Hard Cash Part 103

To his horror David followed him, and with a madman's agility soon caught him.

He snorted like a spirited horse, and shouted cheerily, "Go ahead, messmate; I smell blue water."

"Come on, then," cried Alfred, half mad himself with excitement, and the pair ran furiously, and dashed through hedges and ditches, torn, bleeding, splashed, triumphant; behind them the burning madhouse, above them the spangled sky, the fresh free air of liberty blowing in their nostrils, and rushing past their ears.

Alfred's chest expanded, he laughed for joy, he sang for joy, he leaped as he went; nor did he care where he went. David took the command, and kept snuffing the air, and shaping his course for blue water. And so they rushed along the livelong night.

Free.

CHAPTER XLIV

A REPORT came round that the asylum was open in the rear. A rush was made thither from the front: and this thinned the crowd considerably; so then Mrs. Dodd was got out by the help of some humane persons, and carried into the nearest house, more dead than alive. There she found Mrs. Archbold in a pitiable state. That lady had been looking on the fire, with the key in her pocket, by taking which she was like to be a murderess: her terror and remorse were distracting, and the revulsion had thrown her into violent hysterics. Mrs. Dodd plucked up a little strength, and characteristically enough tottered to her a.s.sistance, and called for the best remedies, and then took her hand and pressed it, and whispered soothingly that both were now safe, meaning David and Edward.

Mrs. Archbold thought she meant Alfred and David: this new shock was as good for her as cold water: she became quieter, and presently gulped out, "You saw them? You knew them (ump) all that way off?"

"Knew them?" said Mrs. Dodd; "why one was my husband, and the other my son." Mrs. Archbold gave a sigh of relief. "Yes, madam," continued Mrs.

Dodd, "the young fireman, who went and saved my husband, was my own son, my Edward; my hero; oh, I am a happy wife, a proud mother." She could say no more for tears of joy, and while she wept deliciously, Mrs.

Archbold cried too, and so invigorated and refreshed her cunning, and presently she perked up and told Mrs. Dodd boldly that Edward had been seeking her, and was gone home; she had better follow him, or he would be anxious. "But my poor husband!" objected Mrs. Dodd.

"He is safe," said the other; "I saw him (ump) with an attendant."

"Ah," said Mrs. Dodd, with meaning, "that other my son rescued was an attendant, was he?"

"Yes." (Ump.)

She then promised to take David under her especial care, and Mrs. Dodd consented, though reluctantly, to go home.

To her surprise Edward had not yet arrived, and Julia was sitting up, very anxious; and flew at her with a gurgle, and kissed her eagerly, and then, drawing back her head, searched the maternal eyes for what was the matter. "Ah, you may well look," said Mrs. Dodd. "Oh, my child! what a night this has been;" and she sank into a chair, and held up her arms.

Julia settled down in them directly, and in that position Mrs. Dodd told all the night's work, told it under a running accompaniment of sighs and kisses, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, and "dear mammas" and "poor mammas," and bursts of sympathy, astonishment, pity and wonder. Thus embellished and interrupted, the strange tale was hardly ended, when a manly step came up the stairs, and both ladies pinched each other, and were still as mice, and in walked a fireman with a wet livery, and a face smirched with smoke. Julia flew at him with a gurgle of the first degree, and threw her arms round his neck, and kissed both his blackened cheeks again and again, crying, "Oh my own, my precious, my sweet, brave darling, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, you are a hero, a Christian hero, that saves life, not takes it--" Mrs. Dodd checked her impetuous career by asking piteously if his mother was not to have him. On this, Julia drew him along by the hand, and sank with him at Mrs. Dodd's knees, and she held him at arm's length and gazed at him, and then drew him close and enfolded him, and thanked G.o.d for him; and then they both embraced him at once, and interwove him Heaven knows how, and poured the wealth of their womanly hearts out on him in a torrent, and nearly made him snivel. But presently something in his face struck Mrs. Dodd accustomed to read her children. "Is there anything the matter, love?" she inquired anxiously. He looked down and said, "I am dead sleepy, mamma, for one thing."

"Of course he is, poor child," said Julia, doing the submaternal; "wait till I see everything is comfortable," and she flew off, turned suddenly at the door with "Oh, you darling!" and up to his bedroom and put more coals on his fire, and took a swift housewifely look all round.

Mrs. Dodd seized the opportunity. "Edward, there is something amiss."

"And no mistake," said he drily. "But I thought if I told you before her you might scold me."

"Scold you, love? Never. Hush! I'll come to your room by-and-by."

Soon after this they all bade each other good night; and presently Mrs.

Dodd came and tapped softly at her son's door, and found him with his vest and coat off, and his helmet standing on the table reflecting a red coal; he was seated by the fire in a brown study, smoking. He apologised, and offered to throw the weed away. "No, no," said she, suppressing a cough, "not if it does you good."

"Well, mother, when you are in a fix, smoke is a soother, you know, and I'm in a regular fix."

"A fix," sighed Mrs. Dodd resignedly, and waited patiently all ears.

"Mamma," said the fire-warrior, becoming speculative under the dreamy influence of the weed, "I wonder whether such a muddle ever was before.

When a man is fighting with fire, what with the heat and what with the excitement, his pulse is at a hundred and sixty, and his brain all in a whirl, and he scarce knows what he is doing till after it is done. But I've been thinking of it all since. (Puff.) There was my poor little mamma in the mob; I double myself up for my spring, and I go at the window, and through it; now, on this side of it I hear my mother cry, 'Edward come down;' on the other side I fall on two men perishing in an oven; one is my own father, and the other is, who do you think? 'The Wretch.'"

Mrs. Dodd held up her hands in mute amazement.

"I had promised to break every bone in his skin at our first meeting; and I kept my promise by saving his skin and bones, and life and all."

(Puff.)

Mrs. Dodd groaned aloud. "I thought it was he," she said faintly. "That tall figure, that haughty grace! But Mrs. Archbold told me positively it was an attendant."

"Then she told you a cracker. It was not an attendant, but a madman, and that madman was Alfred Hardie, upon my soul! Our Julia's missing bridegroom."

He smoked on in profound silence waiting for her to speak. But she lay back in her chair mute and all relaxed, as if the news had knocked her down.

"Come, now," said Edward at last; "what is to be done? May I tell Julia?

that is the question."

"Not for the world," said Mrs. Dodd, shocked into energy. "Would you blight her young life for ever, as mine is blighted?" She then a.s.sured him that, if Alfred's sad state came to Julia's ears, all her love for him would revive, and she would break with Mr. Hurd, and indeed never marry all her life. "I see no end to her misery," continued Mrs. Dodd, with a deep sigh; "for she is full of courage; she would not shrink from a madhouse (why she visits lazar-houses every day); she would be always going to see her Alfred, and so nurse her pity and her unhappy love. No, no; let _me_ be a widow with a living husband, if it is G.o.d's will: I have had my happy days. But my child she shall not be so withered in the flower of her days for any man that ever breathed; she shall not, I say." The mother could utter no more for emotion.

"Well," said Edward, "you know best. I generally make a mess of it when I disobey you. But concealments are bad things too. We used to go with our bosoms open. Ah!" (Puff.)

"Edward," said Mrs. Dodd, after some consideration, "the best thing is to marry her to Mr. Hurd at once. He has spoken to me for her, and I sounded her."

"Has he? Well, and what did she say?"

"She said she would rather not marry at all, but live and die with me.

Then I pressed her a little, you know. Then she did say she could never marry any but a clergyman, now she had lost her poor Alfred. And then I told her I thought Mr. Hurd could make her happy, and she would make me happy if she could esteem him; and marry him."

"Well, mamma, and what then?"

"Why then, my poor child gave me a look that haunts me still--a look of unutterable love, and reproach, and resignation, and despair, and burst out crying so piteously I could say no more. Oh! oh! oh! oh!"

"Don't you cry, mammy dear," said Edward. "Ah, I remember when a tear was a wonder in our house." And the fire-warrior sucked at his cigar, to stop a sigh.

"And n--now n--ot a d--day without them," sighed Mrs. Dodd "But _you_ have cost me none, my precious boy."

"I'm waiting my time. (Puff.) Mamma, take my advice; don't you fidget so. Let things alone. Why hurry her into marrying Mr. Hurd or anybody?

Look here; I'll keep dark to please you, if you'll keep quiet to please me."

At breakfast time came a messenger with a line from Mrs. Archbold, to say that David had escaped from Drayton House, in company with another dangerous maniac.

Mrs. Dodd received the blow with a kind of desperate resignation. She rose quietly from the table without a word, and went to put on her bonnet, leaving her breakfast and the note; for she did not at once see all that was implied in the communication. She took Edward with her to Drayton House. The firemen had saved one half of that building; the rest was a black sh.e.l.l. Mrs. Archbold came to them, looking haggard, and told them two keepers were already scouring the country, and an advertis.e.m.e.nt sent to all the journals.

"Oh, madam!" said Mrs. Dodd, "if the other should hurt him, or lead him somewhere to his death?"

Mrs. Archbold said she might dismiss this fear; the patient in question had but one illusion, and, though terribly dangerous when thwarted in that, was most intelligent in a general way, and much attached to Mr.

Dodd; they were always together.

A strange expression shot into Mrs. Dodd's eye: she pinched Edward's arm to keep him quiet, and said with feigned indifference--

"Then it was the one who was in such danger with my husband last night?"