The Garret and the Garden; Or, Low Life High Up. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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you see,” continued the sailor, turning down his, “w’en I went to sea that time, I left a wife an’ a babby behind me; but soon arter I got out to China I got a letter tellin’ me that my Susan was dead, and that the babby had bin took charge of by a old nurse in the family where Susan had been a housemaid. You may be sure my heart was well-nigh broke by the news, but I comforted myself wi’ the thought o’ gittin’ home again an’ takin’ care o’ the dear babby—a gal, it was, called Susan arter its mother. It was at that time I was took by the pirates in the Malay Seas—now fifteen long years gone by.”
“W’at! an’ you ain’t bin ’ome or seed yer babby for fifteen years?” exclaimed Tommy Splint.
“Not for fifteen long year,” replied his friend. “You see, Tommy, the pirates made a slave o’ me, an’ took me up country into the interior of one o’ their biggest islands, where I hadn’t a chance of escapin’. But I did manage to escape at last, through God’s blessin’, an’ got to Hong-Kong in a small coaster; found a ship—the Seacow-about startin’ for England short-handed, an’ got a berth on board of her. On the voyage the second mate was washed overboard in a gale, so, as I was a handy chap, the cap’en he promoted me, an’ now I’m huntin’ about for my dear little one all over London. But it’s a big place is London.”
“Yes; an’ I suspect that you’ll find your little un raither a big un too by this time.”
“No doubt,” returned the seaman with an absent air; then, looking with sudden earnestness into his little companion’s face, he added, “Well, Tommy Splint, as I said just now, I’ve cruised about far an’ near after this old woman as took charge o’ my babby without overhaulin’ of her, for she seems to have changed her quarters pretty often; but I keep up my hopes, for I do feel as if I’d run her down at last—her name was Lizbeth Morley—”
“Oho!” exclaimed Tommy Splint with a look of sharp intelligence; “so you think that chimleypot Liz may be your Lizbeth and our Susy your babby!”
“I’m more than half inclined to think that, my boy,” returned the sailor, growing more excited.
“Is the old woman’s name Morley?”
“Dun know. Never heard nobody call her nothin’ but Liz.”
“And how about Susan?”
“That’s the babby?” said the boy with a grin.
“Yes—yes,” said Sam anxiously.
“Well, that babby’s about five fut four now, without ’er boots. You see ’uman creeturs are apt to grow considerable in fifteen years—ain’t they?”
“But is her name Blake?” demanded the seaman. “Not as I knows of. Susy’s wot we all calls ’er—so chimley-pot Liz calls ’er, an’ so she calls ’erself, an’ there ain’t another Susy like her for five miles round. But come up, Sam, an’ I’ll introduce ee—they’re both over’ead.”
So saying the lively urchin grasped his new friend by the hand and led him by a rickety staircase to the “rookeries” above.
Chapter Two.
Flowers in the Desert
Beauty and ugliness form a contrast which is presented to us every day of our lives, though, perhaps, we may not be much impressed by the fact. And this contrast is presented in ever-varying aspects.
We do not, however, draw the reader’s attention to one of the striking aspects of the contrast—such as is presented by the hippopotamus and the gazelle, or the pug with the “bashed” nose and the Italian greyhound. It is to one of the more delicate phases that we would point—to that phase of the contrast wherein the fight between the two qualities is seen progressing towards victory, and ugliness is not only overborne but overwhelmed by beauty.
For this purpose we convey the reader to a scene of beauty that might compare favourably with any of the most romantic spots on this fair earth—on the Riviera, or among the Brazilian wilds, or, for that matter, in fairyland itself.
It is a garden—a remarkably small garden to be sure, but one that is arranged with a degree of taste and a display of fancy that betokens the gardener a genius. Among roses and mignonette, heliotrope, clematis and wallflower, chrysanthemums, verbenas and sweet-peas are intertwined, on rustic trellis-work, the rich green leaves of the ivy and the graceful Virginia creeper in such a manner that the surroundings of the miniature garden are completely hidden from view, and nothing but the bright blue sky is visible, save where one little opening in the foliage reveals the prospect of a grand glittering river, where leviathans of the deep and small fry of the shallows, of every shape and size, disport themselves in the blaze of a summer sun.
Beauty meets the eye wherever turned, but, let the head of the observer be extended ever so little beyond the charmed circle of that garden, and nearly all around is ugliness supreme! For this is a garden on the roof of an old house; the grand river is the Thames, alive with the shipping of its world-wide commerce, and all around lies that interminable forest of rookery chimneys, where wild ungainly forms tell of the insane and vain efforts of man to cope with smoke; where wild beasts—in the form of cats—hold their nightly revels, imitating the yells of agonised infants, filling the dreams of sleepers with ideas of internal thunder or combustion, and driving the sleepless mad!
Susy—our Susy—is the cause of this miracle of beauty in the midst of misery; this glowing gem in a setting of ugliness. It is her modest little head that has bent over the boxes of earth, which constitute her landed property; her pretty little fingers which have trained the stems and watered the roots and cherished the flowers until the barren house-top has been made to blossom like the rose. And love, as usual, has done it all—love to that very ugly old woman, chimney-pot Liz, who sits on the rustic chair in the midst of the garden enjoying it all.
For Liz has been a mother to that motherless bairn from her earliest years. She has guarded, fed, and clothed her from infancy; taught her from God’s Book the old, old story of redeeming love, and led her to the feet of Jesus. It would be strange indeed if Susy did not love the ugly old woman, until at last she came to regard the wrinkles as veritable lines of beauty; the nut-cracker nose and chin as emblems of persistent goodness; the solitary wobbling tooth as a sign of unconquerable courage; and the dark eyes—well, it required no effort of imagination to change the character of the old woman’s eyes, for they had always been good, kindly, expressive eyes, and were at that date as bright and lively as when she was sweet sixteen.
But chimney-pot Liz was poor—desperately poor, else she had not been there, for if heaven was around and within her, assuredly something very like pandemonium was underneath her, and it not unfrequently appeared as if the evil spirits below were surging to and fro in a fierce endeavour to burst up the whole place, and hurl the old woman with her garden into the river.
Evil spirits indeed formed the dread foundation of the old woman’s abode; for, although her own court was to some extent free from the curse, this particular pile of building, of which the garden formed the apex, had a grog-shop, opening on another court, for its foundation-stone. From that sink of iniquity, literal and unmitigated—though not unadulterated—spirits of evil rose like horrid fumes from the pit, and maddened the human spirits overhead. These, descending to the foundation-den, soaked themselves in the material spirit and carried it up, until the whole tenement seemed to reek and reel under its malign influence.
But, strange to say, the riot did not rise as high as the garden on the roof—only the echoes reached that little paradise.
Now it is a curious almost unaccountable fact, which no one would ever guess, that a teapot was the cause of this—at least a secondary cause—for a teapot was the chief instrument in checking, if not turning, the tide of evil. Yes, chimney-pot Liz held her castle in the very midst of the enemy, almost single-handed, with no visible weapon of offence or defence but a teapot! We say visible, because Liz did indeed possess other and very powerful weapons which were not quite so obvious—such as, the Word of God in her memory, the love of God in her heart, and the Spirit of God in her soul.
To the outside world, however,