denial. "And if she _had_ took a few bits o' things, 'cause she was
famishing, she didn't hurt the childern. She'd never hurt a child in
her life; couldn't do it. Just contrairy to that; she gave 'em sugar
plums--and candy--and a piece of a wig,[1] she did. What was she to do?
Starve? Since her wicked husband, that she hadn't seen for this five
year, deserted of her, and her two boys, fine grown lads both of 'em,
had been accused of theft and got put away from her, one into prison,
t'other into a 'formitory, she hadn't no soul to care for her nor help
her to a bit o' bread. Life was hard, and times was bad; and--there it
was. No good o' saying more."
[1] A small plain bun sold in Worcester.
"Guilty," said the foreman of the jury, without turning round. "We find
the prisoner guilty, my lord."
The judge sentenced her to six months' imprisonment with hard labour.
Mrs. Cole brazened it out still.
"Thank you," said she to his lordship, dropping a curtsey as they were
taking her from the dock; "and I hope you'll sit there, old gentleman,
till I come out again."
When the Squire was told of the sentence that evening, he said it was
too mild by half, and talked of bringing her also to book at Warwick.
But Mrs. Todhetley said, "No; forgive her." After all, it was only the
loss of the clothes.
Nothing whatever had come out during the trial to connect Jake with the
woman. She appeared to be a waif without friends. "And I watched and
listened closely for it, mind you, Johnny," remarked Tod.
* * * * *
It was a day or two after this--I think, on the Wednesday evening. The
Squire's grand-jury duties were over, but he stayed on, intending to
make a week of it; Mrs. Todhetley and Lena had left for home. We had
dined late, and Tod and I went for a stroll afterwards; leaving the
Pater, and an old clergyman, who had dined with us, to their wine.
In passing the cooked-meat shop in High-street, we saw a little chap
looking in, his face flattened against the panes. Tod laid hold of
his shoulder, and the boy turned his brilliant eyes and their hungry
expression upon us.
"Do you remember me, Dor?" You see, Tod had not forgotten his name.
Dor evidently did remember. And whether it was that he felt frightened
at being accosted, or whether the sight of us brought back to him the
image of the dead sister lying on the rushes, was best known to himself;
but he burst out crying.
"There's nothing to cry for," said Tod; "you need not be afraid. Could
you eat some of that meat?"
Something like a shiver of surprise broke over the boy's face at the
question; just as though he had had no food for weeks. Tod gave him a
shilling, and told him to go in and buy some. But the boy looked at the
money doubtingly.
"A whole shilling! They'd think I stole it."
Tod took back the money, and went in himself. He was as proud a fellow
as you'd find in the two counties, and yet he would do all sorts of
things that many another glanced askance at.
"I want half-a-pound of beef," said he to the man who was carving, "and
some bread, if you sell it. And I'll take one of those small pork-pies."
"Shall I put the meat in paper, sir?" asked the man: as if doubting
whether Tod might prefer to eat it there.
"Yes," said Tod. And the customers, working-men and a woman in a drab
shawl, turned and stared at him.
Tod paid; took it all in his hands, and we left the shop. He did not
mind being seen carrying the parcels; but he would have minded letting
them know that he was feeding a poor boy.
"Here, Dor, you can take the things now," said he, when we had gone a
few yards. "Where do you live?"
Dor explained after a fashion. We knew Worcester well, but failed to
understand. "Not far from the big church," he said; and at first we
thought he meant the cathedral.
"Never mind," said Tod; "go on, and show us."
He went skimming along, Tod keeping him within arm's-length, lest he
should try to escape. Why Tod should have suspected he might, I don't
know; nothing, as it turned out, could have been farther from Dor's
thoughts. The church he spoke of proved to be All Saints'; the boy
turned up an entry near to it, and we found ourselves in a regular
rookery of dirty, miserable, tumble-down houses. Loose men stood about,
pipes in their mouths, women, in tatters, their hair hanging down.
Dor dived into a dark den that seemed to be reached through a hole you
had to stoop under. My patience! what a close place it was, with a smell
that nearly knocked you backwards. There was not an earthly thing in the
room that we could see, except some straw in a corner, and on that Jake
was lying. The boy appeared with a piece of lighted candle, which he had
been upstairs to borrow.
Jake was thin enough before; he was a skeleton now. His eyes were sunk,
the bones of his face stood out, the skin glistened on his shapely nose,
his voice was weak and hollow. He knew us, and smiled.
"What's the matter?" asked Tod, speaking gently. "You look very ill."
"I be very ill, master; I've been getting worse ever since."
His history was this. The same night that we had seen the tent at
Cookhill, some travelling people of Jake's fraternity happened to encamp
close to it for the night. By their help, the dead child was removed as
far as Evesham, and there buried. Jake, his wife, and son, went on to
Worcester, and there the man was taken worse; they had been in this room
since; the wife had found a place to go to twice a week washing, earning
her food and a shilling each time. It was all they had to depend upon,
these two shillings weekly; and the few bits o' things they had, to use
Jake's words, had been taken by the landlord for rent. But to see Jake's
resignation was something curious.
"He was very good," he said, alluding to the landlord and the seizure;
"he left me the straw. When he saw how bad I was, he wouldn't take it.
We had been obliged to sell the tent, and there was a'most nothing for
him."
"Have you had no medicine? no advice?" cried Tod, speaking as if he had
a lump in his throat.
Yes, he had had medicine; the wife went for it to the free place (he
meant the dispensary) twice a week, and a young doctor had been to see
him.
Dor opened the paper of meat, and showed it to his father. "The
gentleman bought it me," he said; "and this, and this. Couldn't you eat
some?"
I saw the eager look that arose for a moment to Jake's face at sight of
the meat: three slices of nice cold boiled beef, better than what we got
at school. Dor held out one of them; the man broke off a morsel, put it
into his mouth, and had a choking fit.
"It's of no use, Dor."
"Is his name 'Dor'?" asked Tod.
"His name is James, sir; same as mine," answered Jake, panting a little
from the exertion of swallowing. "The wife, she has called him 'Dor' for
'dear,' and I've fell into it. She has called me Jake all along."
Tod felt something ought to be done to help him, but he had no more
idea what than the man in the moon. I had less. As Dor piloted us to
the open street, we asked him where his mother was. It was one of her
working-days out, he answered; she was always kept late.
"Could he drink wine, do you think, Dor?"
"The gentleman said he was to have it," answered Dor, alluding to the
doctor.
"How old are you, Dor?"
"I'm anigh ten." He did not look it.
"Johnny, I wonder if there's any place where they sell beef-tea?" cried
Tod, as we went up Broad Street. "My goodness! lying there in that
state, with no help at hand!"
"I never saw anything so bad before, Tod."
"Do you know what I kept thinking of all the time? I could not get it
out of my head."
"What?"
"Of Lazarus at the rich man's gate. Johnny, lad, there seems an awful
responsibility lying on some of us."
To hear Tod say such a thing was stranger than all. He set off running,
and burst into our sitting-room in the Star, startling the Pater, who
was alone and reading one of the Worcester papers with his spectacles
on. Tod sat down and told him all.
"Dear me! dear me!" cried the Pater, growing red as he listened. "Why,
Joe, the poor fellow must be dying!"
"He may not have gone too far for recovery, father," was Tod's answer.
"If we had to lie in that close hole, and had nothing to eat or drink,
we should probably soon become skeletons also. He may get well yet with
proper care and treatment."
"It seems to me that the first thing to be done is to get him into the
Infirmary," remarked the Pater.
"And it ought to be done early to-morrow morning, sir; if it's too late
to-night."
The Pater got up in a bustle, put on his hat, and went out. He was going
to his old friend, the famous surgeon, Henry Carden. Tod ran after him
up Foregate Street, but was sent back to me. We stood at the door of the
hotel, and in a few moments saw them coming along, the Pater arm-in-arm
with Mr. Carden. He had come out as readily to visit the poor helpless
man as he would to visit a rich one. Perhaps more so. They stopped when
they saw us, and Mr. Carden asked Tod some of the particulars.
"You can get him admitted to the Infirmary at once, can you not?" said
the Pater, impatiently, who was all on thorns to have something done.
"By what I can gather, it is not a case for the Infirmary," was the
answer of its chief surgeon. "We'll see."
Down we went, walking fast: the Pater and Mr. Carden in front, I and Tod
at their heels; and found the room again with some difficulty. The wife
was in then, and had made a handful of fire in the grate. What with the
smoke, and what with the other agreeable accompaniments, we were nearly
stifled.
If ever I wished to be a doctor, it was when I saw Mr. Carden with
that poor sick man. He was so gentle with him, so cheery and so kind.
Had Jake been a duke, I don't see that he could have been treated
differently. There was something superior about the man, too, as though
he had seen better days.
"What is your name?" asked Mr. Carden.
"James Winter, sir, a native of Herefordshire. I was on my way there
when I was taken ill in this place."
"What to do there? To get work?"
"No, sir; to die. It don't much matter, though; God's here as well as
there."
"You are not a gipsy?"
"Oh dear no, sir. From my dark skin, though, I've been taken for one. My
wife's descended from a gipsy tribe."
"We are thinking of placing you in the Infirmary, Jake," cried the
Pater. "You will have every comfort there, and the best of attendance.
This gentleman----"
"We'll see--we'll see," interposed Mr. Carden, breaking in hastily on
the promises. "I am not sure that the Infirmary will do for him."
"It is too late, sir, I think," said Jake, quietly, to Mr. Carden.
Mr. Carden made no reply. He asked the woman if she had such a thing as
a tea-cup or wine-glass. She produced a cracked cup with the handle off
and a notch in the rim. Mr. Carden poured something into it that he had
brought in his pocket, and stooped over the man. Jake began to speak in
his faint voice.
"Sir, I'd not seem ungrateful, but I'd like to stay here with the wife
and boy to the last. It can't be for long now."
"Drink this; it will do you good," said Mr. Carden, holding the cup to
his lips.
"This close place is a change from the tent," I said to the woman, who
was stooping over the bit of fire.
Such a look of regret came upon her countenance as she lifted it: just
as if the tent had been a palace. "When we got here, master, it was
after that two days' rain, and the ground was sopping. It didn't do for
_him_"--glancing round at the straw. "He was getting mighty bad then,
and we just put our heads into this place--bad luck to us!"
The Squire gave her some silver, and told her to get anything in she
thought best. It was too late to do more that night. The church clocks
were striking ten as we went out.
"Won't it do to move him to the Infirmary?" were the Pater's first words
to Mr. Carden.
"Certainly not. The man's hours are numbered."
"There is no hope, I suppose?"
"Not the least. He may be said to be dying now."
No time was lost in the morning. When Squire Todhetley took a will to
heart he carried it out, and speedily. A decent room with an airy window
was found in the same block of buildings. A bed and other things were
put in it; some clothes were redeemed; and by twelve o'clock in the day
Jake was comfortably lying there. The Pater seemed to think that this
was not enough: he wanted to do more.
"His humanity to my child kept him from seeing the last moments of his,"
said he. "The little help we can give him now is no return for that."
Food and clothes, and a dry, comfortable room, and wine and proper
things for Jake--of which he could not swallow much. The woman was not
to go out to work again while he lasted, but to stay at home and attend
to him.
"I shall be at liberty by the hop-picking time," she said, with a sigh.
Ah, poor creature! long before that.
When Tod and I went in later in the afternoon, she had just given Jake
some physic, ordered by Mr. Carden. She and the boy sat by the fire, tea
and bread-and-butter on the deal table between them. Jake lay in bed,
his head raised on account of his breathing, I thought he was better;
but his thin white face, with the dark, earnest, glistening eyes, was
almost painful to look upon.
"The reading-gentleman have been in," cried the woman suddenly. "He's
coming again, he says, the night or the morning."
Tod looked puzzled, and Jake explained. A good young clergyman, who had
found him out a day or two before, had been in each day since with his
Bible, to read and pray. "God bless him!" said Jake.
"Why did you go away so suddenly?" Tod asked, alluding to the hasty
departure from Cookhill. "My father was intending to do something for
you."
"I didn't know that, sir. Many thanks all the same. I'd like to thank
_you_ too, sir," he went on, after a fit of coughing. "I've wanted to
thank you ever since. When you gave me your arm up the lane, and said
them pleasant things to me about having a little child in heaven, you
knew she was gone."
"Yes."
"It broke the trouble to me, sir. My wife heard me coughing afar off,
and came out o' the tent. She didn't say at first what there was in the
tent, but began telling how you had been there. It made me know what had
happened; and when she set on a-grieving, I told her not to: Carry was
gone up to be an angel in heaven."
Tod touched the hand he put out, not speaking.
"She's waiting for me, sir," he continued, in a fainter voice. "I'm as
sure of it as if I saw her. The little girl I found and carried to the
great house has rich friends and a fine home to shelter her; mine had
none, and so it was for the best that she should go. God has been very
good to me. Instead of letting me fret after her, or murmur at lying
helpless like this, He only gives me peace."
"That man must have had a good mother," cried out Tod, as we went away
down the entry. And I looked up at him, he spoke so queerly.
"Do you think he will get better, Tod? He does not seem as bad as he did
last night."
"Get better!" retorted Tod. "You'll always be a muff, Johnny. Why, every
breath he takes threatens to be his last. He is miles worse than he was
when we found him. This is Thursday: I don't believe he can last out
longer than the week; and I think Mr. Carden knows it."
He did not last so long. On the Saturday morning, just as we were going
to start for home, the wife came to the Star with the news. Jake had
died at ten the previous night.
"He went off quiet," said she to the Squire. "I asked if he'd not like
a dhrink; but he wouldn't have it: the good gentleman had been there
giving him the bread and wine, and he said he'd take nothing, he
thought, after that. 'I'm going, Mary,' he suddenly says to me about ten
o'clock, and he called Dor up and shook hands with him, and bade him be
good to me, and then he shook hands with me. 'God bless ye both,' says
he, 'for Christ's sake; and God bless the friends who have been kind to
us!' And with that he died."
That's all, for now. And I hope no one will think I invented this
account of Jake's death, for I should not like to do it. The wife
related it to us in the exact words written.
"And I able to do so little for him," broke forth the Squire, suddenly,
when we were about half-way home; and he lashed up Bob and Blister
regardless of their tempers. Which the animals did not relish.
And so that assize week ended the matter. Bringing imprisonment to the
kidnapping woman, and to Jake death.
III.
WOLFE BARRINGTON'S TAMING.
This is an incident of our school life; one that I never care to look
back upon. All of us have sad remembrances of some kind living in
the mind; and we are apt in our painful regret to say, "If I had but
done this, or had but done the other, things might have turned out
differently."
The school was a large square house, built of rough stone, gardens and
playgrounds and fields extending around it. It was called Worcester
House: a title of the fancy, I suppose, since it was some miles away
from Worcester. The master was Dr. Frost, a tall, stout man, in white
frilled shirt, knee-breeches and buckles; stern on occasion, but a
gentleman to the back-bone. He had several under-masters. Forty boys
were received; we wore the college cap and Eton jacket. Mrs. Frost
was delicate: and Hall, a sour old woman of fifty, was manager of the
eatables.
Tod and I must have been in the school two years, I think, when Archie
Hearn entered. He was eleven years old. We had seen him at the house
sometimes before, and liked him. A regular good little fellow was
Archie.
Hearn's father was dead. His mother had been a Miss Stockhausen, sister
to Mrs. Frost. The Stockhausens had a name in Worcestershire: chiefly, I
think, for dying off. There had been six sisters; and the only two now
left were Mrs. Frost and Mrs. Hearn: the other four quietly faded away
one after another, not living to see thirty. Mr. Hearn died, from an
accident, when Archie was only a year old. He left no will, and there
ensued a sharp dispute about his property. The Stockhausens said it all
belonged to the little son; the Hearn family considered that a portion
of it ought to go back to them. The poor widow was the only quiet spirit
amongst them, willing to be led either way. What the disputants did was
to put it into Chancery: and I don't much think it ever came out again.
It was the worst move they could have made for Mrs. Hearn. For it
reduced her to a very slender income indeed, and the world wondered how
she got on at all. She lived in a cottage about three miles from the
Frosts, with one servant and the little child Archibald. In the course
of years people seemed to forget all about the property in Chancery, and
to ignore her as quite a poor woman.
Well, we--I and Tod--had been at Dr. Frost's two years or so, when
Archibald Hearn entered the school. He was a slender little lad with
bright brown eyes, a delicate face and pink cheeks, very sweet-tempered
and pleasant in manner. At first he used to go home at night, but when
the winter weather set in he caught a cough, and then came into the
house altogether. Some of the big ones felt sure that old Frost took him
for nothing: but as little Hearn was Mrs. Frost's nephew and we liked
_her_, no talk was made about it. The lad did not much like coming into
the house: we could see that. He seemed always to be hankering after his
mother and old Betty the servant. Not in words: but he'd stand with his
arms on the play-yard gate, his eyes gazing out towards the quarter
where the cottage was; as if he would like his sight to penetrate the
wood and the two or three miles beyond, and take a look at it. When any
of us said to him as a bit of chaff, "You are staring after old Betty,"
he would say Yes, he wished he could see her and his mother; and then
tell no end of tales about what Betty had done for him in his illnesses.
Any way, Hearn was a straightforward little chap, and a favourite in the
school.
He had been with us about a year when Wolfe Barrington came. Quite
another sort of pupil. A big, strong fellow who had never had a mother:
rich and overbearing, and cruel. He was in mourning for his father, who
had just died: a rich Irishman, given to company and fast living. Wolfe
came in for all the money; so that he had a fine career before him and
might be expected to set the world on fire. Little Hearn's stories had
been of home; of his mother and old Betty. Wolfe's were different. He
had had the run of his father's stables and knew more about horses and
dogs than the animals knew about themselves. Curious things, too, he'd
tell of men and women, who had stayed at old Barrington's place: and
what he said of the public school he had been at might have made old
Frost's hair stand on end. Why he left the public school we did not find
out: some said he had run away from it, and that his father, who'd
indulged him awfully, would not send him back to be punished; others
said the head-master would not receive him back again. In the nick of
time the father died; and Wolfe's guardians put him to Dr. Frost's.
"I shall make you my fag," said Barrington, the day he entered, catching
hold of little Hearn in the playground, and twisting him round by the
arm.
"What's that?" asked Hearn, rubbing his arm--for Wolfe's grasp had not
been a light one.
"What's that!" repeated Barrington, scornfully. "What a precious young
fool you must be, not to know. Who's your mother?"
"She lives over there," answered Hearn, taking the question literally,
and nodding beyond the wood.
"Oh!" said Barrington, screwing up his mouth. "What's her name? And
what's yours?"
"Mrs. Hearn. Mine's Archibald."
"Good, Mr. Archibald. You shall be my fag. That is, my servant. And
you'll do every earthly thing that I order you to do. And mind you do it
smartly, or may be that girl's face of yours will show out rather blue
sometimes."
"I shall not be anybody's servant," returned Archie, in his mild,
inoffensive way.
"Won't you! You'll tell me another tale before this time to-morrow. Did
you ever get licked into next week?"
The child made no answer. He began to think the new fellow might be in
earnest, and gazed up at him in doubt.
"When you can't see out of your two eyes for the swelling round them,
and your back's stiff with smarting and aching--_that's_ the kind of
licking I mean," went on Barrington. "Did you ever taste it?"
"No, sir."
"Good again. It will be all the sweeter when you do. Now look you here,
Mr. Archibald Hearn. I appoint you my fag in ordinary. You'll fetch and
carry for me: you'll black my boots and brush my clothes; you'll sit up
to wait on me when I go to bed, and read me to sleep; you'll be dressed
before I am in the morning, and be ready with my clothes and hot water.
Never mind whether the rules of the house are against hot water, _you'll
have to provide it_, though you boil it in the bedroom grate, or out in
the nearest field. You'll attend me at my lessons; look out words for
me; copy my exercises in a fair hand--and if you were old enough to
_do_ them, you'd _have_ to. That's a few of the items; but there are
a hundred other things, that I've not time to detail. If I can get
a horse for my use, you'll have to groom him. And if you don't put out
your mettle to serve me in all these ways, and don't hold yourself in
readiness to fly and obey me at any minute or hour of the day, you'll
get daily one of the lickings I've told you of, until you are licked
into shape."
Barrington meant what he said. Voice and countenance alike wore a
determined look, as if his words were law. Lots of the fellows,
attracted by the talking, had gathered round. Hearn, honest and
straightforward himself, did not altogether understand what evil might
be in store for him, and grew seriously frightened.
The captain of the school walked up--John Whitney. "What is that you say
Hearn has to do?" he asked.
"_He_ knows now," answered Barrington. "That's enough. They don't allow
servants here: I must have a fag in place of one."
In turning his fascinated eyes from Barrington, Hearn saw Blair standing
by, our mathematical master--of whom you will hear more later. Blair
must have caught what passed: and little Hearn appealed to him.
"Am I obliged to be his fag, sir?"
Mr. Blair put us leisurely aside with his hands, and confronted the new
fellow. "Your name is Barrington, I think," he said.
"Yes, it is," said Barrington, staring at him defiantly.
"Allow me to tell you that 'fags' are not permitted here. The system
would not be tolerated by Dr. Frost for a moment. Each boy must wait on
himself, and be responsible for himself: seniors and juniors alike. You
are not at a public-school now, Barrington. In a day or two, when you
shall have learnt the customs and rules here, I dare say you will find
yourself quite sufficiently comfortable, and see that a fag would be an
unnecessary appendage."
"Who is that man?" cried Barrington, as Blair turned away.
"Mathematical master. Sees to us out of hours," answered Bill Whitney.
"And what the devil did you mean by making a sneaking appeal to _him_?"
continued Barrington, seizing Hearn roughly.
"I did not mean it for sneaking; but I could not do what you wanted,"
said Hearn. "He had been listening to us."