Tom Gallon

“ Gilbert Byfield went unhappily out of the house, and wandered about in the grounds. "I'm a mean brute," he muttered to himself—"and I'm sneaking out of a business that I'm afraid to face openly. But it's no good: I can't look into her eyes and tell her the truth; I can't drive her back penniless and friendless into Arcadia Street. The child loves me; in a sense we are both waifs of fortune—and in that sense we'll face life together. The whole circumstances are so mad and strange that they must be faced in a mad and strange manner. ”

“ In a word, sir, the thing is magnificent—even if carried a little too far."
"I firmly believed it to be an island until a few days ago," said Gilbert. "I, like others, have been deceived; I, like others, have been driven on a road I never meant to travel. Great things and great consequences have sprung from my small beginnings."
"Nobly said, sir!" exclaimed Daniel Meggison. "But what I would ask is—why give the game away now?" He lowered his voice to a whisper, and took a step towards the younger man. "You've played the game splendidly; play it a little longer. ”

“ Everything is real; I don't have to make-believe any longer."
"Fortunes are lost sometimes; it happens every day," he urged again. "Suppose this great fortune of yours was swept away—this fortune that came by lucky speculation—what then?"
"I can't believe that it will ever end; I can't believe that Fate would be so cruel as to send me back again to Arcadia Street—and to all the old unhappy life."
"You forget, Bessie; you were very happy there—playing that great game of life." ”

“ Pringle, who had kept the secret so well, would keep it even better for the future; Gilbert had nothing to fear from him. Nothing short of an accident could betray the fact that they were so near to civilization, and an accident of that sort was not likely to happen. The splendid summer weather and the open-air life and the freedom from anxiety and world-worry had had a soothing effect upon them all; they accepted all that came to them with the blind confidence of children, and appeared almost to have forgotten that they had ever led any other lives. ”

“ Jordan Tant. "You talk of life—and respectability—and what not; I tell you I've seen more life in a week in Arcadia Street than ever I saw in years before. Look out into the streets; you'll see a dozen sights that shock you—you'll see a dozen things that are unlovely. And yet I tell you that I have stepped in this place straight into the heart of Fairyland—and that I dream dreams, and see visions. And all on account of a pale-faced shabby girl, who lives next door, and lies in wait behind the parlour window to catch the lodgers who never pay her when they come!" ”

“ Stocker. "In what direction are you looking, brother?"
"In all directions, my dear Julia," said Meggison, in a jubilant tone that sprang from the fact that he had unexpected money in his pocket. "I may be said to say to the world—'Give me work; help me to discover work; give me some hard task, with appropriate pay attached to it—and then see what I'll do!' I appeal to Bessie: am I not for ever condemning the state of the labour market?"
"I have heard you speak of it often, father," said the girl.
"And what, for example, is Aubrey doing?" demanded Mrs. Stocker, turning suddenly on that youth. ”

“ As for the Tant-like people of whom you speak so scornfully, I would remind you that they belong properly to that sphere to which you also belong, when you are not in your present revolutionary spirit. You are forgetting what I have endeavoured often to remind you about; you are forgetting the dividing line which must be kept between the classes and the masses. The world knows you as Mr. Gilbert Byfield—with any amount of money, and any amount of property; you are masquerading as a very ordinary person, in a very ordinary and commonplace neighbourhood. ”

“ Gilbert replied. "But what appeal have you to make to me?"
"Not to let her know that this place is not really an island, and that she can escape at any moment," urged Jordan Tant. "Here, my dear Byfield, I am a person of importance—a man to be leant upon, and to be trusted in an emergency; she leans upon, and she trusts me. Take me back to London, and I become at once a well-dressed atom that rides in cabs and takes afternoon tea; there would be nothing heroic about me there at all." ”

“ And the great god Chance happens along one day, and sees that we are in a bit of a muddle, and are spoiling our lives; and shakes us up, and tumbles us about—and perhaps sets us straight again. This one has a gilded toy, and doesn't know how much it's worth; and so the toy is snatched away and given to another; and this one has nothing, and gets perhaps not the gift it craved, but something better yet. What if I told you, Bessie, that the man who played that great game of make-believe with you had touched disaster too, and was as poor as you are? ”

“ We must take care of you, Bessie. Much better go for a walk."
"But I like the garden, father," the girl urged faintly.
"For to-night, my dear—to please me," said Daniel Meggison, with an unaccustomed smile—"go for a walk. There may be little matters of shopping which you ordinarily leave to Amelia; go yourself on this occasion; you will probably buy more economically than she will. You must think of these matters in dealing with a household. Come, Bessie, I know what is best for you; put your hat on, and go out." ”

“ Arcadia Street was not to be brought into the West End and dumped down there.
It happened that between the acts he went out to smoke a cigarette, and found himself, with a dozen other men, near the open doors of the theatre. A few people were strolling listlessly outside in the street—pausing now and then to stare in at the well-dressed men, and to whisper. And once a girl went past—a thin shabby girl in black; and he was reminded so forcibly of Bessie Meggison that, without knowing what he did, he hurried out of the place, and went after her. ”

“ Poor enough, I should think, to live in Arcadia Street in real earnest," said Simon. "Well—I'm sorry if I've touched on anything that has pained you; best forget it. Love's a queer business, and I'm not sure that you're not well out of it. Let the brute starve; it'll do him good."
"Mr. Quarle—you know I didn't mean that at all," faltered Bessie. "You're the unkindest man I've ever met." ”

“ I had read in books of people who had a difficulty in making both ends meet—and quite nice people at that; I had dreamed of a world outside my own very ordinary one, where romance was to be found—and beauty—and love and tenderness. I was sick to death of the high voices and the gracious airs and the raised eyebrows of most of the women I knew—the time-killers, with nothing in the world to occupy them; I wanted to take off my coat, and get back to what I know my grandfather, at least, was in his time: a real hard-working citizen. A better man than ever I shall be, Jordan ”

“ Meggison said that this sort of thing should be encouraged; that men of sentiment were rare, and that for his dear daughter's sake at least the chance should be snatched at. With the draining of that glass Mr. Daniel Meggison had firmly persuaded himself that it was his solemn duty to sink his own personal feelings for the sake of his child, and to make war upon this young man. Not too steadily he went down Arcadia Street with that idea in his mind.
Bessie had recovered, and was leaning upon the sympathetic Amelia, inclined to laugh a little at this new weakness that had come upon her. ”

“ Meggison," said the younger man—"but I fancy her father has not troubled very much about her until this moment. Don't bluster, sir; I am her friend before everything else."
Daniel Meggison took a step forward, and looked at the other; took a step back, and rolled his head threateningly; took another step forward, and laid a hand on Byfield's arm. "Sir," he said solemnly—"I am sure of it. Only you must forgive the anger and the suspicion of a parent to whom his child is very precious. She has no mother, sir."
"I know that," said Gilbert. ”

“ Egged on by a man with whom, under ordinary circumstances, he would have had nothing to do, your poor old father has tried to do something for you at last—to make your life easier.' Go to Bessie, and tell her that—make her understand that all her house of cards must topple down, and that she must for the future loathe the man she now believes in and loves. The way is easy; it only requires a very few words."
"You know I can't do that; you know you've got me hard and fast, because in front of you and all your scheming stands the girl who does not deserve to suffer. ”

“ All my affairs have gone to smash, Mr. Quarle; I've come to Arcadia Street, because in the old days I found it cheap, when I was playing a certain game for the fun of the thing—and I may find it cheap now, when I am playing that game in solid sober earnest. Now do you understand?"
Mr. Simon Quarle leaned forward, and peered down at this new wonder. "You mean to tell me that you are no longer the rich Mr. Byfield we used to know? You mean to tell me that you have got to set to work to earn your living?" he asked.
"Yes—and with no particular qualifications for doing it," said Gilbert. ”

“ Rather let it be said that attached to each dingy house is a dingy plot of ground that is only a "garden" by courtesy—a place where the primeval instincts of man have from time to time urged him to dig in the earth, for the sole reason that it is earth, and in the mad hope to raise from it something that no other London garden has yet accomplished. The moon that looks down on each slip of ground at night knows differently; she has seen the thing being done for generation after generation, and finally given up in despair. ”

“ If you shut your eyes the least little bit, so that you can only just see out of them, you seem to be looking down long spaces—ever so far; and you can sit there under the wall, and think you're anywhere—anywhere in the world except in Arcadia Street."
"I have shut my eyes to a great many things far too long, Bessie," he exclaimed fiercely. "I have been inclined to forget at times who I really am, and the position I should have occupied. ”

“ Simon Quarle—restless and watchful like himself—met him presently wandering about the house; and once more faced him squarely, with a demand as to what he was going to do. "The girl's got to be lifted out of this slough of deceit and lies and humbug; she's too honest to live in it," said the old man. "Try gentle means, if you can—if you don't, I must try rougher ones."
"I've fully made up my mind what to do," said Gilbert in reply. "To-morrow our game of make-believe will end; Mr. Daniel Meggison has come to the end of his tether." ”

“ The game of make-believe for him is ended; he has come down to the realities. All his money is gone; he's got to work and fight and strive, as every other man must work and fight and strive in this world, if he's to be worthy to be called a man at all. And he wanted to know about you, Bessie."
"Only the old whim—only the old feeling that he's sorry for me. I'm only a little patient drudge again, in the house where he first saw me; and even the poor old garden that I think he laughed at secretly [320] to himself is gone, and blotted out. ”

“ Presently the engines started, and the Blue Bird glided out of Newhaven Harbour into the English Channel, and turned westward. Unexpected journeys are always tiring; and all those with whom we are concerned had made unexpected journeys that day. They slept soundly, lulled to slumber by the throbbing of the engines, and the sound of the waves through which they churned their way.
Almost the first of the company to wake in the morning and to come on deck was Bessie. The Blue Bird was plunging and tearing through a choppy sea, but the new sensation was delightful ”

“ Here am I, without a shilling to bless myself with——"
"Everyone that I have ever known, and everyone that I ever shall know, has been and will be in that state," exclaimed Bessie with conviction. "I don't believe in all the stories about people having more money than they know what to do with; I simply can't believe them. All the world is poor and struggling—and everybody fights for money that they never by any chance get. ”

“ Your credit here, sir—or the credit of your servant—is particularly well established; they bow before your name, sir."
"Are you another of them anxious to keep the fraud going?" asked Gilbert in amazement.
"Certainly, sir," replied the unabashed Daniel Meggison. "In a primitive fashion I am very happy here: what will happen when the winter comes on is of course quite another matter. But let the future take care of itself; for the moment we are children, and we laugh in the sunshine."
"The tide's turning, sir," said Pringle, getting up from his box, and preparing to shoulder it. ”

“ But, at all events, we live respectably—not in hovels."
"Respectable is the word," said Gilbert, with something of a sigh. "And yet I'm sure that you really have news—of a sort. Come—a bargain with you: you shall give me your news, bit by bit, and item by item; and I'll see if I can match it from my experience here."
"Well, in the first place," said Mr. Jordan Tant, shifting uneasily on his chair, and finally drawing up his legs until his heels rested on the front wooden rail of it—"in the first place, Miss Enid wonders what has become of you, and is naturally somewhat troubled about you." ”

“ The people of position in this world are those who have come by right to the top; it's fellows like Byfield that put wrong notions into their heads, by mixing with 'em, and coming down, in a sense, to their level. I assure you that when I discovered him he was living in a perfectly shocking place."
Mrs. Ewart-Crane closed her eyes, and shivered. "Then I'm very glad to think that he's left it," she said. "For my part, I wish to hear no more about it; let us regard it as something happily done with and forgotten."
"But I want to hear about it, mamma," persisted Enid, laughing good-humouredly. ”

“ At the worst, it'll keep us going for a day or two, sir."
"Go ahead then—but be sparing," said Gilbert.
"Very good, sir," replied Pringle cheerfully; and proceeded to hand out miscellaneous provisions forthwith.
"I feel that I am a citizen of the world," said Daniel Meggison, biting a biscuit, and looking round upon his fellow-voyagers. "Anything might happen to me—anything may happen; but at least I shall have warmed both hands at the fire of life."
"That's about the only fire you ever will warm your hands at, Dad, I should think," retorted Aubrey. ”