Round The Red Lamp | Page 9

remarked the large woman gloomily.
"Unless his young niece, or grandniece, or whatever she is, come
to-day, I'm off, and he can find some one else to do his work. Your own
'ome first, says I."
"Ain't he quiet, then, Missus Simpson?" asked the youngest of the
group.
"Listen to him now," she answered, with her hand half raised and her
head turned slantwise towards the open door. From the upper floor
there came a shuffling, sliding sound with a sharp tapping of a stick.
"There he go back and forrards, doing what he call his sentry go. 'Arf
the night through he's at that game, the silly old juggins. At six o'clock
this very mornin there he was beatin' with a stick at my door. `Turn out,
guard!' he cried, and a lot more jargon that I could make nothing of.
Then what with his coughin' and 'awkin' and spittin', there ain't no
gettin' a wink o' sleep. Hark to him now!"
"Missus Simpson, Missus Simpson!" cried a cracked and querulous

voice from above.
"That's him!" she cried, nodding her head with an air of triumph. "He
do go on somethin' scandalous. Yes, Mr. Brewster, sir."
"I want my morning ration, Missus Simpson."
"It's just ready, Mr. Brewster, sir."
"Blessed if he ain't like a baby cryin' for its pap," said the young
woman.
"I feel as if I could shake his old bones up sometimes!" cried Mrs.
Simpson viciously. "But who's for a 'arf of fourpenny?"
The whole company were about to shuffle off to the public house, when
a young girl stepped across the road and touched the housekeeper
timidly upon the arm. "I think that is No. 56 Arsenal View," she said.
"Can you tell me if Mr. Brewster lives here?"
The housekeeper looked critically at the newcomer. She was a girl of
about twenty, broad- faced and comely, with a turned-up nose and large,
honest grey eyes. Her print dress, her straw hat, with its bunch of
glaring poppies, and the bundle she carried, had all a smack of the
country.
"You're Norah Brewster, I s'pose," said Mrs. Simpson, eyeing her up
and down with no friendly gaze.
"Yes, I've come to look after my Granduncle Gregory."
"And a good job too," cried the housekeeper, with a toss of her head.
"It's about time that some of his own folk took a turn at it, for I've had
enough of it. There you are, young woman! In you go and make
yourself at home. There's tea in the caddy and bacon on the dresser, and
the old man will be about you if you don't fetch him his breakfast. I'll
send for my things in the evenin'." With a nod she strolled off with her
attendant gossips in the direction of the public house.

Thus left to her own devices, the country girl walked into the front
room and took off her hat and jacket. It was a low-roofed apartment
with a sputtering fire upon which a small brass kettle was singing
cheerily. A stained cloth lay over half the table, with an empty brown
teapot, a loaf of bread, and some coarse crockery. Norah Brewster
looked rapidly about her, and in an instant took over her new duties.
Ere five minutes had passed the tea was made, two slices of bacon were
frizzling on the pan, the table was rearranged, the antimacassars
straightened over the sombre brown furniture, and the whole room had
taken a new air of comfort and neatness. This done she looked round
curiously at the prints upon the walls. Over the fireplace, in a small,
square case, a brown medal caught her eye, hanging from a strip of
purple ribbon. Beneath was a slip of newspaper cutting. She stood on
her tiptoes, with her fingers on the edge of the mantelpiece, and craned
her neck up to see it, glancing down from time to time at the bacon
which simmered and hissed beneath her. The cutting was yellow with
age, and ran in this way:
"On Tuesday an interesting ceremony was performed at the barracks of
the Third Regiment of Guards, when, in the presence of the Prince
Regent, Lord Hill, Lord Saltoun, and an assemblage which comprised
beauty as well as valour, a special medal was presented to Corporal
Gregory Brewster, of Captain Haldane's flank company, in recognition
of his gallantry in the recent great battle in the Lowlands. It appears
that on the ever-memorable 18th of June four companies of the Third
Guards and of the Coldstreams, under the command of Colonels
Maitland and Byng, held the important farmhouse of Hougoumont at
the right of the British position. At a critical point of the action these
troops found themselves short of powder. Seeing that Generals Foy and
Jerome Buonaparte were