A Hero of Romance (Unabridged). Richard Marsh
went in too. To remain shivering outside would have been such a lame conclusion to a not otherwise too satisfactory expedition, that it seemed to him like the last straw on the camel's back. Besides, it was quite on the cards that the impetuous Stephen would be engaged in his carrier's work, and be pleasantly conspicuous by his absence from home.
The interior of the shop was pitchy dark. The little light which remained without declined to penetrate through the small lozenge-shaped windowpanes. Mrs. Huffham's lamp was not yet lit, and the obscurity was increased by the quantity of goods, of almost every description, which crowded to overflowing the tiny shop. No one came.
"Let's nick something," suggested the virtuously minded Griffin. Ellis acted on the hint.
"I'm not going there and back for nothing, I can tell you."
On a little shelf at the side of the shop stood certain bottles of sweets. Dick reached up to get one down. At that moment Wheeler gave him a jerk with his arm. Ellis, catching at the shelf to steady himself, brought down shelf, bottles and all, with a crash upon a counter.
"Thieves!" cried a voice within. "Thieves!" and Mrs. Huffham came clattering into the shop, out of some inner sanctum, with considerable haste for one of her mature years. "Thieves!"
For some moments the old lady's eyes could see nothing in the darkness of the shop. She stood, half in, half out, peering forward, where the boys could just see her dimly in the shadow. They, deeming discretion to be the better part of valour, and not knowing what damage they might not have done, stood still as mice. Their first impulse was to turn and flee, and Griffin was just feeling for the handle of the door, preparatory to making a bolt for it, when heavy footsteps were heard approaching outside, and the door was flung open with a force which all but threw Griffin back upon his friends.
"Hullo!" said a voice; "is anybody in there?"
It was Stephen Huffham. With all their hearts the boys wished they had respected authority and listened to Mr. Shane! There was a coolness and promptness about Stephen Huffham's method of taking the law into his own hands upon emergency which formed the basis of many a tale of terror to which they had listened when tucked between the sheets at night in bed.
Mr. Huffham waited for no reply to his question, but he laid an iron hand upon Griffin's shoulder and dragged him out into the light.
"Come out of that! Oh, it's you, is it?" Charlie was gifted with considerable powers of denial, but he found it quite beyond his power to deny Mr. Huffham's assertion then. "Oh, there's some more of you, are there? How many of you boys are there inside here?"
"They've been a-thieving the things!" came in Mrs. Huffham's shrill treble from the back of the shop.
"Oh, they have, have they? We'll soon see about that. Unless I'm blinder than I used to be, there's young Ellis over there, with whom I've promised to have a word of a sort before to-day. You bring a light, granny, and look alive; don't keep these young gentlemen waiting, not by no manner of means."
Mrs. Huffham retreated to her parlour, and presently re-appeared with a lighted lamp in her hand. This, with great deliberation, for her old bones were stiff, and rheumatism forbade anything like undue haste, she hung upon a nail, in such a position that its not too powerful light shed as great an illumination as possible upon the contents of her shop. Far too powerful an illumination to suit the boys, for it brought into undue prominence the damage wrought by Ellis and his friend. They eyed the ruins, and Mrs. Huffham eyed them, and Mr. Stephen Huffham eyed them too. The old lady's feelings at the sight were for a moment too deep for words, but Mr. Stephen Huffham soon found speech.
"Who did this?" he asked; and there was something in the tone of the inquiry which grated on his hearers' ears.
Had Dick Ellis and his friend deliberately planned to do as much mischief as possible in the shortest possible space of time, they could scarcely have succeeded better. Three or four of the bottles were broken to pieces, and in their fall they had fallen on a little glass case, the chief pride and ornament of Mrs. Huffham's shop, which was divided into compartments, in one of which were cigars, in another reels of cotton and hanks of thread, and in a third such trifles as packets of hair-pins, pots of pomade, note-paper and envelopes, and a variety of articles which might be classified under the generic name of "fancy goods." The glass in this case was damaged beyond repair; the sweets from the broken bottles had got inside, and had become mixed with the cigars, and the paper, and the hair-pins, and the pomade, and the rest of the varied contents.
Mr. Stephen Huffman not finding himself favoured with an immediate reply to his inquiry, repeated it.
"Who did this? Did you do this?" And he gave Charlie Griffin a shake which made him feel as though he were being shaken not only upside down, but inside out.
"No-o-o!" said Charlie, as loudly as he was able with Mr. Stephen Huffman shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat. "I-I-I didn't! Le-e-eave me alone!"
"I'll leave you alone fast enough! I'll leave the lot of you alone when I've taken all the skin off your bodies! Did you do this?" And Mr. Stephen Huffham transferred his attention to Bailey.
"No!" roared Bertie, before Huffman had time to get him fairly in his grasp. Mr. Huffman held him at arm's length, and looked him full in the face with an intensity of scrutiny which Bertie by no means relished.
"I suppose none of you did do it; nobody ever does do these sort of things, so far as I can make out. It was accidental; it always is."
His voice had been so far, if not conciliatory, at least not unduly elevated. But suddenly he turned upon Ellis with a roar which was not unlike the bellow of a bull. "Did you do it?"
Ellis started as though he had received an electric shock.
"No-o!" he gasped. "It was Wheeler!"
"Oh, it was Wheeler, was it?"
"It wasn't me," said Wheeler.
"Oh, it wasn't you? Who was it, then? That's what I want to know; who was it, then?" Mr. Huffham put this question in a tone of voice which would have been eminently useful had he been addressing some person a couple of miles away, but which in his present situation almost made the panes of glass rattle in the windows. "Who was it, then?" And he caught hold of Ellis and shook him with such velocity to and fro that it was difficult for a moment to distinguish what it was that he was shaking.
"It--was--Whe-e-eler!" gasped Ellis, struggling with his breath.
"Now, just you listen to me, you boys!" began Mr. Huffham. (They could scarcely avoid listening to him, considering that he spoke in what was many degrees above a whisper.) "I'll put it this way, so that we can have things fair and square, and know what we're a-doing of. There's a pound's damage been done here, so perhaps one of you gentlemen will let me have a sovereign. I'm not going to ask who did it; I'm not going to ask no questions at all: all I says is, perhaps one of you young gentlemen will let me have a sovereign." He stretched out his hand as though he expected to receive a sovereign then and there; as it happened he stretched it out in the direction of Bertie Bailey.
Bertie looked at the horny, dirt-grimed palm, then up in Mr. Huffham's face. A dog-fancier would have said that there was some scarcely definable resemblance to the bull-dog in the expression of his eyes. "You won't get a sovereign out of me," he said.
"Oh, won't I? we'll see!"
"We will see. I'd nothing to do with it; I don't know who did do it. You shouldn't leave the place without a light; who's to see in the dark?"
"You let me finish what I've got to say, then you say your say out afterwards. What I say is this--there's a pound's worth of damage done----"
"There isn't a pound's worth of damage done," said Bertie.
Mr. Huffham caught him by the shoulder. "You let me finish out my say! I say there is a pound's worth of damage done; you can settle who it was among you afterwards; and what I say is this, either you pays me that pound before you leave this shop or I'll give the whole four of you such a flogging as you never had in all your days--I'll skin you alive!"
"It won't give me my money your