"Fire."

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1624, 23 December 1887, Page 9 (Supplement)

"Fire."

By Atha. Christmas night was a wild one. Black clouds, betokening a tornado of rain, were swept inward over the Grent Barrier towards the tall steeples and the lofty mansions which formed the first prominent landmark of the good City of Auckland. Threatening and cheerless as seemed the night, the pro-jp?ct did not deter the good citizens from thronging the main streets and thoroughfares in vast numbers to see and be seen. Here were men about town who, having dined at Denny's or the 'Albion.' turned out to ke> p Christmas Eve alter the good old custom of their forefathers. Thrifty matrons with scanty pu'se, part on bargains bent, wero here also; and milliners, old and young, whose wan faces seemed all the rcore ghastlv beneath the glare of the well-lit shops. Country cousins robed in tweed, and in most ca-es guided by their more wide awake Metropolitan kindred, pushed eagerly onward totheatre, ball, or concert, while thieves and vagabonds of both sexes, intermingled with a sparkling of thereat unwashed —all stream onward in a booming, noisy throng. Before one of the attractive shops in Shortland-Cresccnt a solitary figure stood gazing wistfully at a small oil painting exhibited in the window. Ho was a (all, well-made young fellow, not more than thirty years of age, but there were sharp angles about his cheek boms and his shoulders, which are m">< seen on those who are healthy and have the wherewithal to satisfy a good appetite. His dress had evidently been made for the back of a gentleman, but to judge by appearances, it had seen many Christmas days and was very shabby now. Thejioovf' llow could not complain of his boots—so far as ventilation was concerned—and the same might be said of the frock coat which lie lad 'outtoned well up to his chin, with the idea, no doubt, that the garment was a protection against the sharp, biting, west, rly wind. Notwithstanding a mean looking ha', napless and any shape but its primitive one, it could not d. tract one whit from the manly handsome fa<v of the wearer. The short-cropped daik hair, with its stubby curl, thick and -tmng a< wire, with beard and mou.-tachc to match,would have attracted the eye in any crowd, fur it formed a countenance on which was written in loving lines the history of a stormy life. Our shabby man did not want for company long. No surer way to draw a crowd than t j stand chock still a: d pn tend tobe attracted by soin< thing. Most of th"se who gathered aroiind tie 1 .-pot looked at the stranger much longer and hard' rthan is consistent with good breeding—white M>nie gave that widl-known suiti of disdain GO pecui u to your An 1' Saxon m sight of a poor ragged devil, and inst.tntly fell back fr >m him as from the presence of a mad dog.

The forlorn object of all t'ii-, however, app-nred totally um-.e; scious of the prepuce of those about him. Having looked at the picture for a few minutes, he walked into the >hop. "What is tiie juice of the painting?" he asked. A dapper, little sho;nn!i eyed the man from I ead to li.el eivjie replied. "One hundred guinea*.'" The stranger gave :i gasp. "Ah," ho said, fumbling ut s>n ethmg h:d away beneith his cat. " Can I .see Mr. Hardmatin f'>r a moment ''. ' "Mr. Hanliiiaini is busy—very nusy, sir. Can't -< e anyone tins evening," said the shopman, with a suspicious look. " Come again on Monday or next week—or—" " Whoisthisnnn.Jolm !" cried a smooth, soft voice, and Mr. II irdinann, -'atinner, picture dealer, and what not, presented Ins shinning pite, with spectales on nose from the door of ni- -ine:iiin. Too shal by one st ode f-rvard into the light. " You are Mr. Hndni inn." " Yos. "I have a painting 1 wish to dispose of," responded the man. at the -am ■ time producing a Mat parcel about a foot B'luare fnim the secret ivces3 ot his surt-

The stationer wiped his glasses, took the parcel, and unfolded a small picture in water colors. It wa- only the head of a child. A small, tiny head, with a wave of golden hair, out of which looked a face pun- and spiritual as that of an angi 1. From the painting. Mr. H minium's spectacles were raised towards thestranger, then back again to the picture several times. "Who painted this?" he asks, at length. " What d'>es it matter." answers the other, witii a monuy ring in lus voice. " The picture is mine.'' " Yours ?" "Aye, mine," cried th" stranger, with flashing eyes. "Doyou iniatrine I am a thief, because of my shabby clothes ?" "Hump!). No! What is your price?' " Ten guim as." " I am sorry to say I cannot accept it at the figure," replied the dealer in a decided tone. " What! Do you know, sir, I have refused fifty guineas for this face ere now," cried the shabby man passionately. " Very likely ; but you see I am overstocked with such things at present. Try elsewhere. I do not want it, my good man.'' " See here," responded the stranger in a fierce but subdued tone, and approaching closer to the shopman. " I want two or three paltry pounds to-night, for life or death periiaps depends upon it. Not for myself, mind you. No ! by heavens, no need of mine could tempt me to part with this. Here, take it at your own price, to-morrow or next day I may you a hundr d percent, on your purchase, only do not let us waste further time." Mr. Hardmann smiled, placed the painting carefully aside in a desk, then went to his till, from which ho took live sovereigns, and laid them on thg counter before his customer. Theshabby stranger clutched the money with a hungry greed in his eyes, and having scrawled a receipt, left the shop, and strode hurriedly along the bustling streets. The heedless crowd push, and thrush, and elbow him to and fro, but he is quite proof against their rudeness. There is an electric touch about the gold coins in his hand which seems to overstep all minor considerations. They are the talisman for him and for his pt'<j|ise— for this poor seedy rjguo has a on this good

Christmas Eve. Leaving the hum of the crowd behind him, he enters a more quiet part of the city. Pausing before a grocers' store, he enters, and purchases a bottle of expensive wine, some jelly, dried fruits, and one or two other articles, which makes a considerable gap in his slender funds. It is growing late by the time he reaches a labyrinth of narrow streets in the Farnell Suburb. Here there are few people abroad, the gas lamps are few and far between, and such miserable shops as find a living in the locality have put up shutters. Into a small court, representing some half dozen dilapidated huts—for they were little better—our poor wayfarer took his course. Guiding his steps through the darkness to where a tiny ray of light gleamed from the window of one of these wretched tenements, he knocked at the door, and was admitted by an old woman, a haif-caste Maori, who lifted her finger to enform quiet. " How is she, Kitore," whispered he, bending his pallid face towards the light. " No worse, Talbot, my dear master — no worse," she says, her great black eyes lixed upon him. " What have you tonight." " Some wine and a little jelly," he answers, handing her his purchases. " Doctor Holmsdale has been 1 " "Aye." " What did he say, Kitore ? " The half-caste looks at him in silence, but makes no direct reply. She is a comely old woman, this Kitore, spite of her dark skin. She can speak English remarkably well for a half-breed. The dwelling contains only two rooms. These are sc mtily furnished. Towards the inner apartment, the door of which stands ajar, the man's gaze wanders, as he repeats his question. The black or is of the Maori soften with something like maternal tenderness as she answers him. •'The doctor has been, Talbot, and ho says that Lily may live." " Thank heaven," gasps the other. "But the child will need care—groat care, my son," continued the Maori. " She will require expensive nourishment and a purer air. Doctor Holmsdale said she must be removed at once, or the poor dear will die." "Die ! and I utterly without the power to bid my darling live! Oh, Kitore, I have suffered much ; wife, station, fortune have all been taken from me, and I have borne it all without flinching. But if Lily dies, then I am utterly wrecked," and the man sank down to the floor, and buried his fa< e in his hands. The Maori looked at him compassionately, then sat down beside him, and drew his head upon her lap. "Talbot Drake, my son, my boy, my young master'. what shall old Kitore do to prove her love'.''' she cried, in a voice which trembled in its

intensity of feeling. "I, the Maori—nursed you when you were a baby, and watched your childhood ripen into boy and man, with almost a mother's love for you in my old heart. Here, upon my bosom, lay yotirhead the night when John Drake, your father, cursed you, and drove you from his house. Since then I have shared your wanderings, your sorrows, and your poverty ; only glad to serve and shield the son of my dear, dead mistress. Say, my young master! what shall Kitore do to save vour little blossom ?"

Full of pathos and sympathy sounded the voice of the old Maori as she fondled Talbot Drake's head between her palms. Here was the old, old story over and over again. •John Drake, one of the wealthiest mine owners in Maoriland, had an only son whom he idolised. Talbot Drake had never known the value of money, because the weak father had humored the youth's every whim, no matter how costly. Grown a man, Talbot Drake fell among thieves, was fleeced, as is usually the case with those who have not to work for their money. The sturdy millionare grew angry with the spendthrift, then quarrelled, and eventually cast him adrift to shift for himself. Talbot Drake made a poor shift of it. Indeed, the young fellow went as near starvation as one man may, and yet live. For five years he and his wife and one child, a girl, managed to exist somehow. Then the daily tussle for bread grew too hard for the woman, and she died, and the man continued the battle, growing daily and hourly more desperate, until Christmas Eve found them as we, reader, find them. The old Moari woman had been in the Drake household for thirty-five years, and with that true Maori instinct had followed the fortunes of the outcast and the wanderer. In the silent pauso between the converse of these twain, there comes a slight rustling noise from the next room. Talbot Drake rises without a word, and enters. On a sort of rude couch, done up into a bed, lay a lovely child betwen six and seven years of age. She was very fair, with round blue eye 3 and a thick cluster of bright golden hair. It needed no second glance to seo that the grim foe, fever, had had the child in its maw; fever such as is bred and fostered nowhere only in foul dens such as these, where every breath is a pestilence. "Lily, darling." The frail, faded child turned its heaa slay! v, and then there came over the wan face iwlowjvhich made it beautiful. " D^^B^^' 8 y° u ?" sno B *'d, with a stnilej .^^^^T~~ms: " Dubl

" DEAR PAPA, IS IT YOU ?" SHE SAID, WITH A SMILE

room in such a strange way ? There is no one here but I, my child !" The girl lifted her wasted hand, and drew his head down close to her own, and said, "dear papa, there was some one here." " Who, darling ?" "Hush! my mamma was here—here, close beside the bed ! Then an old man, with grey hair and a long beard followed —who lifted me in his arms, and kissed me, and called me 7ms Lily—the child of his child. That is what he said. Then I saw the room was filled with fine ladies, who gathered round and kissed me ;dso. Then I was carried away to a grand home on the hill, overlooking the Bay, and—and—there—there, I looked round, and found only you standing here, papa, beside me." The poor, tired waif sinks down beside the couch, and puts his arms round the little sufferer. What does it matter to him who may have carriages, and horses, and live in tine mansions, so that this one tender blossom maybe spared to him." So he sits and dreams, dreams of the olden days of pleasure, and evil, and wantonness, until the dark and silent Christmas Eve glides into the early Christmas Morn. Hark! What what was that ? A far off shout rings through the quiet streets. Then grows nearer. Hark ! '• Fire!" The cry grows and swells like a blast of trumpets on the night. Ding, dong, clang, clang, clang, pealed the noisy clappers of the tire bells through the city." " Fire, fire," until the alarm swells into a roar, and rouses the slumbering inhabitants in the distant suburbs. -Fire!" Wealthy merchants wake with a start, and hastily throw up their casements, but remembering that their warehouses and merchandise are well insured, betake themselves to rest again with a self-satis-tied grunt. The poorer and less careful business men, who have not a penny to expect from insurance companies, rush eagerly from their beds into the street to ascertain the whereabouts of the conflagration, utterly forgetful in the excitement of the moment that they are but scantly clothed, therefore liable to the law. "Fire!" The sound brings people together from all parts of the city ; from lanes and alleys, dancing saloons, from sheltered nooks and holes on the wharves, from low dens, and from rich men's drawing-rooms. Talbot Drake goes forth with the rest to view the fire king at his work. On the heights of Farnell, overlooking the Waitamata, the upper portions of a large stone mansion are envleoped in a living sea of flame. The strong breeze wafts the hugh fire upwards with a thundering roar, and lights up the surrounding crowd below it as if it were broad noonday.

Fire reels arrive and play upon it, but the tiny streams are only a mockery on that gigantic mass of fire. " Whose place is this Tenquiresa burly fellow in the crowd. "Old Drakes', of course, the millionaire. He has more money than any man in New Zealand," someone replies. " I guess he'll soon be some thousands poorer in an hour or so if this continues," responds the first speaker. "My stars, what a tire !" " The millioniare will soon be worse off than the poorest of us, or I'm much mistaken. Look 1" At thi3 moment there was a great commotion amongst the vast sea of faces round the burning mansion. An old man, tall and erect aa a soldier, with long, gray beard, approached one of the many windows at the top of the building. The devouring element has not yet reached the spot whence he stands, but it is approaching fast, and there seems to the seething crowd below no possible means of rescue. Many are the efforts put forth, but all prove futile. He is a brave, old man—cool, and self-possessed—watching calmly the approaching flames on one side, and the endeavours of the firemen to reach him. His position has become so perilous that, unless aid reaches him quickly, he will surely perish. Even now showers of sparks and red, fiery faggots are falling round him. Then comes a crashing noise upon him, suddenly. His hour has come, and he turns resignedly to face it. But no ! a stalwart man, his clothes burned and rent from his body, his face singed and bleeding, leaps into the room at the old man's side. The elder staggers back to the wall at the sight of the intruder, and a stifled cry escapes him. " Great heavens ! Talbot, my son ! My poor, unhappy son, is it you 1" The two men stand looking into each others eyes, oblivious to the crackliug roar and the falling timbers. "It is I, Talbot Drake, your son. Is not this a strange meeting, old man ?"

" What brought you here, boy ?" "Who shall say?" cried the younger man, with a wild look in his eyes. " There is something stronger than a man's will at work betimes, and against which we cannot strive if we would. I have come to resile you from tins flaming hell. That is all I know.'' The old man's face works strangely for a moment as the face in mortal agony. " Oh, Talbot, my lost prodigal," he cries ; " and you have risked your life to save mine ? Until this moment my heart was hard, and I felt death had no terrors for me. Now—now—. Son, try tccsave yourselH I can die contentedly now.^^^

not let me rescue you we will part no more in this world." "Give me your hand, Talbot. Now I am content to follow whither you lead, even unto death ?" " Courage, then. We will go. Look yonder !'' and Talbot Drake led the old man through the heat and the smoke to one of the windows at the rear of the building where the flames had not yet fastened, and bade him look further. Some yards away, there rose a projecting ledge of roof—reached from below by other similar ledges—upon which were gathered several figures watching them. To this spot there rati beneath the window a narrow, sloping ridge, not a dozen inches wide, upon which there did not seem foothold for a goat, much less a human ioot. By that perilous path, clinging to the charred stones above him, Talbot Drake had come t > his fathci s rescue. " i bis meeting lias, completely unnerved me. I cannot walk that narrow line," whispers the millionaire, faintly. " Let me implore you to save yourself, my son. Bend down your head, and take an old man s blessing. Xo\v go." " Together father—or not all all. See ! there is no time to be lost. Courage, I have the means of making our way easy." As the young man spoke, he began to unfasten a slender cord tied to his belt, the other end of which was made fast to something below the window. Hauling in the line, there came upward a stout rope, the end of which was soon made fast to the iron stanchions of the window. It would hang for a short time clear of the flames, and form a stay for them to cling to as they escaped the dangerous ledge. "I am ready, my son. Come." " That is it. So, if the rop.* holds we are safe. Grasp my hand, father. Now link yourarmthmly through mine. Bravo! Hold the rope firmly. Now! Death or life." " Heaven aid us, Talbot." " Amen." When the two figures were seen to leave the window, every sound washushed—each breath was held. A minute passed—another. Would that unnatural stillness never end ? It did end. Suddenly there went up a glad shout which drowned the roar of the flames and the rush of the

smoke. A moment more, and the whole of the stately roof from which the two fugitives had escaped fell in with a fearful crash. Christmas morning broke forth in roseate splendour on the blackened rain. The pure light peeped in at the broken window of Talbot-Drakes humble hut. It played long and lingeringly around the

cot where lay the little invalid, Lily Drake. The child's dream had come true. For here was the old man with the long, gray beard holding her in his arms, and kissing her face and her golden hair in his passionate ecstacy. Round the room moved grand ladies, and a tine carriage, with a pair of white ponies, stood ready so take her hence to that great house above ihe Bay. So, we leave them, good reader. The poor, forgiven prodigal, repentant father, the angel child, and Cod's glory our all.