down into the moraine. Social, not less than physical, avalanches multiply their parts and widen their course during descent. The Stoutleys did not fall alone. A green-grocer, a shoemaker, and a baker, who had long been trembling, like human boulders, on the precipice of bankruptcy, went tumbling down along with them, and found rest in a lower part of the moraine than they had previously occupied.

"It's a sad business," said Lewis to Dr Lawrence one morning; "and if you continue to attend me, you must do so without the most distant prospect of a fee."

"My dear fellow," returned Lawrence, "have you no such thing as gratitude in your composition?"

"Not much, and, if I had ever so much, it would be poor pay."

"Poor, indeed, if regarded as one's only source of livelihood," rejoined Lawrence, "but it is ample remuneration from a friend, whether rich or poor, and, happily, capable of being mixed with pounds, shillings and pence without deterioration. In the present case, I shall be more than rejoiced to take the fee unmixed, but, whether fee'd or not fee'd, I insist on continuing attendance on a case which I have a right to consider peculiarly my own."

"It would have been a bad case, indeed, but for you," returned Lewis, a flush for a moment suffusing his pale cheek as he took his friend's hand and squeezed it. "I am thoroughly convinced, Lawrence, that God's blessing on your skill and unwearied care of me at the time of the accident is the cause of my being alive to thank you to-day. But sit down, my dear fellow, and pray postpone your professional inquiries for a little, as I have something on my mind which I wish to ask you about."

Lawrence shook his head. "Business first, pleasure afterwards," he said; "professional duties must not be postponed."

"Now," said Lewis when he had finished, "are you satisfied? Do you admit that even an unprofessional man might have seen at a glance that I am much better, and that your present draft on my gratitude is a mere swindle?"

"I admit nothing," retorted the other; "but now, what have you got to say to me?"

"I am going to make a confidant of you. Are you to be trusted?"

"Perhaps; I dare not say yes unconditionally, because I'm rather sociable and communicative, and apt to talk in my sleep."

"That will do. Your answer is sufficiently modest. I will venture. You know Captain Wopper, I mean, you are well acquainted with his character; well, that kind and eccentric man has made a proposal to my dear mother, which we do not like to accept, and which at the same time we do not quite see our way to refuse. My mother, when in great distress in Switzerland, was forced to borrow a small sum of money from him, and thought it right to justify her doing so by letting him know— what everybody, alas! may know now—that we were ruined. With that ready kindness which is his chief characteristic he at once complied. Since our return home he has, with great delicacy but much determination, insisted that we shall accept from him a regular weekly allowance until we have had time to correspond with our uncle Stout in California. 'You mustn't starve,' he said to my mother—I give you his own words—'and you'd be sure to starve if you was to try to wegitate for six months or so on atmospheric air. It'll take that time before you could get a letter from Willum, an' though your son Lewis could an' would, work like a nigger to keep your pot bilin' if he was well an' hearty, it's as plain as the nose on your own face, ma'am, that he can't work while he's as thin as a fathom of pump-water an' as weak as a babby. Now, you know-at least I can tell 'ee—that my old chum Willum is as rich as a East Injin nabob. You wouldn't believe, madam, what fortins some gold-diggers have made. W'y, I've seed men light their pipes with fi'-pun' notes for a mere brag out there. I've made a goodish lump o' money myself too,—a'most more than I know what to do with, an' as to Willum, I may say he's actooally rollin' in gold. He's also chockfull of regard for you and yours, ma'am. That bein' so, he's sure to send you somethin' to tide you over yer difficulties, an' he's also sure to send somethin' to Lewis to help him start fair when he gits well, and he's surest of all to send somethin' to Miss Emma for all the kind letters she's writ to him doorin' the last five or six years. Well, then, I'm Willum's buzzum friend, and, knowin' exactly what he'll say an' do in the circumstances, what more nat'ral an' proper than that Willum's chum should anticipate Willum's wishes, and advance the money— some of it at least—say three thousand pounds to start with.' Now, Lawrence," continued Lewis, "what should we do? Should we accept this offer? The good fellow has evidently made a great deal of money at the gold-fields, and no doubt speaks truly when he says he can afford to advance that sum. And we know our uncle William's character well enough, though we have never seen him, to be quite sure that he will assist my dear mother until I am able to support her. What say you?"

"Accept the offer at once," said Lawrence. "From what I have seen of the Captain, I am convinced that he is a warm friend and a genuine man. No doubt he can well afford to do what he proposes, and his opinion of William Stout's character is just, for, from what I know of him through Mrs Roby, who knew him when he was a lad, when his life was saved by my father, he must have a kind heart."

"I have no doubt of it, Lawrence, and a grateful heart too, if I may judge from a few words that fell from Captain Wopper about your father and yourself."

"Indeed! what did he say about us?"

"I have no right to repeat observations dropped inadvertently," said Lewis, with a laugh.

"Nor to raise curiosity which you don't mean to satisfy," retorted his friend; "however, my advice is, that you accept the Captain's offer, and trust to your uncle's generosity."



CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE CAPTAIN SURPRISES HIS FRIENDS IN VARIOUS WAYS, AND IS HIMSELF BAFFLED.

Time and Tide passed on—as they are proverbially said to do—without waiting for any one. Some people in the great city, aware of this cavalier style of proceeding on the part of Time and Tide, took advantage of both, and scaled the pinnacled heights of society. Others, neglecting their opportunities, or misusing them, produced a series of avalanches more or less noteworthy, and added a few more boulders to the vast accumulations in the great social moraine.

Several of the actors in this tale were among those who, having learnt a few sharp lessons in the avalanche school, began to note and avail themselves of Time and Tide—notably, Mrs Stoutley and her son and niece. A decided change had come over the spirit of Mrs Stoutley's dream of life. She had at last visited the great London moraine, especially that part of it called Grubb's Court, and had already dug up a few nuggets and diamonds, one of which latter she brought to her humble home in the back street, with the design of polishing it into a good servant-maid. Its name was Netta White. Mrs Stoutley had formerly been a spendthrift; now she was become covetous. She coveted the male diamond belonging to the same part of the moraine—once named the Spider, alias the Imp—but Captain Wopper had dug up that one for himself and would not part with it. Gradually the good lady conceived and carried out the idea of digging out and rescuing a number of diamonds, considerably lower in the scale than the Netta type, training them for service, and taking pains to get them into good situations. It was hard work no doubt, but Mrs Stoutley persevered, and was well repaid—for the Master of such labourers esteems them "worthy of their hire." Emma assisted in the work most heartily. It was by no means new to her. She might have directed if she had chosen, but she preferred to follow.

Lewis recovered rapidly—so rapidly that he was soon able to resume his medical studies and prosecute them with vigour. No bad effects of the accident remained, yet he was an altered man—not altered in appearance or in character, but in spirit. He was still off-hand in manner, handsome in face and figure, hearty in society, but earnest and grave— very grave—in private. He pored over his books, and strove, successfully too, to master the difficulties of the healing art; but do what he would, and fight against it as he might, he was constantly distracted by a pretty face with bright sparkling eyes and a strangely sad expression coming between him and the page. He made continual inquiries after the owner of the sparkling eyes in every direction without success, and at last got into the habit when walking, of looking earnestly at people as if he expected to meet with some one. "If I had got into this state," he sometimes said to himself, "because of being merely in love with a pretty face, I should consider myself a silly nincompoop; but it is such a terrible thing for so sweet and young a creature to be chained to a man who must in the nature of things, land her in beggary and break her heart." Thus he deceived himself as to his main motive. Poor Lewis!

One morning Captain Wopper got up a little earlier than usual, and began a series of performances which Mrs Roby had long ago styled "rampadgin" round his garret.

The reader may have discovered by this time that the Captain was no ordinary man. Whatever he did in connection with himself was done with almost superhuman energy and noise. Since the commencement of his residence in the garret he had unwittingly subjected the nerves of poor Mrs Roby to such a variety of shocks, that the mere fact of her reason remaining on its throne was an unquestionable proof of a more than usually powerful constitution. It could not well be otherwise. The Captain's limbs resembled the limbs of oaks in regard to size and toughness. His spirits were far above "proof." His organs were cathedral organs compared with the mere barrel-organs of ordinary men. On the other hand, the "cabin" in Grubb's Court was but a flimsy tenement; its plank floorings were thin, and its beams and rafters slim and somewhat loose owing to age, so that when the captain snored, which he did regularly and continuously, it was as if a mastiff had got inside a double-bass and were growling hideously.

But Mrs Roby had now got pretty well accustomed to her lodger's ways. Her nerves had become strung to the ordeal, and she even came to like the galvanic battery in which she dwelt, because of its being worked by the intimate friend of her dear William; such is the power of love—we might almost say, in this case, of reflected love! The good old lady had even become so acute in her perceptions, that, without seeing the "rampadger," she knew precisely the part of his daily programme with which he happened to be engaged. Of course the snoring told its own tale with brazen-tongued clamour, and the whole tenement trembled all night long from top to bottom. Nothing but the regardless nature of the surrounding population prevented the Captain from being indicted as a nuisance; but there were other sounds that were not so easily recognised.

On the morning in question, Mrs Roby, lying placidly in her neat white little bed, and gazing with a sweet contented face through one of her cabin windows at the bright blue sky, heard a sound as though a compound animal—hog and whale—had aroused itself and rolled over on its other side. A low whistling followed. Mrs Roby knew that the Captain was pleasantly engaged with his thoughts—planning out the proceedings of the day. Suddenly the whistling ceased and was followed by a sonorous "how-ho!" terminating in a gasp worthy of an express locomotive. The Captain had stretched himself and Mrs Roby smiled at her own thoughts, as well she might for they embraced the idea that a twentieth part of the force employed in that stretch would have rent in twain every tendon, muscle, sinew, and filament in her, Mrs Roby's, body. Next, there descended on the floor overhead a sixteen-stone cannon ball, which caused—not the neighbours, but the boards and rafters to complain. The Captain was up! and succeeding sounds proved that he had had another stretch, for there was a bump in the middle of it which showed that, forgetting his stature, the careless man had hit the ceiling with his head. That was evidently a matter of no consequence.

From this point the boards and rafters continued to make unceasing complaint, now creaking uneasily as if under great provocation, anon groaning or yelling as though under insufferable torment. From the ceiling of Mrs Roby's room numerous small bits of plaster, unable to stand it longer, fell and powdered Mrs Roby's floor. The curtains of her little bed saved her face. There was a slushing and swishing and gasping and blowing now, which might have done credit to a school of porpoises. The Captain was washing. Something between the flapping of a main top-sail in a shifting squall and the currying of a hippopotamus indicated that the Captain was drying himself. The process was interrupted by an unusual, though not quite unknown, crash and a howl; he had overturned the wash-hand basin, and a double thump, followed by heavy dabs, told that the Captain was on his knees swabbing it up.

Next instant the Captain's head, with beard and hair in a tremendously rubbed-up condition, appeared upside down at the hatchway.

"Hallo! old girl, has she sprung a leak anywhere?"

"Nowhere," replied Mrs Roby, with a quiet smile. She felt the question to be unnecessary. "She," that is, the roof above her, never did leak in such circumstances. If the Thames had suddenly flooded the garret, the Captain's energy was sufficient to have swabbed it up in time to prevent a drop reaching "the lower deck."

Soon after this catastrophe there was a prolonged silence. The Captain was reading. Mrs Roby shut her eyes and joined him in spirit. Thereafter the Captain's feet appeared at the trap where his head had been, and he descended with a final and tremendous crash to the floor.

"See here, mother," he cried, with a look of delight, holding up a very soiled and crumpled letter, "that's from Willum."

"From William," exclaimed the old woman, eagerly; "why, when did you get it? the postman can't have been here this morning."

"Of course he hasn't; I got it last night from the limb-o'-the-law that looks after my little matters. I came in late, and you were asleep, so I kep' it to whet yer appetite for breakfast. Now listen, you must take it first; I'll get you breakfast afterwards."

The Captain had by this time got into the way of giving the old woman her breakfast in bed every morning.

"Go on," said the old woman, nodding.

The Captain spread out the letter on his knee with great care, and read aloud:—

"My Dear Wopper, Got yer letter all right.

"My blissin' to the poor widdy. Help her? ov coorse I'll help her. You did right in advancin' the money, though you fell short, by a long way, when you advanced so little. Hows'ever, no matter. I gave you my last will an' testimony w'en we parted. Here's a noo un. Inside o' this, if I don't forget it before I've done, you'll find a cheque for thirteen thousand pounds sterling. Give three to the widdy, with my respects; give four to dear Emma Gray, with my best love and blissin'; give two to Mister Lewis, with my compliments; an' give four to young Lawrence, with my benediction, for his father's sake. As for the old 'ooman Roby, you don't need to give nothin' to her. She and I understand each other. I'll look after her myself. I'll make her my residooary legatee, an' wotever else is needful; but, in the meantime, you may as well see that she's got all that she wants. Build her a noo house too. I'm told that Grubb's Court ain't exactly aristocratic or clean; see to that. Wotever you advance out o' yer own pocket, I'll pay back with interest. That's to begin with, tell 'em. There's more comin'. There—I'm used up wi' writin' such a long screed. I'd raither dig a twenty-futt hole in clay sile any day.— Yours to command, Willum.

"P.S.—You ain't comin' back soon—are you?"

"Now, mother, what d'ee think o' that?" said the Captain, folding the letter and putting it in his pocket.

"It's a good, kind letter—just like William," answered the old woman.

"Well, so I'm inclined to think," rejoined the Captain, busying himself about breakfast while he spoke; "it provides for everybody in a sort o' way, and encourages 'em to go on hopeful like—don't it strike you so? Then, you see, that's four to Miss Emma, and four to Dr Lawrence, which would be eight, equal to four hundred a year; and that, with the practice he's gettin' into, would make it six, or thereabouts—not bad to begin with, eh?"

The Captain followed his remark with a sigh.

"What's the matter?" asked Mrs Roby.

"Why, you remember, mother, before goin' abroad I set my heart on these two gettin' spliced; but I fear it's no go. Sometimes I think they looks fond o' one another, at other times I don't. It's a puzzler. They're both young an' good-lookin' an' good. What more would they have?"

"Perhaps they want money," suggested the old woman. "You say Dr Lawrence's income just now is about two hundred; well, gentlefolks find it summat difficult to keep house on that, though it's plenty for the likes of you an' me."

"That's true. P'r'aps the Doctor is sheerin' off for fear o' draggin' a young creeter into poverty. It never struck me in that light before."

Beaming under the influence of this hopeful view of the case, the Captain proceeded to make another move in the complicated game which he had resolved to play out and win; but this move, which he had considered one of the easiest of all, proved to be the most unfortunate, or rather unmanageable.

"Now, mother," said he, "I mean to make a proposal to 'ee, before going out for the day, so that you may have time to think over it. This cabin o' yours ain't just the thing, you know,—raither dirty, and too high in the clouds by a long way, so I've bin an' seen a noo house on the river, not unlike this one, an' I wants you to shift your berth. What say 'ee—eh?"

To the Captain's surprise and dismay, the old woman shook her head decidedly, and no argument which he could bring to bear had the least effect on her. She had, in fact, got used to her humble old home, and attached to it, and could not bear the thought of leaving it. Having exhausted his powers of suasion in vain, he left her to think over it, and sallied forth crestfallen. However, he consoled himself with the hope that time and consideration would bring her to a right state of mind. Meanwhile he would go to the parties interested, and communicate the contents of Willum's letter.

He went first to Doctor Lawrence, who was delighted as well as pleased at what it contained. The Captain at first read only the clauses which affected his friends the Stoutleys, and said nothing about that which referred to the Doctor himself.

"So you see, Doctor, I'm off to let the Stoutleys know about this little matter, and just looked in on you in passing."

"It was very kind of you, Captain."

"Not at all, by no means," returned the Captain, pulling out a large clasp-knife, with which he proceeded carefully to pare his left thumb nail. "By the way, Doctor," he said carelessly, "were you ever in love?"

Lawrence flushed, and cast a quick glance at his interrogator, who, however, was deeply engaged with the thumb nail.

"Well, I suppose men at my time of life," he replied, with a laugh, "have had some—"

"Of course—of course," interrupted the other, "but I mean that I wonder a strapping young fellow like you, with such a good practice, don't get married."

The Doctor, who had recovered himself, laughed, and said that his good practice was chiefly among the poor, and that even if he wished to marry—or rather, if any one would have him—he would never attempt to win a girl while he had nothing better than two hundred a year and prospects to offer her.

"Then I suppose you would marry if you had something better to offer," said the Captain, finishing off the nail and shutting the clasp-knife with a snap.

Again the Doctor laughed, wondered why the Captain had touched on such a theme, and said that he couldn't exactly say what he might or might not do if circumstances were altered.

The Captain was baffled. However, he said that circumstances were altered, and, after reading over the latter part of Willum's letter, left Lawrence to digest it at his leisure.

We need not follow him on his mission. Suffice it to say that he carried no small amount of relief to the minds of Mrs Stoutley and her household; and, thereafter, met Gillie by appointment at Charing Cross, whence he went to Kensington to see a villa, with a view to purchasing it.

At night he again essayed to move Mrs Roby's resolution, and many a time afterwards attacked her, but always with the same result. Although, as he said, he fought like a true-blue British seaman, and gave her broadside after broadside as fast as he could load and fire, he made no impression on her whatever. She had nailed her colours to the mast and would never give in.



CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

IN WHICH TREMENDOUS FORCES COME TO THE CAPTAIN'S AID.

It is probable that most people can recall occasions when "circumstances" have done for them that which they have utterly failed to effect for themselves.

Some time after the failure of Captain Wopper's little plots and plans in regard to Mrs Roby, "circumstances" favoured him—the wind shifted round, so to speak, and blew right astern. To continue our metaphor, it blew a tremendous gale, and the Captain's ends were gained at last only by the sinking of the ship!

This is how it happened. One afternoon the Captain was walking rather disconsolately down the Strand in company with his satellite—we might almost say, his confidant. The street was very crowded, insomuch that at one or two crossings they were obliged to stand a few minutes before venturing over,—not that the difficulty was great, many active men being seen to dodge among the carts, drays, vans, and busses with marvellous ease and safety, but the Captain was cautious. He was wont to say that he warn't used to sail in such crowded waters—there warn't enough o' sea room for him—he'd rather lay-to, or stand—off-an'-on for half a day than risk being run down by them shore-goin' crafts.

"Everything in life seems to go wrong at times," muttered the Captain, as he and the satellite lay-to at one of these crossings.

"Yes, it's coorious, ain't it, sir," said Gillie, "an' at other times everything seems to go right—don't it, sir?"

"True, my lad, that's a better view to take of it," returned the Captain, cheerfully, "come, we'll heave ahead."

As they were "heaving" along in silence, the rattle and noise around them being unsuited to conversation, they suddenly became aware that the ordinary din of the Strand swelled into a furious roar. Gillie was half way up a lamp-post in an instant! from which elevated position he looked down on the Captain, and said—

"A ingine!"

"What sort of a ingine, my lad?"

"A fire! hooray!" shouted Gillie, with glittering eyes and flushed countenance, "look out, Cappen, keep close 'longside o' me, under the lee o' the lamp-post. It's not a bad buffer, though never quite a sure one, bein' carried clean away sometimes by the wheels w'en there's a bad driver."

As he spoke, the most intense excitement was manifested in the crowded thoroughfare. Whips were flourished, cabmen shouted, horses reared, vehicles of all kinds scattered right and left even although there had seemed almost a "block" two seconds before. Timid foot passengers rushed into shops, bold ones mounted steps and kerb-stones, or stood on tip-toe, and the Captain, towering over the crowd, saw the gleam of brass helmets as the charioteer clove his way through the swaying mass.

There is something powerfully exciting to most minds in the sight of men rushing into violent action, especially when the action may possibly involve life and death. The natural excitement aroused in the Captain's breast was increased by the deep bass nautical roar that met his ear. Every man in the London fire-brigade is, or used to be, a picked man-of-war's-man, and the shouting necessary in such a thoroughfare to make people get out of the way was not only tremendous but unceasing. It was as though a dozen mad "bo's'ns," capped with brazen war-helmets, had been let loose on London society, through which they tore at full gallop behind three powerful horses on a hissing and smoking monster of brass and iron. A bomb shell from a twenty-five-ton gun could scarce have cut a lane more effectually. The Captain took off his hat and cheered in sympathy. The satellite almost dropped from the lamp-post with excess of feeling. The crash and roar increased, culminated, rushed past and gone in a moment.

Gillie dropped to the ground as if he had been shot, seized the Captain's hand, and attempted to drag him along. He might as well have tried to drag Vesuvius from its base, but the Captain was willing. A hansom-cab chanced to be in front of them as they dashed into the road, the driver smoking and cool as a cucumber, being used to such incidents. He held up a finger.

"Quick, in with you, Cappen!"

Gillie got behind his patron, and in attempting to expedite his movements with a push, almost sent him out at the other side.

"After the ingine—slap!" yelled Gillie to the face which looked down through the conversation-hole in the roof, "double extra fare if you look sharp."

The cabman was evidently a sympathetic soul. He followed in the wake of the fire-engine as well as he could; but it was a difficult process, for, while the world at large made way for it, nobody cared a straw for him!

"Ain't it fun?" said Gillie, as he settled his panting little body on the cushion beside his friend and master.

"Not bad," responded the Captain, who half laughed at the thought of being so led away by excitement and a small boy.

"I'd give up all my bright prospects of advancement in life," continued Gillie, "to be a fireman. There's no fun goin' equal to a fire."

"P'r'aps it don't seem quite so funny to them as is bein' burnt out," suggested the Captain.

"Of course it don't, but that can't be helped, you know—can it, sir? What can't be cured must be endoored, as the proverb says. Get along, old fellow, don't spare his ribs—double fare, you know; we'll lose 'em if you don't."

The latter part of the remark was shouted through the hole to the cabman, who however, pulled up instead of complying.

"It's of no use, sir," he said, looking down at the Captain, "I've lost sight of 'em."

Gillie was on the pavement in a moment.

"Never mind, Cappen, give him five bob, an' decline the change; come along. I see 'em go past the Bridge, so ten to one it's down about the docks somewheres—the wust place in London for a fire w'ich, of course, means the best."

The idea of its being so afforded such unalloyed pleasure to Gillie, that he found it hard to restrain himself and accommodate his pace to that of his friend.

It soon became very evident that the fire was in truth somewhere about the docks, for not only was a dense cloud of smoke seen rising in that direction, but fire-engines began to dash from side streets everywhere, and to rush towards the smoke as if they were sentient things impatient for the fray.

The cause of such unusual vigour and accumulation of power was, that a fire anywhere about the docks is deemed pre-eminently dangerous, owing to the great and crowded warehouses being stuffed from cellars to roof-trees with combustibles. The docks, in regard to fire, form the citadel of London. If the enemy gets a footing there, he must be expelled at all hazards and at any cost.

As the Captain and his protege hurried along, they were naturally led in the direction of their home. A vague undefined fear at the same instant took possession of both, for they glanced gravely at each other without speaking, and, as if by mutual consent, began to run. Gillie had no need now to complain of his companion's pace. He had enough to do to keep up with it. There were many runners besides themselves now, for the fire was obviously near at hand, and the entire population of the streets seemed to be pressing towards it. A few steps more brought them in sight of the head of Grubb's Court. Here several fire-engines were standing in full play surrounded by a swaying mass of human beings. Still there was no sign of the precise locality of the fires for the tall houses hid everything from view save the dense cloud which overshadowed them all.

Even Captain Wopper's great strength would have been neutralised in such a crowd if it had not now been seconded by an excitement and anxiety that nothing could resist. He crushed his way through as if he had been one of the steam fire-engines, Gillie holding tight to the stout tails of his monkey jacket. Several powerful roughs came in his way, and sought to check him. The Captain had hitherto merely used his shoulders and his weight. To the roughs he applied a fist—right and left—and two went down. A few seconds brought him to the cordon of policemen. They had seen him approaching, and one placed himself in front of the Captain with the quiet air of a man who is accustomed never to give way to physical force!

"I live down Grubb's Court, my man," said the Captain, with an eager respectful air, for he was of a law-abiding spirit.

The constable stepped aside, and nodded gravely. The Captain passed the line, but Gillie was pounced upon as if he had been a mouse and the constable a cat.

"He belongs to me," cried the Captain, turning back on hearing Gillie's yell of despair.

The boy was released, and both flew down the Court, on the pavement of which the snake-like water-hose lay spirting at its seams.

"It's in the cabin," said the Captain, in a low deep voice, as he dashed into the Court, where a crowd of firemen were toiling with cool, quiet, yet tremendous energy. No crowd interrupted them here, save the few frantic inhabitants of the Court, who were screaming advice and doing nothing; but no attention whatever was paid to them. A foreman of the brigade stood looking calmly upwards engaged in low-toned conversation with a brother fireman, as if they were discussing theories of the picturesque and beautiful with special application to chimney-cans, clouds of smoke, and leaping tongues of fire.

Immense engine power had been brought to bear, and one of the gigantic floating-engines of the Thames had got near enough to shower tons of water over the buildings, still it was a matter of uncertainty whether the fire could be confined to the Court where it had originated.

The result of the foreman's quiet talk was that the brother-fireman suddenly seized a nozzle from a comrade, and made a dash at the door leading up to "the cabin." Flames and smoke drove him back instantly.

It was at this moment that Captain Wopper came on the scene. Without a moment's hesitation he rushed towards the same door. The foreman seized his arm.

"It's of no use, sir, you can't do it."

The Captain shook him off and sprang in. A few seconds and he rushed out choking, scorched, and with his eyes starting almost out of their sockets.

"It is of no use, sir," remonstrated the foreman, "besides, the people have all bin got out, I'm told."

"No, they 'aven't," cried Mrs White, coming up at the moment, frantically wringing the last article of linen on which she had been professionally engaged, "Mrs Roby's there yet."

"All right, sir," said the foreman, with that quiet comforting intonation which is peculiar to men of power, resource, and self-reliance, "come to the back. The escape will be up immediately. It couldn't get down the Court, owin' to some masonry that was piled there, and had to be sent round."

Quick to understand, the Captain followed the fireman, and reached the back of the house, on the riverside, just as the towering head of the escape emerged from a flanking alley.

"This way. The small window on the right at the top—so."

The ladder was barely placed when the Captain sprang upon it and ran up as, many a time before, he had run up the shrouds of his own vessel. A cheer from the crowd below greeted this display of activity, but it was changed into a laugh when the Captain, finding the window shut and bolted, want into the room head first, carrying frame and glass along with him! Divesting himself of the uncomfortable necklace, he looked hastily round. The smoke was pretty thick, but not sufficiently so to prevent his seeing poor Mrs Roby lying on the floor as if she had fallen down suffocated.

"Cheer up, old lass," he cried, kneeling and raising her head tenderly.

"Is that you, Cappen?" said the old woman, in a weak voice.

"Come, we've no time to lose. Let me lift you; the place is all alight. I thought you was choked."

"Choked! oh dear, no," replied the old woman, "but I've always heard that in a fire you should keep your face close to the ground for air— Ah! gently, Cappen, dear!"

While she was speaking, the Captain was getting her tucked under his strong right arm. He could have whisked her on his shoulder in a moment, but was afraid of her poor old bones, and treated her as if she had been a fragile China tea-cup of great value.

Next moment he was out on the escape, and reached the ground amid ringing cheers. He carried her at once to the nearest place of safety, and, committing her to the care of Mrs White, rushed back to the scene of conflagration just as they were about to remove the escape.

"Stop!" shouted the Captain, springing on it.

"There's nobody else up, is there?" cried a fireman, as the Captain ran up.

"No, nobody."

"Come down then, directly," roared the fireman, "the escape is wanted elsewhere. Come down, I say, or we'll leave you."

"You're welcome to leave me," roared the Captain, as he stepped into the window, "only hold your noise, an' mind your own business."

With a mingled feeling of amusement and indignation they hurried away with the escape. It had been urgently wanted to reach a commanding position whence to assail the fire. The order to send it was peremptory, so the Captain was left in his uncomfortable situation, with the smoke increasing around him, and the fire roaring underneath.

The actions of our seaman were now curious as well as prompt. Taking a blanket from his old friend's bed, he spread it below the chimney-piece, and in a remarkably short time pulled down, without damaging, every object on the wall and threw it into the blanket. He then added to the heap the Chinese lantern, the Turkish scimitar, the New Zealand club, the Eastern shield, the ornamented dagger, the worsted work sampler, the sou'-wester, the oiled coat, the telescope, the framed sheet of the flags of all nations, and the small portrait of the sea-captain in his "go-to-meetin'" clothes; also the big Bible and a very small box, which latter contained Mrs Roby's limited wardrobe. He tied all up in a tight bundle. A coil of rope hung on a peg on the wall. The bundle was fastened to the end of it and lowered to the ground, amid a fire of remarks from the crowd, which were rather caustic and humorous than complimentary.

"Gillie," shouted the Captain, "cast off the rope, lad, and look well after the property."

"Ay, ay, Cappen," replied the youth, taking up a thick cart-pin, or something of the sort, that lay near, and mounting guard.

There was another laugh, from crowd and firemen, at the nautical brevity and promptitude of Gillie.

At every large fire in London there may be seen a few firemen standing about in what an ignorant spectator might imagine to be easy indifference and idleness, but these men are not idlers. They are resting. The men who first arrive at a fire go into action with the utmost vigour, and toil until their powers are nearly—sometimes quite— exhausted. As time passes fresh men are continually arriving from the more distant stations. These go into action as they come up, thus relieving the others, who stand aloof for a time looking on, or doing easy work, and recruiting their energies. It was these men who watched the Captain's proceedings with much amusement while their comrades were doing battle with the foe.

Presently the Captain reappeared at the window and lowered a huge sea-chest. A third time he appeared with the model of a full-rigged ship in his hand. This time he let the end of the rope down, and then getting over the window, slid easily to the ground.

"You're uncommon careful o' your property," exclaimed one of the onlookers, with a broad grin.

"'Taint all my property, lad," replied the Captain, with a good-humoured nod, "most of it is a poor old 'ooman's belongings."

So saying, he got a man to carry his sea-chest, himself shouldered the bundle, Gillie was intrusted with the full-rigged model, and thus laden they left the scene followed by another laugh and a hearty cheer.

But our bluff seaman was not content with rescuing Mrs Roby and her property. He afterwards proceeded to lend his effective aid to all who desired his assistance, and did not cease his exertions until evening, by which time the fire was happily subdued.

"She must not be moved to-night Captain," said Dr Lawrence, for whom Gillie had been sent; "the place where she lies is doubtless far from comfortable, but I have got her to sleep, and it would be a pity to awake her. To-morrow we shall get her into more comfortable quarters."

"Could she bear movin' to-morrow, a mile or so?" asked the Captain.

"Certainly, but there is no occasion to go so far. Lodgings are to be had—"

"All right, Doctor; I've got a lodging ready for her, and will ask you to come an' have pot-luck with us before long. Gillie, my lad, you go hail a cab, and then come back to lend a hand wi' the cargo."

In a few minutes the pair were whirling towards the west end of London, and were finally landed with their "cargo" on the banks of the Thames above the bridges, near the new building which Captain Wopper had named, after its prototype, "the cabin."

To fit this up after the fashion of the old place was a comparatively short and easy work for two such handy labourers. Before they left that night it was so like its predecessor in all respects, except dirt, that both declared it to be the "identical same craft, in shape and rig, even to the little bed and curtains." Next afternoon Mrs Roby was brought to it by Captain Wopper, in a specially easy carriage hired for the purpose.

The poor old woman had received more of a shock than she was willing to admit, and did exactly as she was bid, with many a sigh, however, at the thought of having been burnt out of the old home. She was carried up the stair in a chair by two porters, and permitted the Captain to draw a thick veil over her head to conceal, as he said, her blushes from the men. He also took particular care to draw the curtains of the bed close round her after she had been laid in it and then retired to allow her to be disrobed by Netta, who had been obtained from Mrs Stoutley on loan expressly for the occasion.

Much of this care to prevent her seeing the place that day, however, was unnecessary. The poor old creature was too much wearied by the short journey to look at anything. After partaking of a little tea and toast she fell into a quiet sleep, which was not broken till late on the following morning.

Her first thought on waking was the fire. Her second, the Captain. He was in the room, she knew, because he was whistling in his usual low tone while moving about the fireplace preparing breakfast. She glanced at the curtains; her own curtains certainly,—and the bed too! Much surprised, she quietly put out her thin hand and drew the curtain slightly aside. The Captain in his shirt sleeves, as usual, preparing buttered toast, the fireplace, the old kettle with the defiant spout singing away as defiantly as ever, the various photographs, pot-lids, and other ornaments above the fireplace, the two little windows commanding an extensive prospect of the sky from the spot where she lay, the full-rigged ship, the Chinese lantern hanging from the beam— everything just as it should be!

"Well, well," thought Mrs Roby, with a sigh of relief; "the fire must have been a dream after all! but what a vivid one!"

She coughed. The Captain was at her side instantly.

"Slept well, old girl?"

"Very well, thank you. I've had such a queer dream, d'you know?"

"Have you? Take your breakfast, mother, before tellin' it. It's all ready—there, fire away."

"It was such a vivid one," she resumed, when half through her third cup, "all about a fire, and you were in it too."

Here she proceeded to relate her dream with the most circumstantial care. The Captain listened with patient attention till she had finished, and then said—

"It was no dream, mother. It's said that the great fire of London was a real blessin' to the city. The last fire in London will, I hope, be a blessin' to you an' me. It was real enough and terrible too, but through God's mercy you have been saved from it. I managed to save your little odds and ends too. This is the noo 'cabin,' mother, that you wouldn't consent to come to. Something like the old one, ain't it?"

Mrs Roby spoke never a word, but looked round the room in bewilderment. Taking the Captain's hand she kissed it, and gazed at him and the room until she fell asleep. Awaking again in half an hour, she finished her breakfast, asked for the old Bible, and, declaring herself content, fell straightway into her old ways and habits.



CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

AN UNEXPECTED GEM FOUND.

Although Lewis Stoutley found it extremely difficult to pursue his studies with the profusely illustrated edition of medical works at his command, he nevertheless persevered with a degree of calm, steady resolution which might be almost styled heroic. To tear out the illustrations was impossible, for Nita's portrait was stamped on every page, compelling him to read the letterpress through it. Success, however, attended his labours, for he not only carried out the regular course, but he attached himself to the poor district of the "moraine" which had been appropriated as their own by his mother and Emma, who ministered to the bodies of the sick while they sought to bring their souls to the Good Physician. This professional work he did as a sort of amateur, being only a student under the guidance of his friend Lawrence, whose extending practice included that district. It happened also to be the district in which Mrs Roby's new "cabin" was situated.

These labourers, in what Dr Tough had styled the London gold fields, not only did good to the people, and to themselves in the prosecution of them, but resulted occasionally in their picking up a nugget, or a diamond, which was quite a prize. One such was found by Lewis about this time, which, although sadly dim and soiled when first discovered, proved to be such a precious and sparkling gem that he resolved to wear it himself. He and Emma one day paid a visit to the cabin, where they found old Mrs Roby alone, and had a long chat with her, chiefly about the peculiarities of the Captain and his boy.

"By the way," said Mrs Roby to Lewis, when they rose to go, "a poor woman was here just before you came, askin' if I knew where she could find a doctor, for her father, she said, was very ill. The two have come to live in a room near the foot of this stair, it seems, and they appear to be very poor. I could not give her Dr Lawrence's new address, for I don't know it, so I advised her to apply to the nearest chemist. Perhaps, Mr Lewis, you'll go yourself and see the poor man?"

"Willingly, and I shall myself call for Lawrence on my way home and send him, if necessary. Come, Emma. Perhaps this may be a case for the exercise of your philanthropy."

They soon found the place, and knocked at a low door, which was slowly opened by a middle-aged woman, meanly clad and apparently very poor.

"Ah, sir, you're too late, he's dead," said the woman, in reply to Lewis's inquiry.

"O how sad!" broke from Emma's sympathetic spirit, "I am so sorry we are too late. Did you find a doctor?"

"No, ma'am, I didn't, but the chemist gave me the address of one, so I ran back to tell the poor young thing that I'd go fetch one as quick as I could, and I found him just dying in her arms."

"In whose arms? are not you the daughter—" said Emma.

"Me, miss! oh dear, no. I'm only a neighbour."

"Has she any friends?" asked Lewis.

"None as I knows of. They are strangers here—only just came to the room. There it is," she added, stepping back and pointing to an inner door.

Lewis advanced and knocked, but received no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer. He therefore ventured to lift the latch and enter.

It was a miserable, ill-lighted room, of small size and destitute of all furniture save a truckle bed, a heap of clean straw in a corner, on which lay a black shawl, a deal chair, and a small table. Abject poverty was stamped on the whole place. On the bed lay the dead man, covered with a sheet. Beside it kneeled, or rather lay, the figure of a woman. Her dress was a soiled and rusty black. Her hair, fallen from its fastenings, hung dishevelled on her shoulders. Her arms clasped the dead form.

"My poor woman," whispered Emma, as she knelt beside her, and put a hand timidly on her shoulder.

But the woman made no answer.

"She has fainted, I think," exclaimed Emma, rising quickly and trying to raise the woman's head. Suddenly Lewis uttered a great cry, lifted the woman in his arms, and gazed wildly into her face.

"Nita!" he cried, passionately clasping her to his heart and covering the poor faded face with kisses; but Nita heard not. It seemed as if the silver chord had already snapped. Becoming suddenly aware of the impropriety as well as selfishness of his behaviour, Lewis hastily bore the inanimate form to the heap of straw, pillowed the small head on the old shawl, and began to chafe the hands while Emma aided him to restore consciousness. They were soon successful. Nita heaved a sigh.

"Now, Emma," said Lewis, rising, "this is your place just now, I will go and fetch something to revive her."

He stopped for one moment at the bed in passing, and lifted the sheet. There was no mistaking the handsome face of the Count even in death. It was terribly thin, but the lines of sorrow and anxiety were gone at last from the marble brow, and a look of rest pervaded the whole countenance.

On returning, Lewis found that Nita had thrown her arms round Emma's neck and was sobbing violently. She looked up as he entered, and held out her hand. "God has sent you," she said, looking at Emma, "to save my heart from breaking."

Lewis again knelt beside her and put her hand to his lips, but he had no power to utter a word. Presently, as the poor girl's eye fell on the bed, there was a fresh outburst of grief. "Oh, how he loved me!—and how nobly he fought!—and how gloriously he conquered!—God be praised for that!"

She spoke, or rather sobbed, in broken sentences. To distract her mind, if possible, even for a little, from her bereavement, Emma ventured to ask her how she came there, when her father became so ill, and similar questions. Little by little, in brief sentences, and with many choking words and tears, the sad story came out.

Ever since the night when her father met with Lewis at Saxon, he had firmly resisted the temptation to gamble. God had opened his ear to listen to, and his heart to receive, the Saviour. Arriving in London with the money so generously lent to them by Lewis, they took a small lodging and sought for work. God was faithful to His promises, she said; he had sent a measure of prosperity. Her father taught music, she obtained needlework. All was going well when her father became suddenly ill. Slowly but steadily he sank. The teaching had to be given up, the hours of labour with the needle increased. This, coupled with constant nursing, began to sap her own strength, but she had been enabled to hold out until her father became so ill that she dared not leave him even for a few minutes to visit the shops where she had obtained sewing-work. Then, all source of livelihood being dried up, she had been compelled to sell one by one the few articles of clothing and furniture which they had begun to accumulate about them.

"Thus," she said, in conclusion, "we were nearly reduced to a state of destitution, but, before absolute want had been felt by us, God mercifully took my darling father home—and—and—I shall soon join him."

"Say not so, darling," said Emma, twining her arms round the poor stricken girl. "It may be that He has much work for you to do for Jesus here before He takes you home. Meanwhile, He has sent us to claim you as our very dear friend—as our sister. You must come and stay with mamma and me. We, too, have tasted something of that cup of adversity, which you have drained to the very dregs, my poor Nita, but we are comparatively well off now. Mamma will be so glad to have you. Say you will come. Won't you, dearest?"

Nita replied by lifting her eyes with a bewildered look to the bed, and again burst into a passion of uncontrollable sorrow.



CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE DENOUEMENT.

Being naturally a straightforward man, and not gifted with much power in the way of plotting and scheming, Captain Wopper began in time to discover that he had plunged his mental faculties into a disagreeable state of confusion.

"Gillie, my lad," he said, looking earnestly at his satellite while they walked one afternoon along the Bayswater road in the direction of Kensington, "it's a bad business altogether."

Gillie, not having the smallest idea what the Captain referred to, admitted that it was "wery bad indeed," but suggested that "it might be wuss."

"It's such a perplexin' state o' things," pursued the Captain, "to be always bouncin' up an' down wi' hopes, an' fears, an' disappointments, like a mad barometer, not knowin' rightly what's what or who's who."

"Uncommon perplexin'," assented Gillie. "If I was you, Cappen, I'd heave the barometer overboard along wi' the main-deck, nail yer colours to the mast, cram the rudder into the lee-scuppers, kick up your flyin'-jib-boom into the new moon, an' go down stern foremost like a man!"

"Ha!" said the Captain, with a twinkle in the corner of his "weather-eye," "not a bad notion."

"Now, my lad, I'm goin' out to my villa at Kensington to dine. There's to be company, too, an' you're to be waiter—"

"Stooard, you mean?"

"Well, yes—stooard. Now, stooard, you'll keep a good look-out, an' clap as tight a stopper on yer tongue as may be. I've got a little plot in hand, d'ee see, an' I want you to help me with it. Keep your eye in a quiet way on Dr Lawrence and Miss Gray. I've taken a fancy that perhaps they may be in love with each other. You just let me have your opinion on that pint after dinner, but have a care that you don't show what you're up to, and, whatever you do, don't be cheeky."

"All right," said the stooard, thrusting both hands into his trouser-pockets; "I'll do my best."

While these two were slowly wending their way through Kensington Gardens, Emma Gray arrived at the Captain's villa—California Cottage, he called it—and rang the bell. The gate was opened by Netta White, who, although not much bigger than when first introduced to the reader, was incomparably more beautiful and smart. Mrs Stoutley had reason to be proud of her.

"I did not know that you were to be here, Netta?" said Emma, in surprise, as she entered.

"It was a very sudden call, Miss," said Netta, with a smile. "Captain Wopper wrote a note to me, begging me to ask Mrs Stoutley to be so good as lend me to him for a day to help at his house-warming. Here is the letter, Miss."

Emma laughed as she glanced carelessly at the epistle, but became suddenly grave, turned white, then red, and, snatching the letter from the girl's hand, gazed at it intently.

"La! Miss, is anything wrong?"

"May I keep this?" asked Emma.

"Certainly, Miss, if you wish it."

Before she could say anything more, they were interrupted by the entrance of Dr Lawrence. With a surprised look and smile he said—

"I have been invited to dine with our friend Captain Wopper, but did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting Miss Gray here."

Emma explained that she also had been invited to dine with the Captain, along with her mother and brother, but had supposed that that was all the party, as he, the Captain, had mentioned no one else, and had been particular in begging her to come an hour before the time, for the purpose of going over his new villa with him, and giving him her private opinion of it.

"I am punctual," she added, consulting her watch; "it is just four o'clock."

"Four! Then what is the dinner hour?"

"Five," answered Emma.

"The Captain's wits must have been wool-gathering," rejoined Lawrence, with a laugh. "He told me to come punctually at four. However, I rejoice in the mistake, as it gives me the great pleasure of assisting you to form an unprejudiced opinion of the merits of the new villa. Shall we begin with an exploration of the garden?"

Emma had no cause to blush at such an innocent proposal, nevertheless a richer colour than usual mantled on her modest little face as she fell in with the Doctor's humour and stepped out into the small piece of ground behind the house.

It was of very limited extent and, although not surrounded too closely by other villas, was nevertheless thoroughly overlooked by them, so that seclusion in that garden was impossible. Recognising this fact, a former proprietor had erected at the lower end of the garden a bower so contrived that its interior was invisible from all points except one, and that was a side door to the garden which opened on a little passage by which coals, milk, meat, and similar substances were conveyed from the front to the rear of the house.

Dr Lawrence and Emma walked round and round the garden very slowly, conversing earnestly. Strange to say, they quite forgot the object which had taken them there. Their talk was solely of Switzerland. As it continued, the Doctor's voice deepened in tones and interest, and his fair companion's cheek deepened in colour. Suddenly they turned into the bower. As they did so, Gillie White chanced to appear at the garden door above referred to, which stood ajar. The spider's countenance was a speaking one. During the five minutes which it appeared in the doorway, it, and the body belonging to it, became powerfully eloquent. It might have conveyed to one's mind, as it were, a series of tableaux vivants. Gillie's first look was as if he had been struck dumb with amazement (that was Lawrence suddenly seizing one of Emma's hands in both of his and looking intently into her face). Then Gillie's look of amazement gave place to one of intense, quite touching—we might almost say sympathetic—anxiety as he placed a hand on each knee and stooped (that was the Doctor's right hand stealing round Emma's waist, and Emma shrinking from him with averted face). The urchin's visage suddenly lighted up with a blaze of triumph, and he seized his cap as if about to cheer (that was the Doctor's superior strength prevailing, and Emma's head, now turned the other way, laid on his shoulder). All at once Gillie went into quiet convulsions, grinned from ear to ear, doubled himself up, slapped his thigh inaudibly—a la Captain Wopper—and otherwise behaved like an outrageous, yet self-restrained, maniac (that was—well, we have no right to say what that was). As a faithful chronicler, however, we must report that one-half minute later the stooard found Captain Wopper in the villa drawing-room, and there stated to him that it was "hall right; that he didn't need for to perplex hisself about Doctor Lawrence and Miss Hemma Gray, for that they was as good as spliced already, having been seen by him, Gillie, in the bower at the end of the garding a-blushin' and a—" Here the spider stopped short and went into another fit of convulsions—this time unrestrained.

Is it necessary to say that Captain Wopper sat at the foot of his own table that day—Mrs Stoutley being at the head—with his rugged visage radiant and his powerful voice explosive; that he told innumerable sea-stories without point, and laughed at them without propriety; that, in the excess of his hilarity, he drank a mysterious toast to the success of all sorts of engagements, present and future; that he called Mrs Stoutley (in joke) sister, and Emma and Lewis (also in joke) niece and neffy; that he called Doctor Lawrence neffy, too, with a pointedness and a sense of its being the richest possible joke, that covered with confusion the affianced pair; and with surprise the rest of the company; that he kicked the stooard amicably out of the room for indulging in explosions of laughter behind his chair, and recommending him, the Captain, to go it strong, and to clap on sail till he should tear the mast out of 'er, or git blowed on his beam-ends; that the stooard returned unabashed to repeat the offence unreproved; that towards the end, the Captain began a long-winded graphic story which served to show how his good friend and chum Willum Stout in Callyforny had commissioned him to buy and furnish a villa for the purpose of presenting it to a certain young lady in token of his gratitood to her for bein' such a good and faithful correspondent to him, Willum, while he was in furrin' parts; also, how he was commissioned to buy and furnish another villa and present it to a certain doctor whose father had saved him from drownin' long long ago, he would not say how long ago; and how that this villa, in which they was feedin', was one of the said villas, and that he found it quite unnecessary to spend any more of Willum's hard-earned gains in the purchase of the other villa, owing to circumstances which had took place in a certain bower that very day! Is it necessary, we again ask, to detail all this? We think not; therefore, we won't.

When reference was made to the bower, Emma could stand, or sit, it no longer. She rose hastily and ran blushing into the garden. Captain Wopper uttered a thunderous laugh, rose and ran after her. He found her in the bower with her face in her hands, and sat down beside her.

"Captain Wopper," she suddenly exclaimed, looking up and drawing a note from her pocket, "do you know this?"

"Yes, duckie," (the Captain was quite reckless now), "it's my last billy-doo to Netta White. I never was good at pot-hooks and hangers."

"And do you know this letter?" said Emma, holding up to the seaman's eyes her uncle William's last letter to herself.

The Captain looked surprised, then became suddenly red and confused.

"W'y—ye-es, it's Willum's, ain't it?"

"The same pot-hooks and hangers precisely!" said Emma, "are they not? Oh!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms round the Captain's neck and kissing him, "uncle William, how could you deceive us so?"

The Captain, to use his own expressions, was taken aback—fairly brought up all standin'.

It had never occurred to his innocent mind that he should commit himself so simply. He felt an unconquerable objection to expressions of gratitude, and perceiving, with deep foresight that such were impending, his first impulse was to rise and fly, but Emma's kiss made him change his mind. He returned it in kind but not in degree, for it caused the bower to resound as with a pistol shot.

"Oh! wot a cracker, ain't it just? you're a nice man, ain't you, to go poachin' on other fellers—"

The Captain seized his opportunity, he broke from Emma and dashed wildly at the spider, who incontinently fled down the conduit for coals, cheering with the fury of a victorious Ashantee chief!



CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE LAST.

Humbly confessing to Emma Gray that he had no talent whatever for plotting, Captain Wopper went off with a deprecatory expression of countenance to reveal himself to Mrs Roby. Great was his anxiety. He entered her presence like a guilty thing. If, however, his anxiety was great, his surprise and consternation were greater when she received his revelation with tears, and for some time refused to be comforted!

The workings of the human mind are wonderful. Sometimes they are, as the Captain said, bamboozling. If analysed it might have been discovered that, apart altogether from the shock of unexpectedness and the strain on her credulity, poor Mrs Roby suffered—without clearly understanding it—from a double loss. She had learned to love Captain Wopper for his own sake, and now Captain Wopper was lost to her in William Stout! On the other hand William, her darling, her smooth-faced chubby boy, was lost to her for ever in the hairy savage Captain Wopper! It was perplexing as well as heart-rending. Captain Wopper was gone, because, properly, there was no such being in existence. William Stout was gone because he would never write to her any more, and could never more return to her from California!

It was of no use that the Captain expressed the deepest contrition for the deception he had practised, urging that he had done it "for the best;" the old woman only wept the more; but when, in desperation, the Captain hauled taut the sheets of his intellect, got well to wind'ard of the old 'ooman an' gave her a broadside of philosophy, he was more successful.

"Mother," he said, earnestly, "you don't feel easy under this breeze, 'cause why? you're entirely on the wrong tack. Ready about now, an' see what a change it'll make. Look 'ee here. You've gained us both instead of lost us both. Here am I, Willum Stout yours to command, a trifle stouter, it may be, and hairier than I once was, not to say older, but by a long chalk better able to love the old girl who took me in, an' befriended me when I was a reg'lar castaway, with dirty weather brewin', an' the rocks o' destitootion close under my lee; and who'll never forget your kindness, no never, so long as two timbers of the old hulk hold together. Well then, that's the view over the starboard bulwarks. Cast your eyes over to port now. Here am I, Captain Wopper, also yours to command, strong as a horse, as fond o' you as if you was my own mother, an' resolved to stick by you through thick and thin to the last. So you see, you've got us both—Willum an' me—me an' Willum, both of us lovin' you like blazes an' lookin' arter you like dootiful sons. A double tide of affection, so to speak, flowin' like strong double-stout from the beer barrel out of which you originally drew me, if I may say so. Ain't you convinced?"

Mrs Roby was convinced. She gave in, and lived for many years afterwards in the full enjoyment of the double blessing which had thus fallen to her lot in the evening of her days.

And here, good reader, we might close our tale; but we cannot do so without a few parting words in reference to the various friends in whose company we have travelled so long.

Of course it is unnecessary to say, (especially to our lady readers, who were no doubt quite aware of it from the beginning), that Lawrence and Emma, Lewis and Nita, were, in the course of time, duly married. The love of their respective wives for each other induced the husbands not only to dwell in adjoining villas, but to enter into a medical co-partnery, in the prosecution of which they became professionally the deities, and, privately, the adored of a large population of invalids— with their more or less healthy friends—in the salubrious neighbourhood of Kensington. To go about "doing good" was the business, and became the second nature, of the young doctors. It was long a matter of great surprise to not a few of their friends that though Lawrence and Lewis neither smoked nor drank, they were uncommonly healthy and apparently happy! Some caustic spirits asserted that they were sure budding wings were to be found on the shoulders of the two doctors, but we are warranted in asserting, on the best authority, that on a strict examination, nothing of the kind was discovered. Need we say that Emma and Nita were pattern wives? Of course not, therefore we won't say it. Our reticence on this point will no doubt be acceptable to those who, being themselves naughty, don't believe in or admire "patterns," even though these be of "heavenly things." It is astonishing, though, what an effect their so-called "perfection" had in tightening the bonds of matrimony. Furthermore, they had immense families of sons and daughters, insomuch that it became necessary to lengthen their cords and strengthen their stakes, and "Calyforny Villa" became a mere band-box compared to the mansions which they ultimately called "home."

Mrs Stoutley having managed to get entirely out of herself—chiefly by means of the Bible and the London gold-fields and moraines—became so amiable and so unlike her former self, and, withal, so healthy and cheery, that the two great families of Stoutley and Lawrence went to war for possession of her.

The feud at last threatened to become chronic, and was usually carried to an excess of virulence about Christmas and New Year time. In order, therefore, to the establishment of peace, Mrs Stoutley agreed to live one-half of the year with Lewis, and the other half with Lawrence—Lewis to have the larger half as a matter of course; but she retained her cottage in Notting Hill and her maid Netta White, with the right to retire at any moment, when the exigencies of the gold-fields or the moraines demanded special attention; or when the excess of juvenile life in the mansions before mentioned became too much for her. On these occasions of retirement which, to say truth, were not very frequent, she was accompanied by Netta White—for Netta loved her mistress and clave to her as Ruth to Naomi. Being a native of the "fields," she was an able and sympathetic guide and adviser at all times, and nothing pleased Netta better than a visit to Grubb's Court, for there she saw the blessed fruit of diamond and gold digging illustrated in the person of her own reformed father and happy mother, who had removed from their former damp rooms on the ground floor to the more salubrious apartments among the chimney pots, which had been erected on the site of the "cabin" after "the fire." Directly below them, in somewhat more pretentious apartments, shone another rescued diamond in the person of Fred Leven. He was now the support and comfort of his old mother as well as of a pretty little young woman who had loved him even while he was a drunkard, and who, had it been otherwise decreed, would have gone on loving him and mourning over him and praying for him till he was dead. In her case, however, the mourning had been turned into joy.

In process of time Gillie White, alias the spider, became a sturdy, square-set, active little man, and was promoted to the position of coachman in the family of Lewis Stoutley. Susan Quick served in the same family in the capacity of nurse for many years, and, being naturally thrown much into the society of the young coachman, was finally induced to cement the friendship which had begun in Switzerland by a wedding. This wedding, Gillie often declared to Susan, with much earnestness, was the "stunninest ewent that had ever occurred to him in his private capacity as a man."

There is a proverb which asserts that "it never rains but it pours." This proverb was verified in the experience of the various personages of our tale, for soon after the tide of fortune had turned in their favour, the first showers of success swelled into absolute cataracts of prosperity. Among other things, the Gowrong mines suddenly went right. Mrs Stoutley's former man of business, Mr Temple, called one day, and informed her that her shares in that splendid undertaking had been purchased, on her behalf, by a friend who had faith in the ultimate success of the mines; that the friend forbade the mention of his name; and that he, Mr Temple, had called to pay her her dividends, and to congratulate her on her recovery of health and fortune. Dr Tough—who, when his services were no longer required, owing to the absence of illness, had continued his visits as a jovial friend—chanced to call at the same time with Mr Temple, and added his congratulations to those of the man of business, observing, with enthusiasm, that the air of the Swiss mountains, mixed in equal parts with that of the London diamond-fields, would cure any disease under the sun. His former patient heartily agreed with him, but said that the medicine in question was not a mere mixture but a chemical compound, containing an element higher than the mountains and deeper than the diamond-fields, without which the cure would certainly not have been effected.

THE END