Sawn Off Part 13

"Oh no, I don't think I do--not a bit," she said, half archly, half with the tears in her sweet eyes, as they would look tenderly at him, and seemed to say how much she would like him to come and protect her.

"I do not believe you, my darling," he cried impetuously. "I'm quite satisfied about that. Aunt dear, you'll let me go with her?"

"I don't like it," said Mrs Shingle; "and I'm sure it will lead to trouble."

"Not it. Come, Jessie!"

"No, no, no!" cried Jessie. "Indeed you ought not to come, Tom."

"Tom! Well, I must come after that," he cried.

"Oh no: I did not mean it."

"Well, look here," said the young fellow. "Listen, both of you. If you will not let me walk with you side by side, I'll follow like a shadow."

"Shadows can't carry parcels," said Jessie merrily.

"This one can, and will."

"There, go along, do, both of you," said Mrs Shingle, whose eyes twinkled with pleasure as she looked on Tom's eager face. "You'll be dreadfully late."

"All right," cried Tom joyfully; "we'll make haste, and if we are going to be late we'll take a cab."

"Because we are ashamed of the parcel," said Jessie demurely.

"Ashamed!" cried Tom. "Why, if you'll come with me I'll take the parcel under one arm and you under the other, and walk all round the quadrangle at Somerset House when the clerks are leaving, just to make them all envious."

"Go along, do!" cried Mrs Shingle. And she stood gazing after them as there was a playful struggle for the parcel at the door; while, as they disappeared, the plump little woman took up her shoe-binding, began st.i.tching, and sighed--

"Heigho! I'm afraid I've done very wrong."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

HOPPER--SHIP'S HUSBAND.

"Halloa, you sir!" said a snarling voice; "mind where you're running to."

"Beg pardon! Halloa, Mr Hopper, is it you?" exclaimed Tom.

"Eh? What? Yes, it is me, you rough, ill-mannered cub. Tom Fraser, if you were my son, hang it, sir, I'd thrash you, sir--trying to knock down a respectable wayfarer who is getting old and infirm."

The speaker shook the ugly stick he carried at the young man as he spoke, and his great ma.s.sive head, with its unkempt grizzled hair and untended beard and whiskers, looked anything but pleasant; for from beneath his s.h.a.ggy, overhanging brows his eyes seemed to flash again.

"I didn't try to knock you down," shouted Tom, putting his face close to that of the old fellow, who looked as if his seventy years had been spent in gathering dirt more than in cleaning it off.

"Don't shout. I'm not so deaf as all that, you ugly ruffian. Pick up those boots."

Tom stooped, and picked up a very old pair of unpolished boots that the other had been carrying beneath his arm, and had let fall on the pavement in the collision.

"There you are, Mr Hopper, and I beg your pardon, and I'm very sorry,"

said Tom, smiling pleasantly. "There you are," he continued, tucking the boots under his arm. "It's all right now."

"What are you halloaing like that for, you ugly young bull-calf?"

snarled the old fellow, shaking his stick. "Do you think I want all the people in the Buildings to come out and listen? Don't I tell you I'm not so deaf as all that, hang you? What are you going to do with that girl?"

"Only going down into the City," replied Tom.

"Hey?" said the old fellow.

"City!" shouted Tom.

"Oh! Does your father know you're going with her?" cried the old fellow, with a malevolent grin beginning to overspread his countenance.

"No," said Tom, flushing slightly; while Jessie began to look troubled.

"Hey?"

"No!" shouted Tom.

"Does her father know you've come?" said the old fellow, pointing at Jessie with his stick.

"No!" said Tom stoutly, and beginning to grow indignant.

"Then," continued the old man, chuckling, and rubbing his hands together, and dropping first his stick and then his boots, which Jessie hastened to pick up, "I'll go and see Mr Shingle to-night, and tell him; and I'll wait here till Richard Shingle comes home, and I'll tell him; and there'll be the devilishest devil of a row about it that ever was. You've no business here, and you know it, you scoundrel. She isn't good enough for you. You're to marry the fair Violante--the violent girl. There'll be a storm for you to-night, young fellow; so look out."

"I'll trouble you to mind your own business, Mr Hopper," exclaimed Tom hotly.

"Hey?" said the old fellow, holding a boot up to his right ear, like a speaking trumpet.

"I say, if you get interfering with my affairs, Mr Hopper," cried Tom angrily, and paying no heed to a whispered remonstrance from Jessie, "I'll--"

"I can't hear a word you say: try the right side."

As he spoke, he held the other boot to his left ear, and leaned forward in an irritating manner, grinning the while at the speaker.

"I say that if you dare to--"

"Tchsh! I can't hear a word if you mumble like that. Oh, be off with you: I've got no time to waste. I'm seventy, and if I'm lucky I've got ten years to live. You're five-and-twenty, and got fifty-five, so you are wasteful of your time, and spend it in running after girls who don't want you--like your beautiful brother Fred. Bless him! if I had any money to leave I'd put him down in my will for it--an artful, designing scoundrel!"

"Look here, Mr Hopper," cried Tom hotly, "you can abuse me as much as you like, and tell tales as much as you like, and play the sneak; but because you've known me from a child I won't stand here and hear my brother maligned."

"There, it's no use, I can't hear a word you say," grumbled the old fellow; "but it don't matter,--I can see by your manner that you are abusing a poor helpless old man, the friend of your mother and that girl's father, and you are keeping her back, so that she'll be late with her parcel, and make her lose the work, and then you'll be happy."

"Confound--" began Tom. "Here, come along, Jessie," he cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing her arm through his; and the old man stood chuckling to himself as he watched them out through the tunnel, before he made for the door with the red sign, and giving a sharp rap with his stick entered at once, nodding quietly at Mrs Shingle.

"Here, I've brought d.i.c.k a job," he said, carrying the old pair of boots to the bench. "He's to do them directly, and they're to be sixpence--I won't pay another penny. Are you listening?"

Mrs Shingle nodded, and went on with her work.