LIFTER’S LOVE STORY.

Lake County Press, Issue 976, 22 August 1901, Page 2

LIFTER’S LOVE STORY.

[All Rights Reserved.]

By William Westall,

Author of ‘Red Ryvington,’ ‘Trust Money,’ etc. Lifter’s father was a tinker and a “ bad lot.” One Saturday night, being very drunk, he took his son Jack in his arms, tossed him up and let him fall on the floor, so injuring the child as to endanger his life and retard his growth. Instead of growing to be six feet something in his stockings, as, being naturally robust and big-boned, he might have done, he was never more than four feet nothing in his shoes. Worse still, he was deformed, one shoulder being higher than the other, his head tilted backward and his chin forward in a way that added distinctly to the oddity of his appearance. But be was as healthy as a Highlander and as nimble as a cat, and though plain, not ugly, for such beautiful brown eyes as Heaven had given the lad ■would have made even the missing link look human. Jack had a hard upbringing. When he was three years old his father died, and a good riddance. Ten years later his mother followed suit, which was a great misfortune for her son, her disappearance leaving him quite alone in the world and without kith or kin, and if a local tradesman had not given him board and lodging—of a sort—in return for his services as an errand boy, Jack would have had to go to the workhouse. When this resource failed him, he got work in a brickfield, where he gave satisfaction, for though short he was strong, and could carry a greater weight of bricks than anv lad of his age. This was in summer. In winter he had worse luck; and one exceptionally hard season, work in his native place failing utterly, he went on the tramp, and late on a dark January afternoon arrived in a northern village, where he fell in with a clergyman, who, struck by his wan face and short stature, questioned him. Jack told his story, and the vicar, for such he was, being a good soul who did not hold that waifs and wanderers are necessarily rogues and vagabonds, gave him a square meal and the price of a night’s lodging, and the next day found him a job, or, rather, two jobs—blowing the bellows of the church organ on Sundays and the bellows of the village smithy on week days, and making himself generally useful. For these services he was to have one shilling a week from the parson and one from the master smith (whose name was Smith), night quarters in a loft, and his food. In course of time came promotion as well at the church as at the forge. The vicar, finding that Jack had a fine bass voice, put him in the choir, and the smith finding that he was strong, made him a striker. It was a sight to see the little man, only about twice the height of the smith’s anvil, whirling the great sledge hammer round his head and striking showers of sparks from the glowing iron. He delighted in feats of strength, and so developed his muscles by exercising himself with weights that he could play with “ fifty-sixes ” as though they were toys. While Jack was a boy his peculiar physique had not greatly troubled him — there was a chance of his growing—but when it became evident that he would grow no more except in years and, possibly, in breadth, his shortness weighed on his spirits; the curious, too often impertinent, glances which he encountered were torture to him. Pity hurt him as much as scorn, and a naturally fine disposition was in danger of being turned to gall and bitterness. From this danger the consciousness of his bodily strength saved him. If he was the smallest man in Fernthorpe, he was also the strongest and not the least sharp-witted. True, the girls eyed him askance, and not one of them would have been seen walking out with so ungainly a sweetheart. But the men respected him because they feared him. Once a burly waggoner, with whom he had a dispute as to the shoeing of a horse, said that if he did not mind what he was doing he would put a hump on Jack’s face as b g as the one he had on his back. Without a word, Jack threw one of his arms round the fellow’s neck and one round his legs, and doubling him up like a pair of tongs threw him on the floor, where for several minutes he lay breathless. " You’ll keep a civil tongue i’ your head next time. I reckon. A mon as can lift a horse can best two or three like you,” quoth the master smith, when the waggoner had recovered his senses. It was seldom indeed that aught out of the common run befell at Fernthorpe, and when it was made known by flaring posters that a circus was coming the villagers were greatly excited. Among other attractions mentioned in the bills were feats of strength by the strongest man in the world, and a performance entitled ‘ Beauty and the Beast ’ by the Senorita Catalina Juanita, the famous lion queen, and Nero, a magnificent specimen of his race from the wilds of Africa. It was a chance that rarely occurred, as the posters put it. All Fernthorpe went, of course, and so many people came from the region round about that the tent was quite full. 1 After the usual equestrian feats. Hercules, the strong man, appeared, and did wonderful things with weights and iron bars. As a grand finale these were piled in a pyramid on an iron-bound board, which mighty load he raised from the ground and held above his head. Then the circus-master (whose name was Perrol) said that nobody but Hercules had ever lifted so great a weight, and offered to pay ten pounds to any man present who would raise the board, with its load, a foot from the ground. Lifter, who had been watching the proceedings with great interest, leaped lightly over the barrier. “ You ! ” exclaimed the circus-master, regarding him scornfully from his height of six feet two. “ Yes, me,” answered Jack, serenely. “If he does it, I’ll give him five pounds out of my own pocket,” said the strong man with a sarcastic laugh. Jack threw off his coat, and bending to the task not only raised the board a foot from the ground but high above his head. The spectators howled with delight; Hercules and his master exchanged glances of dismay. “ Well, you have done it, there is no doubt about that. We will settle with you after the performance or to-morrow morning,” said the circus man, grudgingly. "Now! Now!” shouted the spectators, whereupon, after a few whispered words with Hercules, he forked out three livepound notes and handed them to Lifter, who felt as though ho had conic into a great fortune. “ The next item in the programme is Beauty and the Beast,” announced the cir-cus-master, then shouted: “Bring forth Nero the lion ! ” Amid a blare from the band a huge cage, mounted on a lorry drawn by four horses, was brought into the ring. The cage contained a lion, which though not full-grown looked quite big enough to eat either the circus-master or the strong man. A carpet-covered step-ladder was set be-

fore the cage, and the next moment Senorita Catalina Juanita tripped into the arena, and after curtseying right and left glided into the lion’s den through the cautiously half-opened door. Lifter's surprise was unspeakable. Never before had he beheld or imagined loveliness so great or daring so audacious. A tall, sylph-like brunette was the senorita, with large black eyes, a passable complexion, not however without a trace of rouge, brilliant teeth, and features that some people might not have considered either classical or refined. But Jack had not been bred in a fastidious school; he thought her beautiful beyond compare, and in his opinion the girl’s rather light and airy costume, wherein bright colors predominated, and the “ property ” crown which encircled her brows, enhanced her charms. In short, Jack had fallen in love. Catalina put Nero through his paces with perfect sang froid. showing neither hesitation nor fear, patted him on the head, made him raise first one paw and then another, and jump over her whip. Then she held in her hand paper-covered hoops through which Nero bounded at her bidding, and otherwise behaved as a wellbred beast in the presence of beauty ought to do. The spectators, who had followed these proceedings with intense interest, hailed Catalina’s exit with a burst of applause, which arose quite as much from a sense of relief that all was well over as from admiration of her courage and address. On the following day, as Jack was returning from church after morning service, deep in thought, he felt a tap on his shoulder, and looking up beheld the circusmaster. “ Can I have a word with you, Mr Lifter?” he said ; then, without waiting for an answer, added: “Would you like to make your fortune?” “ Rather, if I only knew how,” responded Jack, who supposed the gentleman was chaffing him. “I can tell you how. Join my company.” “ Join your company !” “ Yes. I believe you are stronger than Hercules, and with proper training will be able to do more than he can. Anyhow, I am prepared to give-you two pounds a week and pay all travelling expenses.' “To go about with you?” “To go about with us, and give exhibitions of your strength, and perhaps rl n ether things.” “ Does the lion always go about with you?” The circus-master smiled. “Of course. Beauty and the Beast are a sure draw. Well, what do you say? Two pounds a week, and a year’s engagement.” Jack said Yes—he would have gone about with Beauty and the Beast for less than nothing, had that been possible—and agreed to join the company at daylight next morning. When the master smith and the vicar heard that their protege was going to turn “mountebank and travel with a show,” as the former put it, they were much distressed, and tried hard to dissuade him from his purpose. But quite in vain. The young fellow was immovable, and on the following day went off with the company. He proved an apt scholar, and by dint of continual practice, under supervision, so increased his already phenomenal strength ns to become not only a great weight-lifter but a clever acrobat. __ The bills described him as “ The Little Wonder,” and before the end of the year his part in the show was as popularly attractive as the senorita’s. Meanwhile Jack had learnt, among other things, that the lives of circus performers are not all glitter and glory; that “Beauty” off the stage and in ordinary attire was a very different person from Beauty posing as a lion queen; also that England, not Spain, was her country, and Kate Jones her proper name. But all this made no difference to Lifter. He liked his new life, and loved Kate (whom he always addressed as Senorita) no less passionately than on the eventful day when he first beheld her. Yet, though so deeply smitten, he cherished no illusions, feeling sure that neither she nor any other woman would ever care for him. He was content to love in secret, see the object of his adoration every day, and fetch and carry for her with the devotion of a faithful dog ; and when Catalina rewarded him with a smile or a kind word the poor fellow was in the seventh heaven of delight. Not for a long while, however, did she suspect that his ready obedience and the little services which he so often rendered her arose from any other motive than a natural desire on his part to oblige one so far above him as the lion queen. For Catalina received so much homage from the young men of the company, and so much applause from the public, that she might well be pardoned for deeming herself the most important persop in the show. When Lifter refused an offer of twenty pounds a week from a London manager, and renewed his engagement with Perrol at half the money, she merely thought him fool. But soon afterwards her eyes were opened in a very startling and dramatic fashion. The senorita had always “ kept herself respectable,” and was prudent and circumspect, only occasionally indulging in a little mild flirtation. She might have married, and when asked why she did not answered, laughing, that a lion* and a man were more than one woman could manage, and she preferred the lion. If she had a favorite among the men it was Enriquez, the star rider, who would fain have made her his wife. Lifter having divined this was madly jealous, for, though without the faintest hope of winning Catalina himself, the mere thought that another man might win her made him wild. Coming on them one day when they were en tete-a-tete, and the lion queen was in a merrv mood, and Enriquez doing his best to make himself agreeable. Jack found it impossible to dissemble his rage. “ What is the matter with you, little man? You look black enough to turn the milk,” quoth Enriquez, vexed by the interruntion. “ Little man!” “Well, aren’t you little? Don’t they call you the Little Wonder alias the Wonderful Dwarf?” “ Anyhow, I am big enough to stop your cheek.” And with that Jack, grasping the rider's waist, raised him from his feet, and had not Catalina intervened would have dashed him on the ground, at the peril of his limbs, if not his life. “ Take your hands off him; put him down ! Do you want to kill bun ?” she exclaimed imperiously. "I only wanted to give him a lesson. If 1 had wanted to kill him I would have struck him,” said Jack, sullenly, as he obeyed the order. "He is jealous of Enriquez. Well, I never! The idea !” she thought, half laughing ; yet from that time forth she treated Jack with more respect, and was perhaps not altogether displeased that she had inspired so strange a being with so strong a passion. Rather more than two years after Lifter had become a m'ofessional strong man. The circus, which had meanwhile made the tour of several countries, was again at Fernthorpe, where it arrived, as before, on a Friday night.

Jack’s fame had gone before him, and so many people of the neighborhood were anxious to see him in his new character that at the first performance, which took place at 3 p.m., the tent was filled to its utmost capacity. It was a matter of course that he should receive a hearty greeting, and his feats of strength were applauded to the echo. Old friends remarked that though as short as ever he was a great deal straighter, that his shoulders were now of the same height, his activity wonderful. After him came Beauty and the Beast, the latter now full-grown, and looking very formidable as he lav full length with his head between his paws. Catalina entered the cage with her wonted alertness, and ordered Nero to rise. To her surprise he took no further notice of her than to show his teeth and utter a low growl. On this she repeated the order and threatened him with her whip. This time he obeyed, but looked so vicious and growled so fiercely as to thrill the spectators with fear, anu there were loud calls for her to “ come out.” “ You had better; he is in a bad temper to-day,” said the circus-master, holding the cage door open. Catalina stamped her foot angrily, and was about to withdraw, when the 'brute, making a short spring, struck her down, then stood over her' with one paw raised, and roared his loudest. Blood was flowing from a wound in Catalina’s shoulder. Lifter picked up a bar of iron with which he had been playing, and thrust the circusmaster aside, saying: “ Drag her out while I hold him back.” Then, entering the cage, he dealt Nero a blow on the head which made him give ground and enabled the circus-master to draw the unconscious Catalina away. “Kill him! Fetch a gun! For God’s sake, get out!” shouted the horrified spectators. Nero, who had retreated a few paces, made another spring, which was met with a stroke that smashed his nose and teeth and I roke his jaw, but overborne by, the animal’s weight and torn by its claws Jack fell. Just then a rifle barrel was pushed between the bars of the cage. “ Don’t kill him; ho is her living,” cried Jack, and then went off in a faint. Nevertheless the lion died. Jack’s injuries were severe, and when he recovered consciousness the doctors, fearing lockjaw and other complications, forbade him to speak on peril of his life, also enjoined absolute quietude, and gave little hope of his recovery. But they underrated the strength of Jack’s constitution. He had never abused it, and his vitality was as phenomenal as his muscular power. Wounds inflicted by a wild beast’s claws are sometimes malignant, and generally slow to heal, but as luck would have it, Jack’s took good ways. In a few days he was pronounced out of danger. The first question he asked when they let him speak was : “ How is the senorita? Was she much hurt?” “ Not a great deal, not nearly so much as you were,” answered the doctor. “ The lion tore her shoulder and broke her arm, but she is getting on nicely, and is always asking about you.” Jack smiled. To know that the senorita asked about him was hope for his soul and balm for his wounds. Both invalids were in the village hospital, where they were taken after the tenable scene, which had so nearly been a tragedy, and a fortnight afterwards Catalina was allowed to pay her rescuer a. short visit, on condition that there should be no talking. When he saw her so pale, with her arm in a sling, Jack’s eyes filled with tears, and when Catalina saw him still paler, and his head (which had been “ brushed ” by the lion's claws) shaven, and covered with plaster, her eyes also filled, and there had nearly been a scene. “How are you, Lifter?” she asked softly. “I have brought you some flowers,” laying a bouquet on the bed. Jack’s eyes beamed gratefully through his unshed tears. "How good you are, senorita, to think of such a poor chap as me! Oh, I’m getting on first-rate. And you? lam afraid you were terribly hurt,” glancing sympathetically at her wounded arm. “This won’t do at all. No more talking, if you please,” interposed the nurse peremptorily. “Well, you need not be so sharp, it’s precious little talking we have done yet,” retorted Catalina, who did not believe in giving a kiss for a blow. “ But though I may not talk to Lifter, I may perhaps be allowed to ask you a question. Is he allowed to read?” “No, but I read to him sometimes.” “Will you read this to him, then?” producing a newspaper, and pointing to a marked passage. “Itis an account of what happened at the circus.” “ Very well. To-morrow, perhaps. He has had excitement enough to-day.” The nurse kept her promise, and on the following day Jack heard what the paper had to say about his rescue of Catalina from the lion, which it characterised as “ an act of supreme devotion and heroic courage.” “ And it is quite true; everybody says the same. You have made yourself famous, Mr Lifter,” added the nurse. “It is very kind of you to say so. All the same I don’t see what there is to make a fuss about, or where the merit come in,” quoth Jack simply. “Don’t see where the merit comes in? Didn’t you save a life by imperilling and nearly losing your own?" “ I never thought of that. When I saw the senorita in danger, I just went for Nero ; that was all.” “It was the senorita then. You would not have done as much for me, I suppose?” “Of course I should, or for any other woman.” “ There is no use your denying it. The papers are right. You are a hero, Mr Lifter, and I shall always say so,” exclaimed the nurse emphatically. The next time Catalina looked in Jack was so much better that no restriction was put on their talking, and the nurse discreetly left them to themselves. “ There is something I want to say. Lifter. I would have said it before, only while that woman was by I did not feel as if I could. You risked you life to save me from a horrible death, and got terribly mauled. Which was very noble of you, and I am very grateful to you. ... I cannot tell what possessed Nero. He had always been such a good lion. I managed him as easily as if he had been a man. But he is gone, and my occupation with him, and the papers are making such a fuss about my danger, and that, and saying that ladies have no business in lions’ dens, that 1 don’t think 1 shall get another engagement.” “The papers are quite right. But. don’t you worry about an engagement, I’ll keep you,” quoth Jack. “ No, no, that wouldn’t be proper.” “ Not proper?” “Of course not. Don’t you know that it isn’t proper for a. gentleman to keep a. lady -—unless she is a near relation?” “ A near relation!” exclaimed Jack in a voice tremulous with fear and delight. “ Do you mean—could you bring yourself to bo nearly related to a poor insignificant chap like me?”

“ Well, you are little, that’s true, but you are good and brave, and seeing that I am out of a place and have no lion to tame I—l almost think I might,” answered Catalina coyly. Something more passed, a good deal indeed, but all that need be said here is that a month later there was a performance at Fernthorpe Church, in which the leading parts were taken by John Lifter, the Little Wonder, and Kate Jones, otherwise Catalina Juanita, the ex-lion queen.