Part 7

"I ca-came to see Mr. Gordon!"

"I am Mithter Gordon!"

"Ja-Jabez Gordon?"

"Jabez Gordon! and you are Mithter Buthkin."

"But you--I--oh!"

"Exthactly! Oh! ith jutht the word. Mithter Buthkin, I'm glad to thee you. We're old acquaintanthes, we are, although you may not know it! You ask my daughter 'Annah 'ow much indebted to you we feel. My 'Annah lookth on you ath a brother, a Christian brother. Thee them billth?"--Emmanuel slapped the pile of mission notices with a dingy hand. Lemuel's last shadow of pluck was evaporating fast; but Oldstein with the question challenged his fanaticism.

"I'm proud to be a labourer in the vineyard!" was the surly defiant reply.

"And well may be! But you're an unthkilled labourer, Mr. Buthkin. Now I'm glad you've called, for I want to talk to you; you're goin' to listen and then we may do bithness."

Lemuel, surprised and unprepared, was cowed by Oldstein's decision and speech. He had bitterness on his tongue, but refrained from any retort.

"Do you believe in the fairieth, Mithter Buthkin?" was the unexpected question.

Lemuel could only stare and wonder.

"Answer me!"

"Certainly I do not!"

"That'th a pity. I do."

"I believe in higher things."

"And do you live up to them?"

Lemuel gasped.

"I didn't come here to be insulted."

"No, Mithter Buthkin, and I don't go 'ome to be inthulted with them things--do you recognithe 'em?--in my letter-box. Who put 'em there? Look at 'em well! You did. Why? Because you're a tuppenny little thkunk--I leave your parenth out of it, for they're too old to know better; they're past mendin'--you're a little tuppenny thkunk who prethumes to think that your belief ith the whole and only truth, and that my belief--which my fathers and their fathers 'eld for thouthandth on thouthandth of yearth, long before London wath more than a puddle, ith--I don't know what you think it ith. You can't compre'end it, Mithter Buthkin, no, you can't!"

The old man paused and watched his victim keenly. He then burst out with speech of passion.

"You to convert uth! You to wish to make uth such Christians as yourselves--nuisances in the street--thingin', blarin', thpeakin' uncharitably of our neighbourth! To convert uth! Father Abraham! I'd rather be a persecuted Jew, stoned, starved, beaten, 'ated--as we have been 'ated, starved and stoned for thousandth of yearth--than such a Christian! Even if I 'ad to be a damned thoul burnin', rottin', stinkin' in Gehenna for ever afterwardth, I would not be such a Christian! Thit down, Mithter Buthkin!"

Lemuel hesitated, but obeyed. He hated and feared this old man of anger, whose voice had become powerful with passion. Somehow the armoury of texts seemed insufficient.

"I athked you jutht now if you believed in the fairieth, and you thaid 'No.' Well, I do believe in 'em, and it ith well for you I do. I meant to punish you for worryin' us with them billth. I meant to crush you, to end you. There'th nothin' tho easy in bithness life ath for a finanthier to crush a poor man, if 'e likes. I meant to crush you and your people because of your cruelty to uth. I'd 'ave lent you moneys at such a rate of interest, on such artful terms, that you couldn't 'ave paid it back; and I'd 'ave bought you up and broke you, body and soul. But the other night I wath dinin' at the Mansion 'Ouse with the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and my friend the Venerable Reverend Archdeacon Pryde, who's athked me to tea with him. You read what appeared in the papers, 'aven't you? Everyone there made resolutions, and, like the others, I made promises, which I'm goin' to keep. Lucky for you, Mr. Buthkin, that I did. Now I'll begin by makin' you a prethent. I give you back them billth. Here they are. What common paper you do use for 'em! I could put you in the way of buying much better quality at the price you pay, I bet! Burn 'em! Take 'em 'ome and burn 'em! And now, if you like, we'll talk bithness. Mithter Buthkin, I was glad you wrote to me. Ha, ha!" His laugh was not musical. "You must 'ave been agreeably surprithed when you found Jabez Gordon was me! 'Annah would laugh, too, if I were to tell 'er 'ow you looked. But bithness now!"

Lemuel, who had just been feeling limp, made an effort to rouse himself. The genial note in Oldstein's voice was to him as balm in Gilead.

"You want a 'undred poundth--to thpread the cause, ath you call it. Well, I ain't goin' to lend you money to thpread any cause, but I'll be better than my bond: I'll lend you a 'undred at 10 per thent--50 per thent. would be low enough, too low for such rotten thecurity ath you can give--on condition that you pay your family's debts with it. I know about 'em, Mithter Buthkin; E. Oldstein's a knowing one. Also, that not one 'alfpenny of it goes to convertin' anybody. I've never made such an offer ath this before, and if any man 'ad told me a year ago I'd do it, I'd 'ave called 'im somethin'. You can thank the fairieth for it. But that ain't all! I'll give you ten pound at once--'ere they are, nice fat yellow boys, ain't they?--to buy food and clothin' for poor Christians--Christians, mind!--who need it. I'll trutht you to dithtribute the moneys honestly. Put 'em away carefully, Mithter Buthkin. To-night you can come to my 'ouse--it's next door to yours--number forty-eight, and fetch the loan and sign the document. Jutht realithe thith, Mithter Buthkin, I'm treatin' you wonderfully well--the fairieth 'ave made me do it!--but, mind my words, put another paper of any kind into my letter-box, or let me find you even printin' a bill about the Conversion of the Jewth--and fairieth or no fairieth--I'll crush you!"

Oldstein sat down exhausted. He took a strong cigar out of a drawer, cut and lighted it with quivering fingers.

Lemuel's mind was in a riot of confusion. Qualms of conscience, of gratitude, of fear swept through him. He rose mechanically, picked up and pocketed the ten sovereigns, and feebly squeezed Oldstein's proffered hand.

"Do you thmoke, Mr. Buthkin?" asked Emmanuel.

"No!"

"Does your Dad thmoke?"

"No!"

"That'th a great pity. So good for the 'eart! If you wanted to buy thome cigarth at any time, real 'Avanah, I could get you a 'undred--good uns, mind; strong, with a flavour--for a very low price. Well, theven o'clock to-night! 'Annah will be pleased to see you!"

Lemuel walked the whole way home, and more than once said, "Dash!"

*CHAPTER X*

*THE IMPORTANCE OF BIM*

It was some few weeks before Emmanuel Oldstein was able to fulfil his good intention of visiting Paradise Court. Sally was the last on his list, and not till June's name-month was half-way through could he come to her.

Meanwhile things had been happening. The newspaper crusade was going well, and the two from Fairyland were using their efforts to help it forward.

The gnome was becoming influential in Paradise Court. It was in especial his province. June, with her wings and magic, could visit a wide area; but he, with his poor inches and limitations, was necessarily stay-at-home. Partly through accident he began a revolution which was fated to have important effect in the recovery of London. This is how it happened.

The old flower-box whence he had taken the mould for their flourishing roof-garden was a faded, decrepit affair; otherwise its meagre quantity of wood would surely, long ago, have been broken and used as fuel. For years it had stood in a dank corner, barren and forgotten. Then, in a fit of prankishness, Bim carried down a violet, the only one gathered in the Mansion House posy, and planted it. June had given it power of life; with the tenacity of its kind it had struggled, flourished and come to bloom.

It was the gnome's treasure. He was proud of its being, and looked after it in a spoilt parental way, exaggerating its few qualities, blessedly blind to its defects.

For some days it bluely blushed unseen; and then came into a prominence which half pleased, half frightened it.

Poll Skinner cast her husband-blacked eyes upon it.

"Lor' lummy!" she cried, "a voilet!"

She looked at the flower and thereupon fell in a dream. A violet in Paradise Court! For the first time for years she was out of the ugly present, away from the base life about her.

Memories of old days, clean days, lived again. She saw herself as she was, before sin, want and selfishness had claimed and kept her. As she was! As she was! She remembered her father's cottage, with its garden of pinks and wallflowers. She remembered a wood near an ivied church; and was once again a girl, hunting for primroses, bluebells and violets. She remembered her white pinafore and her cleverness at weaving daisy-chains. How clean in all ways was that maiden life! And now---- Paradise Court! Drink and the devil had taken their toll! God!

Poll found tears in her eyes when she woke to the present. She wiped her face with grimy hands and left traces.

"Blimey, 'ere's old Poll drunk again!" said one of the knights of the place, a hulking fellow who called himself a dock-labourer, but whose idle hands were almost rooted to his pockets. "What yer starin' at, Poll?"

Poll indicated the flower. He saw it and stretched forth a hand.

"There ain't much to blub about in that!"

"Leave it be, Mike!" she cried, fearing his destructiveness. "Leave it be! It's a voilet!"

"A what? Let's 'ave a look! Who are ye shovin'? I want to look at it." She resisted him. "I'll wipe yer eyes if ye don't!"

He pushed forward with all his strength, intending, in sheer debasing mischief, to grab and crush the flower; but Poll struggled like a cat-woman to prevent him. He lost temper and struck her in the face. She, shrieking and shrill, tore his forehead with her nails, and tried to bite him. Her hair came loose. There was blood on her cheek. The animal emerged from Man.

The tumult of shuffling feet and foul speech brought others of the Court to doorways and windows. Women, who knew nothing of the cause of the combat, added their voices to Poll's in vigorous denunciation of Mike. The men--brave fellows!--looked on and grinned. One slunk away from the scene of the encounter; that was Skinner, Poll's natural protector and supposed husband. He went into the public-house and ordered beer.

The battle ended when Mike had accomplished his purpose and grasped the flower. He threw it on the pavement and ground it with his boot. Then he went away leisurely to enjoy refreshment after victory. His thirst had found an excuse. Poll's fury lapsed into noisy tears. She entered her one room, threw a rusty flat-iron on the floor, and nagged at the children.

Bim had watched this commotion from the parapet above. He sprawled on the cement-work, peeped at the tangle of heads below, and felt thoroughly frightened. Deeply did he regret that June was not there. She would have fought on the side of Poll and the violet, and given them victory. Had only her wand been left behind he could and would have intervened effectively. But nothing could be done. When he saw brutality win, he went moodily back to the fairies' garden, and pondered on ugly things.

The blues drove him into a brown study. He decided the affair should not end there. He uprooted a lingering primrose, and crept down with it. He carefully grubbed the mould in the box to freshen its jadedness, and planted the yellow flower--the fairies' oriflamme.

Back to the parapet he clambered to wait and watch.

Hours passed by. Nothing happened that day to reward his patience. The people of Paradise Court are not observant. The primrose lived and shone without appreciation until the morrow, when June magically drew attention to it. Some children first caught sight of it and curiously poked at it with sticks. It was a new wonder to them.

Poll saw the group about the box, and came to look. The wrath of yesterday was requickened within her. The children in their wisdom edged away from the virago, who carried the box to the sill outside her window, dumped it down; and then, in a voice of challenge, screamed out:

"'Ere's a primrose come! If anybody touches this, by Gawd, I'll murder 'im!"

Mike, having won his battle yesterday, was quite good-tempered to-day. He sauntered up to look at the flower and laughed.

"I won't touch it, Poll. You can 'ave yer measly primrose," and went off for another drink.

Poll hesitated, then followed him: their feud was drowned in beer.

The primrose lived for a week, and held a sort of continuous reception. Bim was as proud as a peacock about it. He got stiff-neck staring over the parapet, straining to hear the compliments and praise. Everybody in the Court paid it a daily visit and undue tributes. The children could hardly be induced to keep their hands from it. Their fingers itched to pluck; but Poll Skinner was a power to be feared. She kept sober in order to be the better sentinel.

Mike suddenly shifted the interest of Paradise Court to his abode by bringing home three flowerpots containing hyacinths--how he obtained them had better not be asked. As at the same time the primrose happened to fade, and its plant had no promise of buds, Poll felt chagrin. The balance of her world was shifted. Mike held the hub of the hemisphere.

She drank herself silly with gin, and beat her children frightfully; but the return of sober sanity brought new ideas. Poll rose to the occasion. She sent her "old man" to a distant churchyard to steal some good new mould; and then bought--actually bought--from the publican's wife, a rose-plant warranted to flower.

Poll bore it home triumphantly, while Paradise Court smiled.

Mike's hyacinths--in comparison with Poll's aristocratic plant--had now to take a second place, very far-behind, in the public interest. And it was no good making reprisals. Neither his wits nor his wealth would enable him to do better than Poll. Moreover, the fashion of flowers was spreading. Three other residents in the colony had put up rough window-boxes, with green things in them; and the children, keen to follow their elders, found tins, jam-pots, pickle-jars, and planted within them anything they could get; grass, if nothing of the flower kind was available.

Bim felt a third of an inch taller; he trod with an airier tread, now that his influence over Paradise Court had become so manifest. He laboured with Salvationist ardour to help the people; supplementing and moderating their energies, and encouraged the flowers to live. For hours he would sit in blest invisibility by one or other of the plants, enjoying the admiring remarks addressed to them, sharing the general satisfaction.

Families came to talk of weedy green things as if they were spreading chestnut-trees; while those members of the community who, having gone "hopping," had actual experience of wild life and woodland facts were regarded as travellers and oracles. Living up to their opportunities, they told vegetable counterparts of certain fish stories. Bim's blessed interference certainly caused some white stealth and a multitude of tarradiddles.

Nor was the indirect influence of the gnome yet at an end.

'Arry Bailey was the instrument of the next progressive step. He had some nasturtiums and was ambitious of getting them to climb in festoons round his window. He used nails, string, language and glue. At last he succeeded. For a time his nasturtiums were the rage. Their blazing colours and rapid growth made them popular. But Bailey, in whom the aesthetic sense must have been recovering after years of hibernation, felt that something was lacking. He smoked three ounces of shag and scratched his chin for hours on end before it dawned on him what it was.

Then he said "By gum"--that was all he said--and proceeded to surprise the Court by cleaning his window. One of the panes was badly cracked, the mark of some midnight fracas; so--more surprising still--he measured the gap, bought glass and putty, and entertained a Sunday crowd of chaffing, envious lookers-on by mending it himself, making a clumsy good business of it.

Bailey's act of reformation occasioned criticism and imitation--action is mostly imitation in Paradise Court. Before a further seven days had dawned and darkened not a window on any floor in the Court but was washed and polished. In cases where there was no money for mending, new paper--preferably illustrated--was put in broken places, window-sills and doorsteps were whitened.

The inhabitants began to feel proud, to give themselves airs, to wash their necks.

Curtains of all shapes and colours appeared, rooms became tidied: homes tolerable. Men stayed indoors to smoke their pipes and gossip, going less frequently to the public-house. Not that the improvement was so rapid as to seem violent. Paradise Court was, is, and will be till the trump, a home of conservatism. Its motion is that of a glacier. Yet it does move, and did. Though drunkenness and slovenliness, with brutalities of words and of fighting, were still over-frequent, there was real improvement, and a quiet growth of self-respect, which, after the lapse of months, had borne remarkable fruit. Bravo, Bim!

The gnome extended his efforts further afield, and was constantly dropping flowers before children in the alleys and other drearinesses of London, in order that they might be picked up, taken home, appreciated, loved, and wanted.

June, learning from him, was glad to follow his example. She scattered love-bringing blooms and blossoms--gathered without permission from the parks--wherever there were brown plain walls and ugliness. She wanted the fairies to come back to their ancient rights and rule; but felt they certainly would not stay where flowers were forgotten.

She longed--longed desperately--for the return of the elves to their ancient dominion over the town.

One night a company from Elfland made grand appeal to her. It was a full hour and more after midnight, and absolutely dark. No moon shone on the scene, no stars shed brightness from the sky.

Bim was sprawling on the roof-gutter lost in dreams. His head rested on a sparrow's deserted nest. June was in her bower, too weary for visions, even too weary for sleep. She was tired at heart, thoroughly, utterly tired! Her only comfort came from the flowers beaming about her. She felt the loneliness of London. Fairy memories called and called and called to her. She was weary of burdens. This pilgrimage in the dark city was dreary, heavy, grievous and horrible. But still, she must stay.

Her quick ears caught the rustling of many fairy wings in the distance; only one with sympathies sensitive and truly attuned to the wafting could have heard them so far away. She sat and saw elves on the wing. They were haze-shrouded, high in the sky above. Would they penetrate the murky canopy? Had they come in late answer to her appeals, to help with the burden, to share in the task of re-creating beauty in the wilderness?

She watched them wheeling in the upper air in distant luminousness, curving, descending. She grasped her wand and followed their progress intently, hoping all things, yearning to be with them again.

The flowers about June's bed, the flowers in the court below, lifted glad heads in greeting. They freshened visibly. Bim in his slumbers sighed, and comfortably turned as he slept.

The elves alighted on the roofs around. There were thousands of them. Half the folk of the Violet Valley, of the Land of Wild Roses, of other parts of Fairyland, must have been there. They were multitudinous, innumerable, and clustered on rims of chimneys, on angles of houses, on street-lamps and window-sills, making of dull commonplace a remarkable series of pictures. All the while they were singing songs of sweet appeal.

June donned her crown, while they hovered and settled, and stood to greet them. Some sparrows, surprised by the unwonted spectacle, woke and began chirping. It was beggarly music, monotonous the word for it: but it served. London, alas! had nothing better and the sparrows did their best. Fairy kindness overlooked the deficiencies.

Suddenly there was silence: elves and birds hushed.

"Welcome, sweet comrades from Fairyland!" said June. "I am glad you have visited me amongst these shadows. Will you stay and help to restore London to Oberon?"

"Nay, nay," answered a hundred voices, slender and silvern, from here and from there.

"June, our June!" a sparkling knight then cried to her. "Your going has brought gloom into the elf-countries. Oberon and Titania have been grieved and absent since your flight; all others of us have felt the changes. Come back to us! It is like living in a valley with the sunshine and moonlight always gone; like living in a wood where the flowers for want of blessings and dew are shrivelled. Change this for us, June! Come back, come back!"

"Come back, come back!" echoed the wide chorus, plaintively, pleadingly.

Clocks struck two. A cold wind came from the sea.

"Sisters and knights from the delightful countries," June answered. "To hear your voices is music to a heart which has hungered for melody. To be with you again and for ever is the dream of these days and nights. O Fairyland, Fairyland! But for me that cannot be, until this world-town of vanity and darkness is a part of Fairyland too. Help us, and work with us. Already Hope shines through the misery. Already we have been rewarded--Bim and I. We have begun well. Laughter and flowers bloom where a few weeks ago they could not. We are going to win. Men have listened to our bidding. Elf-rule is leading them. Their puppet limbs are bending to the light. They are beginning again in the darkest parts to live with beauty and love the fairies. Bear with us: and help them. Before next Mayday comes, I must deliver up this crown. Sweet knights and sister elves, so work with us that Oberon may be ruling over London again."

In answer a fairy song went rolling from the assembly, up and up, piercing the cloud overhead, discovering the stars. June rejoiced at the hearing, though still it was an appeal to her--a yearning appeal to her--to be done with her madness, to submit to Oberon, to return. June felt alone.

The new song wakened Bim. He sat up suddenly, ears pricked sharply with eager attention. Fairies in London!

He clambered amazedly up the slanting roof and knelt by the side of June. She laid hands on his shoulders. The two waited and watched.

In twos and threes, reluctantly, the fairies opened wings, and went away. Over the houses they journeyed, a glittering, saddened procession. Higher and higher, and farther and farther they flew. The sound of their chorus gradually diminished till there was silence--the silence of sleep-bound London--again.

Gone!

June gazed on her garden of flowers. The gnome crawled away sadly, and squatted by the chimney-pot, dangling his feet. He felt a solid piece of melancholy.

"That was a very nice dream," he said for comfort's sake; and found the words not comforting.

"Let us be doing things," June counselled.

*CHAPTER XI*

*A PROSE INTERLUDE*

Oldstein came at last to Paradise Court, and two good things resulted--Sally was taken out of her slave-life and sent to a boarding-school at the expense of her former task-master, and June went to tea with the Archdeacon.

Emmanuel had been for six weeks living up to his ideals. It was the hardest of tasks to him, but obstinate doggedness pulled him through. He had come actually to like doing good, and realized the subtle joys which live in generosity. He developed a habit--learned indirectly from the goodly practices of Dr. Johnson--of keeping chocolates and pennies in his pocket, and dropping one or other of them surreptitiously into the laps, pockets, or hands of children. June was proud to smiling-point of this, her least-likely pupil. He was doing the fairies' work so pleasantly.