The Garret and the Garden | Page 3

fifteen years?" exclaimed Tommy Splint.
"Not for fifteen long year," replied his friend. "You see, Tommy, the pirates made a slave o' me, an' took me up country into the interior of one o' their biggest islands, where I hadn't a chance of escapin'. But I did manage to escape at last, through God's blessin', an' got to Hong-Kong in a small coaster; found a ship--the Seacow-about startin' for England short-handed, an' got a berth on board of her. On the voyage the second mate was washed overboard in a gale, so, as I was a handy chap, the cap'en he promoted me, an' now I'm huntin' about for my dear little one all over London. But it's a big place is London."
"Yes; an' I suspect that you'll find your little un raither a big un too by this time."
"No doubt," returned the seaman with an absent air; then, looking with sudden earnestness into his little companion's face, he added, "Well, Tommy Splint, as I said just now, I've cruised about far an' near after this old woman as took charge o' my babby without overhaulin' of her, for she seems to have changed her quarters pretty often; but I keep up my hopes, for I do feel as if I'd run her down at last--her name was Lizbeth Morley--"
"Oho!" exclaimed Tommy Splint with a look of sharp intelligence; "so you think that chimleypot Liz may be your Lizbeth and our Susy your babby!"
"I'm more than half inclined to think that, my boy," returned the sailor, growing more excited.
"Is the old woman's name Morley?"
"Dun know. Never heard nobody call her nothin' but Liz."
"And how about Susan?"
"That's the babby?" said the boy with a grin.
"Yes--yes," said Sam anxiously.
"Well, that babby's about five fut four now, without 'er boots. You see 'uman creeturs are apt to grow considerable in fifteen years--ain't they?"
"But is her name Blake?" demanded the seaman. "Not as I knows of. Susy's wot we all calls 'er--so chimley-pot Liz calls 'er, an' so she calls 'erself, an' there ain't another Susy like her for five miles round. But come up, Sam, an' I'll introduce ee--they're both over'ead."
So saying the lively urchin grasped his new friend by the hand and led him by a rickety staircase to the "rookeries" above.
CHAPTER TWO.
FLOWERS IN THE DESERT.
Beauty and ugliness form a contrast which is presented to us every day of our lives, though, perhaps, we may not be much impressed by the fact. And this contrast is presented in ever-varying aspects.
We do not, however, draw the reader's attention to one of the striking aspects of the contrast--such as is presented by the hippopotamus and the gazelle, or the pug with the "bashed" nose and the Italian greyhound. It is to one of the more delicate phases that we would point--to that phase of the contrast wherein the fight between the two qualities is seen progressing towards victory, and ugliness is not only overborne but overwhelmed by beauty.
For this purpose we convey the reader to a scene of beauty that might compare favourably with any of the most romantic spots on this fair earth--on the Riviera, or among the Brazilian wilds, or, for that matter, in fairyland itself.
It is a garden--a remarkably small garden to be sure, but one that is arranged with a degree of taste and a display of fancy that betokens the gardener a genius. Among roses and mignonette, heliotrope, clematis and wallflower, chrysanthemums, verbenas and sweet-peas are intertwined, on rustic trellis-work, the rich green leaves of the ivy and the graceful Virginia creeper in such a manner that the surroundings of the miniature garden are completely hidden from view, and nothing but the bright blue sky is visible, save where one little opening in the foliage reveals the prospect of a grand glittering river, where leviathans of the deep and small fry of the shallows, of every shape and size, disport themselves in the blaze of a summer sun.
Beauty meets the eye wherever turned, but, let the head of the observer be extended ever so little beyond the charmed circle of that garden, and nearly all around is ugliness supreme! For this is a garden on the roof of an old house; the grand river is the Thames, alive with the shipping of its world-wide commerce, and all around lies that interminable forest of rookery chimneys, where wild ungainly forms tell of the insane and vain efforts of man to cope with smoke; where wild beasts--in the form of cats--hold their nightly revels, imitating the yells of agonised infants, filling the dreams of sleepers with ideas of internal thunder or combustion, and driving the sleepless mad!
Susy--our Susy--is the cause of this miracle of beauty in the midst of misery; this glowing gem in a setting of ugliness. It is her modest