Chapter Twenty-Six Tom Moore’s Servant proves a Friend in Need
Buster ate a hearty supper and fed Lord Castlereagh with the scraps. This done, he was about to proceed with the dish-washing, a kind of toil for which he had a more than ordinary contempt and dislike, when the sound of shouting in the street attracted his attention.
For once in his life the boy had failed to ascertain the news of the neighborhood of that day, and as he had been absent when Mrs. Malone conveyed to his master the intelligence of Sweeny’s purposed ambush of Jane’s unknown swain, he had had no tidings concerning that important happening, so was not the active participant in the adventure that he would otherwise have been. This being the case, he was quite at a loss to account for the sounds of tumult below.
“My heye!” he remarked to the bulldog, whose curiosity was similarly aroused, “wot a rumpussin’. Who ’s getting beat hor married, Hi wonders?”
Sticking his head out of the window, the boy could discern nothing down in the dark street. It was quite evident that the voices which had attracted his attention proceeded from one of the narrow lanes running at right angles to the larger thoroughfare on which the lodgings of Moore fronted.
“Somebody ’s risin’ a bloody hole row, your lordship. Well, we keeps hout of it this once, don’t we?”
The bulldog gave a whine of dissent. He saw no reason for remaining quiet when such unexcelled opportunities for vigorous contention were being offered gratuitously below.
Buster shook his head sadly.
“Halas!” he observed in a melancholy tone. “That hole gladheateral spirit hof yourn his never horf tap. You h’are a blooming hole pugilist, that’s wot you h’are. You horter be hashamed of yourself for wantin’ to happropriate somebody else’s private row.”
Lord Castlereagh felt unjustly rebuked and retired to his favorite corner, apparently losing all interest in the hubbub, which continued below, growing gradually less noisy as though the cause were slowly departing from the immediate neighborhood. Suddenly the dog’s quick ear detected an unwonted sound coming from the rooftops, and with a growl, spurred on by his still unsatisfied curiosity, he ran across the room to the window by which his master in the old days had been wont to evade the vigilance of Mrs. Malone. Buster followed him, and, looking across the undulating surface made by the irregular roofs,—a sort of architectural sea rendered choppy by uplifting ridge-poles and gables of various styles, cut into high waves and low troughs by the dissimilar heights of sundry buildings, with chimneys rising buoy-like from the billowy depths, which in the darkness were blended softly together by the mellowing and connecting shadows,—he saw the figure of a man emerge from the scuttle of a roof perhaps two hundred feet distant. At the same moment there came a howl of fury from the street below, which grew louder, as though the crowd from which it emanated were streaming back in the direction of Mrs. Malone’s residence. The fugitive, for that he was such could not be doubted, beat a hurried retreat across the roofs, tripping, falling, crawling, but ever making progress and nearly always hidden from the point at which he had effected his entrance to the house-tops by the friendly shelter of intervening chimneys and gables. All at once a burly form leaped out of the scuttle from which the first comer had emerged. This newly arrived individual carried a club and was followed out on the roof by half-a-dozen companions of the same ilk. Straightening up to his full height, while gingerly balancing on the nearest ridgepole, the fellow caught a glimpse of their prey crawling up a steep roof quite a little distance further on towards the window from which Buster was now intently watching the chase.
“There he goes, lads. He is right in line with that tallest chimbley,” bellowed the leader.
“Aye, aye! After him! After him!”
An answering howl came from the street, and, sliding, running and stumbling, the pursuers began to follow the fugitive across the housetops. Then they lost sight of him, and for a while completely baffled, searched in a scattered line, slowly advancing, investigating each possible hiding-place as they came to it, urged on by the growling of the mob patrolling the street below. Suddenly one of their number, the lad armed with the huge bottle, tripped over a broken clothesline and fell headlong into the V-shaped trough formed by the eaves of the two adjacent houses. He found himself rudely precipitated on the body of the hunted man, who had lain snugly concealed at the very bottom of the roof-made angle, but before he could do more than utter one choking scream, the fugitive, despairing of further concealment, silenced his discoverer with his fist, and with the rest of the pack in full cry at his heels, began again his wild flight over the roofs. Fortune favored him once more, and the band hunting him was forced for a second time to pause and scatter in close scrutiny of the ground over which the fleeing gallant had made his way. Then Buster saw a tall figure creep out of the gloom cast by a huge chimney, which, shadowing a roof near by, had enabled him to crawl undetected from the hiding-place that he had found beneath the eaves of an unusually tall building, near the house from the attic of which the boy was now excitedly tracing his line of flight. Buster’s sympathy was all with the fleeing man. To sympathize was to act, and having found the rope-ladder which used to serve his master as a means of exit by the window when prudence dictated such an evasion, he tumbled it out, at the same time attracting the hunted gentleman’s attention with a friendly hiss.
“This w’y, sir, this w’y,” whispered Buster, silencing the threatened outcry of Lord Castlereagh with a commanding gesture. “Keep low has you can till you gets ’ere. The big chimbley ’ll keep ’em from seeing you till you ’re safe hup, sir.”
Crawling rapidly along on his hands and knees, the much-sought gentleman managed to gain the necessary distance without being discovered, and sheltered by the grim outlines of the huge chimney Buster had indicated, he climbed laboriously up the ladder to the window of Moore’s attic. The boy held out a welcoming hand and assisted him to enter. Once in, the stranger gave a sobbing sigh of relief, and groped his way to a chair. The moon, till now providentially bedimmed, came out from behind the froth of clouds and the light entering the window fell full on the new-comer’s flushed face.
“Blow me!” cried the boy in astonishment. “Hif it hain’t the Prince hof Wyles!”