CHAPTER VI.
I STUMBLE INTO HORRORS.
It was exactly seven weeks later--that is to say, on the eveningof June 18th, 1811--that as I stood in the doorway whistling_Come, cheer up, my lads_, to Mrs. Trapp's tame blackbird, the oldJew slop-dealer came shuffling up the alley and demanded word with mymaster.
His name was Rodriguez--"I. Rodriguez, Marine Stores"--and his shopstood at the corner of the Barbican as you turn into SouthsideStreet. He had an extraordinarily fine face, narrow, emaciated, witha noble hook to his nose (which was neither pendulous nor fleshy) anda black pointed beard divided by a line of grey. We boys feared him,one and all: but in a furred cloak and skull-cap he would have made abrave picture. The dirt of his person, however, was a scandal.I told him that Mr. Trapp had walked over and taken the ferry toCremyll, where his boat was fitting out for the summer. "But Mrs.Trapp is washing-up at the back. Shall I call her?"
"God forbid!" said he. "I am not come to listen, but to speak."
I asked him then if I could take a message.
"As wine in a leaky vessel, so is a message committed to a child.Two of my chimneys need to be swept."
"I can remember that, sir," said I.
He eyed me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. "Yes; you willremember," he said, as if somehow he had satisfied himself. Yet hiseyes continued to search me. "You have not swept my chimneysbefore?"
"I have been working for Mr. Trapp almost three years," said Idemurely.
"Yes, I have seen your face. But I do not often have my chimneysswept: it is dreadful waste of money. The soot, now--your master andI cannot agree about it. I say that the soot is mine, that I madeit, in my own chimney, with my own fuel; therefore it should be myproperty, but your master claims it. Five years ago I left mychimneys un-swept while I argued this; but one of them took fire, andso I lost my soot, and the Corporation fined me five shillings.It was terrible." He fell back a pace and studied me again."If my brother Aaron could see your face, boy, he would want to paintit and you might make money."
"Where does he live, sir?" I asked.
"Eh? Good boy--good boy! He lives in Lisbon, in the Ghetto off theStreet of the Four Evangelists." He laughed, high up in his nose, atmy discomfiture. "If you ever meet him, mention my name: but firstof all tell your master I shall expect him at five o'clock to-morrowmorning." He wished me good night and shuffled away down the alley,still laughing at his joke.
At five o'clock next morning, or a little before, Mr. Trapp and Istarted for the house. The Barbican had not yet awaked to business.Its frowzy blinds were down, and out on the Pool nothing moved but afishing-boat sweeping in upon the first of the flood.
At the entrance of Southside Street, however, we almost overtook asoldier walking towards the town. He walked slowly and with a veryslight limp, but seemed to quicken his pace a little, and kept aheadof us. The barracks being full just then, many soldiers had theirbillets about the town, and that one should be abroad at such an hourwas nothing suspicious: yet my eyes were still following him when Mr.Trapp halted and knocked at the Jew's door. At the sound, I saw theman start and hesitate for an instant in his stride: and in thatinstant, though he held on his pace and was lost to sight around thestreet-corner, I recognised him and understood the limp. He was theman of the bull-chase--Sergeant Letcher (as the sentry had named him)of the North Wilts.
Nobody answered Mr. Trapp's knock, though he repeated it four or fivetimes. He stepped back into the roadway and scanned the unshutteredupper windows. They were uncurtained, too, every one, and grimedwith dust: and through this dust we could see rows of cast-off suitsdangling within like limp suicides.
"Very odd," commented Mr. Trapp. "You're sure he said five o'clock?"
"Sure," said I.
"Besides--five o'clock or six--why can't the old skin-flint answer?"
He knocked again vigorously. A blind-cord creaked, a window went upover a ship-chandler's shop next door, and a man thrust out his head.
"What's wrong?" he demanded.
"Sorry to disturb ye, Clemow; but old Rodriguez, here, bespoke us tosweep his chimneys at five, and we can't get admittance."
"Why, I heard him unbolt for ye an hour ago!" said the ship-chandler."He woke me up with his noise, letting down the chain."
The door had a latch-handle and Mr. Trapp grasped it. "Drat me, butyou're right!" he exclaimed, as he pressed his thumb and the door atonce yielded. "Huh!" He stared into the empty passage, out of whicha room opened on either hand, each hung with cast-off suits whichseemed to sway slightly in the scanty light filtered through theshutter-holes. "I don't stomach moving among these. Even in broaddaylight I'm never too sure there ain't a man hidden in one of 'em.He might be dead, too--by the smell."
He stepped to the foot of the uncarpeted stairs. "Mister Rodriguez!"he called. His voice echoed up past the cobwebbed landing and seemedto go wandering aloft among unclean mysteries to the very roof.Nobody answered.
"Mister Rodriguez!" he called again, and waited. "Let's try thekitchen," he suggested. "We started with that, last time: and, if mymemory holds good, 'tis the only chimney he uses. He beds in a smallroom right over us, next the roof, and keeps a fire going therethrough the winter: but the flue of it leads into the same shaft--apretty wide shaft as I rec'llect."
We groped our way by the foot of the staircase and along a line ofcupboards to the kitchen. The window of this looked out upon abackyard piled with refuse timber, packing-cases, and plasterstatuary broken and black with soot. Within, the hearth had beenswept as if in preparation for us. On the dirty table stood amilk-jug with a news-sheet folded and laid across its top, ahalf-loaf of bread, and a plate of meat--but of what kind we did notpause to examine. It looked nauseous enough. A brindled cat made adash past us and upstairs. Its unexpected charge greatly unsettledMr. Trapp.
"It daunts me--I declare it do!" he confided hoarsely. "But he'sbeen here, anyway; and he expects us." He waved a hand towards thehearth. "Shall I call again? Or what d'ye say to getting it over?"
"I'm ready," said I. To tell the truth, the inside of the chimneyseemed more inviting to me than the rest of the house. I wasaccustomed to chimneys.
"Up we go, then!" Mr. Trapp began to spread his bags. He always usedthe first person plural on these occasions--meaning, no doubt, that Itook with me his moral support. "The shaft's easy enough, I mind--two storeys above this, and all the flues leadin' to your right.I'll be out in the street by the time you hail."
I hadn't a doubt he would. "One week to Midsummer!" I cried, tohearten me--for we were both counting the days now between us and thefishing. He grinned, and up I went.
The chimney was foul, to be sure, but once past the first ten or adozen feet I mounted quickly. Towards the top the shaft narrowed sothat for a while I had my doubts if it could be squeezed through: butI found, on reaching it, that the brickwork shelved inwards veryslightly, though furred or crusted with an extra thick coating ofsoot below the vent. Through this I broke in triumph, sweating frommy haste; and brushing the filth from my eyes, leaned both arms onthe chimney-pot while I scanned the roofs around for a glimpsebetween them, down to the street and Mr. Trapp. I did so at ease,for a flue entered the main shaft immediately below the stack, whichwas a decidedly dumpy one--in fact, less than five feet tall; so thatI supported myself not by the arms alone but by resting my toes onthe ridge where flue and shaft met.
Now, as the reader will remember, it was the height of summer, andthe day had brightened considerably since we entered the house.The sudden sunshine set me blinking, and while I cleared my eyes itseemed to me that a man--a dark figure--something, at any rate, andsomething a great deal too large to be mistaken for a cat--stole fromunder the gable above which my chimney rose, and, swiftly crossing apatch of flat leaded roof to the right, disappeared around achimney-stack on the far side of it.
I ceased rubbing my eyes and stared at the stack. It was a tall one,rising from a good fifteen feet be
low almost to a level with mine,and I could not possibly look over it. _Something_, I felt sure,lurked behind it, and my ears seemed to hold the sound of a softfootstep. I forgot Mr. Trapp. By pulling myself a little higher Icould get a better view, not of the stack, but of the stretch of roofbeyond it: nobody could break cover in that direction and escape me.I took a firm grip on the corroded bricks and heaved on them.
Next moment they had given way under my hands, falling inwards: and Iwas falling with them.
I kicked out, striving to find again with my toes the ridge where theflue joined the shaft--missed it--and went shooting down to the rightthrough a smother of soot.
The total fall--or slide, rather--was not a severe one, after all;twenty feet perhaps, though uncomfortable enough for sixty. I pulledmyself up quite suddenly, my feet resting on a ledge which, as Ishook the soot off and recovered my wits, turned out to be the uppersill of a grate. Then, growing suddenly cautious when the need forcaution was over, I descended the next foot or two back foremost, asone goes down a ladder, and jumped out into the room clear of thehearthstone.
And with that, as I turned, a scream rose to my throat and diedthere. I had almost jumped upon the stretched-out body of a man.