Chapter 94
I should have pressed him, but he was so much in earnest that I drew back, and after a formal leave-taking he left the room, and descended the stairs, while a burst of angry remarks followed his departure.
"Ruddle," said one grey-haired old gentleman, "I think, for your credit's sake, you ought to have in a detective to try and trace out the offender."
"I mean to," said Mr Ruddle firmly, and he glanced at Grimstone, who seemed to shrink away, and looked thin and old.
"For my part," said another, "I believe fully in the invention and I congratulate the man of genius who--halloa! what's wrong?"
A burst of yells and hooting arose from the street below, and with one consent we hurried to the windows, to see poor Hallett standing at bay in a corner, hemmed in by about a hundred men and boys, evidently the off-scourings of the district, who, amidst a storm of cries of "Who robbed the poor man of his bread?"--"Who tries to stifle work?" and a babel of similar utterances, were pelting the poor fellow with filth, waste-paper full of printing-ink, mud, and indescribable refuse, evidently prepared for the occasion.
Heading the party, and the most demonstrative of all, was a fat ruffian, in inky ap.r.o.n and s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, whom I recognised as what should have been the manhood of my old enemy, Jem Smith, while in the same glance I saw, standing aloof upon a doorstep, a spectator of the degrading scene, no less a person than John Lister, fas.h.i.+onably dressed, and in strange contrast to the pallid, mud-bespattered man who stood there panting and too weak to repel a.s.sault.
What I have said here was seen in a moment, as I cried out, "Tom Girtley, quick!" rushed to the door, and down the stairs.
It took me very little time to reach the street, but it was long enough to bring my blood to fever-heat, as, closely followed by Tom, I rushed past John Lister, and fought my way through the yelling mob of ruffianly men and boys.
Before I could reach Hallett, though, I caught sight of a carriage farther up the street, and just then the noise and yelling ceased as if by magic, while my efforts to reach Hallett's side became less arduous.
I, too, stopped short as I reached the inner edge of the ring which surrounded my friend, for there, richly dressed, and in strange opposition to the scene, was Miriam Carr, her veil thrown back, her handsome face white, and her large eyes flas.h.i.+ng as she threw herself before Hallett.
"Cowards! wretches!" I heard her cry; and then, "Oh, help I help!"
For as, regardless of his state, she caught at Hallett, he reeled and seemed about to fall!
Then I was at his side.
"Don't touch me!" he gasped, recovering himself and recoiling from the vision that seemed to have come between him and his persecutors. "Miss Carr, for heaven's sake!--away from here!"
For answer she caught his hand in hers, and drew his befouled arm through her own.
"Come," she said, as her eyes flashed with anger; "lean on me. They will not dare to treat a woman ill."
"Antony," cried Hallett hoa.r.s.ely. "Miss Carr--take her away!"
"Lean on me," she cried proudly. "Antony, beat a way for us through these curs."
I took Hallett's other arm, and as we stepped forward, Jem Smith uttered a loud "Yah!" but it seemed as if it was broken before it left his lips, and he went staggering back from a tremendous blow right in the teeth, delivered by Tom Girtley.
Then
"Miss Carr! great heavens! what is all this?" he cried. "Give me your hand. This is no place for you. What does this outrage mean? Quick!
let me help you. This is horrible."
"Stand back, sir!"
"You are excited," he cried. "You don't know me. I see now; there is your carriage. Stand away, you ruffians. How thankful I am that I was near! Take this man away. Is he drunk?"
As he spoke, John Lister, with a look of supreme disgust, pushed poor fainting Hallett back, and tried to draw Miss Carr out of the crowd.
"Coward! Villain! This is your work!" she cried in a low, strange voice; and as he tried to draw her away, she sharply thrust him from her.
The crowd uttered a cry of excitement as they witnessed the act; and, stung almost to madness with rage and mortification, Lister turned upon me.
But I again found a good man at my back, for, boiling with rage, Tom Girtley struck at him fiercely and kept him off, while in the midst of the noise, pus.h.i.+ng, and hustling of the crowd, a confusion that seemed to me now as unreal as some dream, we got Hallett along towards the carriage, he, poor fellow, seeming ready to sink at every step, while the true-hearted woman at his side clung to him and pa.s.sed one arm round him to help him.
The coachman now saw that his mistress seemed to be in need of help, and he shortened the distance by forcing his horses onward through the gathering crowd.
But the danger was past, for those who now thronged out from the buildings on either side were workpeople attracted by the noise, and they rapidly outnumbered John Lister's gang of scoundrels, got together by his lieutenant, Jem Smith, for the mortification of the man he hated, while his triumph had been that the woman they loved had come to his rival's help, glorified him, as it were, by her presence, and rained down scorn and contempt upon his own wretched head.
As I said before, it seems now like some terrible dream, in which I found myself in Miss Carr's carriage, with her sister looking ghastly with fear beside me, and Hallett in the back seat, nearly unconscious, beside Miss Carr.
"Tell the coachman to stop at the nearest doctor's, Antony," she said; and I lowered the gla.s.s and told Tom Girtley, who had mounted to the driver's side.
"No, no," said Hallett, faintly, for her words seemed to bring him to.
"For pity's sake. To my own home. Why have you done this?"
She did not speak, but I saw her take his hand, and her eyes fix themselves, as it were, upon his, while a great sob laboured from her breast.
"Mr Grace," faltered Miss Carr's sister, "this is very dreadful;" and I saw her frightened eyes wander from the mud-besmeared object opposite her to her sister's injured attire, and the sullied linings of the carriage.
"Antony," said Miss Carr then, "do what is for the best."
For answer, I lowered the window again and uttered to Tom Girtley the one word, "Home."
Fortunately, Revitts was on night duty, and ready to come as the carriage stopped at the door, where we had to lift the poor fellow out, and carry him to his bed, perfectly insensible now from the effects of the blow.
I was rather surprised to find the carriage gone when I descended, but my suspense was of short duration, for it soon came back with a neighbouring doctor, whom Miss Carr had fetched.
Mary was at hand to show him up, while I ran down to the carriage-door, where Miss Carr grasped my hand for a moment, her face now looking flushed and strange.
"Come to me to-night, Antony," she said in a low voice--"come and tell me all."
She sank back in the carriage then, as if to hide herself from view, while in obedience to her mute signal, I bade the coachman drive her and her sister home.
CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN.
I FIND I HAVE A TEMPER.
I went to Miss Carr's nearly every evening now, to report progress; for her instructions to me, after a consultation between Mr Jabez, Mr Ruddle, Mr Girtley, and myself, were that neither expense nor time was to be spared in perfecting the machine.
We had gone carefully into the reasons for the breakdown, and were compelled reluctantly to own that sooner or later the mechanism would have failed; for besides the part I named, we found several weak points in the construction--faults that only a superhuman intelligence could have guarded against. The malignant act had only hastened the catastrophe.
It was a cruel trick, and though we could not bring it home, we had not a doubt that the dastardly act was committed by Jem Smith, who was the instrument of John Lister. A little examination showed how easily the back premises could be entered by anyone coming along behind from Lister's, and there was some talk of prosecution, but Hallett was ill, and it was abandoned.
For the blow he had received from a piece of the machinery had produced serious injury to the head, and day after day I had very bad news to convey to Miss Carr. The poor fellow seemed to have broken down utterly, and kept his bed. He used to try to appear cheerful; but it was evident that he took the matter bitterly to heart, and at times gave up all hope of ever perfecting the machine.
It was pitiful to see his remorseful looks when Mr Jabez came to see him of an evening; Mr Peter, who always accompanied his brother, stopping in my room to smoke a long pipe I kept on purpose for him, whether I was at home or no, and from time to time he had consultations with Tom Girtley, who kept putting off a communication that he said he had to make till he had his task done.