University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER SEVENTH.
RALPH ONCE MORE.

Once more we return to Ralph.

We left him hanging in the air, one hand
grasping the lattice, the other clutching the Tin
Box against his side. It was a perilous moment.

Ten feet at least were between the
young ruffian and the pavement, the lattice
was breaking in his grasp, a ruddy light
streamed from the basement story and illumined
the shadows of the yard.

Ralph raised his grey eyes to the moonlight,
muttering between his teeth, that all was lost,
and then cast a glance beneath him. It was
not a pleasant prospect. The light gleaming
in a flood from the opened door of the basement
story, showed the surface of the yard,
one mass of ice and frozen snow, with here
and there the dark face of a brick, by way of
contrast.

In a moment a world of hopes and fears
flashed through his brain. Fanny, his dying
mother, the Penitentiary, a scuffle with the
robbers in the gloomy yard, terminating in a
murder — thoughts which we express in these
broken words, hurried through his brain like
a flood through the unclosed lock of a canal.

“Here's the last o' Jonesey,” he cried, and
shut his eyes. He fell. Was he dashed against
the pavement covered with ice and snow? Did
he lay there, a stunned and death-like mass of
wretchedness, clad in rags, insensible to the cold
or to the clutch of angry hands?

He shut his eyes and fell. For a moment
all was dark, a sound like Fairmount Dam
roared in his ears, and then —

He unclosed his eyes, and found himself
hanging in the air within a foot of the pavement.
In his fall he had madly clutched the
trunk of the vine. And now, as it swayed and
and creaked with his weight, he held it firmly
with the grasp of a drowning man, looking
about him with bewildered eyes.

The light from the basement door described
a belt of brightness on the snow and ice beneath
his feet. Voices, too, grumbling in half-suppressed
tones, met his ear, but no face nor
form appeared in the frame of the basement
door.

“Aint all over yit,” muttered Ralph, recovering
his presence of mind: “Brass is trumps
always, an' legs does when brass falls short.
Fust for brass and then for legs.”

He dropped upon the ice and snow. His
blood boiling with excitement, he did not seem
to feel the cold, and stood as firmly with his
bare feet on the ice-covered bricks, as though
he trod upon a floor covered with a double
thickness of Wilton carpet.

“This way,”—a hoarse low voice came
through the basement door.

Ralph did not pause to think, but made the
best of his way toward the back of the yard.
He saw the fence which separated it from the
alley, glowing whitely in the moon. And then,
turning the corner of the wing of the mansion,
he saw the door which had given him entrance,
and the marble steps coated with ice and snow.

“This way, this way”— the voice grew
louder.

“Save your necks — the jig's up,” cried
another voice.

“They don't track me by the nails in my
shoes, nor by my coat nayther,” said a third
voice, and then there was the sound of a dozen
pair of feet, trampling over ice and snow.

Ralph, still girding the tin box to his side,
glanced cautiously around the corner of the
house, and with that glance commanded a full
view of the narrow strip of yard which lay
between him and the basement door.

A crowd of men, dressed variously, but with
their hats brought down upon their eyes, were
hurrying from the basement door, up the steps
which ascended to the level of the yard. The
foremost of the band dashed a lantern against
the wall. Ralph knew him by his tattered
round-a-bout, and muttered between his teeth,
“Blue-jay!” The second person stood for a
moment in full moonlight, and, to the great
surprise of Ralph, pulled off his overcoat
spotted with great white buttons.

“Stewel kin take his coat agin,”— Ralph
heard the muttered exclamation. And then,
still peeping round the corner, he saw the personage
deliberately strip his boots from his feet.

“You shan't swear to me by them boots,
nayther, Stewel,” exclaimed Humming Bird
— for it was he — “No doubt you meant it
well, when you lent 'em to me, but it won't
do, old boy.”

But Ralph had not much time to spend in a
longer survey of this scene. Scarcely had
Humming Bird dashed the great coat and huge
boots aside, (both worn over another coat and
pair of boots) than Blue-jay pushed him forward
over the snow, exclaiming — “Go it
Bird! Now' your time to spread your
wings.”

They were rushing rapidly toward Ralph.
Seized with a panic, believing that they had
fallen into a trap prepared by Stewel, they
were making the best of their way toward the
gate. As Ralph stood at the corner of the
house, half-way between the basement door
and the gate, it must be plain to the most obtuse
comprehension, that Ralph and his tin box
will encounter the gaze of the fugitives, before
another instant passes over his head.

And Blue-jay and Humming Bird were
followed by a crowd of other forms, dark,
ragged, disguised in all sorts of caps, and hats,
and cloaks, and overcoats.

“Brass or legs? Which is it?” said Ralph
to himself, clenching his right hand: “If I make
a push for the gate they'll see me: if I stay
here they'll be sure to maul me, and as for the
tin box — O hokey! Won't they make a rush
for it?”

One glance toward the approaching thieves,
one toward the gate which was at least ten
yards off, and then Ralph clenching his hand,
turned abruptly resolving to bury himself
against the marble steps of the back door.

At this moment his foot touched a dead
body, which was extended stiffly on the snow,
the blood oozing slowly from its severed throat.

It was the dead body of a Newfoundland
dog — a noble animal, whose black fur lay
sleek and glossy, in the shadows, against the
cold white snow.

And right before the eyes of Ralph, rose a
small structure, placed near the foot of the
marble steps, and bearing over its gaping entrance
the significant words — “BEWARE THE
DOG.”

To fling himself through the narrow entrance,
into the residence of “the dead dog,”
was the work of an instant. And crouching
there, his knees touching his chin, and the tin
box resting by his side, Ralph surveyed the
yard, as a man in a light house might take observations
along a line of rough and craggy
coast.

“This is the end of all o' Stewel's plans,”
said a voice, well known to the ears of Ralph,
and Blue-jay paused for a moment to contemplate
the carcase of the dead animal.

“He p'isens dogs, plants a nice leetle house
breakin' and arter all gits a dozen o' us into a
cussed trap. Oh Stewel Pydgeon!”

And the voice of Humming Bird by his side
echoed with a curse, “Oh Stewel Pydgeon!”
Nor did the name of this respectable dignitary
die on the air, with the last accent of Humming
Bird. For ten other figures came round
the corner of the house — stood between
Ralph's eyes and the moonlight — and gazed
from beneath their downdrawn hats and caps,
upon the dead body of the Newfoundland
dog.

“Stewel Pydgeon!” they groaned in chorus.

And Ralph shrinking within his rude retreat,
beheld these distinguished faces and stout
forms, clad in the very livery of vulgar theft,
while the broken sentences of a low muttered
conversation came distinctly to his ear.

“Shill we go back?” whispered Blue-jay.

“Stewel may mean the fair thing, arter all,”
was the remark of Humming Bird.

“Else why did he p'isen that ar' dog?”
muttered a third.

There was a pause — the gang of burglars
seemed to battle with the panic which had impelled
their flight — while Ralph, afraid to
breathe, set his teeth together, and began to
feel cold for the first time.

A sound was heard, breaking horribly upon
the stillness. Was it only the crash of an
icicle falling from the roof, or the creak of an
unclosing door?

“They're comin',” shouted Blue-jay, “Stewel
and his poleese! Run for it, every chap as
wishes to save his bacon!”

And away over the frozen snow they scampered,
until their footsteps resounded from the
back part of the yard. Ralph heard the gate
creak on its hinges, and the noise of their footsteps
echoed from the alley. Echoed, grew
faint and fainter, and then died away. Once
more all was the unbroken stillness of a clear,
cold winter night, with a bright moon shining
in a sky without a cloud.

But Ralph still lay quiet and snug in his
place of concealment.

“When a-body's well off, a-body had better
keep dark,” he muttered, and extending a
hand felt the tin box, which lay in the straw
by his side.

For a long time Ralph lay there, listening
with all his ears for the slightest echo of a
sound.

“One, two!” the bell of the old State House
Clock rolled over the silent city.

Like a tortoise peeping from its shell, Ralph
stealthily projected his head from the entrance
of the dog-house. The moon was shining
down among the dark walls, revealing every
nook and crevice of the yard.

Not a sound disturbed the dead stillness.