thither they now turned. Two little boys were on the brink of a pit, so
intent on watching a rat in the water and on pelting it with stones,
that they did not see that anybody was coming to disturb them. In answer
to Mr. Nelson’s question, whether they were vagrants, and why vagrants
were permitted there, Fleming answered that the younger one--the
pale-faced one--was his little brother-in-law; the other--
“Ay, now, you will be telling me next that the pale face is the fault of
this place.”
“It certainly is,” said Fleming. “That child was chubby enough when he
came.”
“Pho, pho! a puny little wretch as ever I saw--puny from its birth, I
have no doubt of it. And who is the other--a gypsy?”
“He looks like it,” replied Fleming. On being questioned, Moss told that
the boy lived near, and he had often played with him lately. Yes, he
lived near, just beyond those trees; not in a house, only a sort of
house the people had made for themselves. Mr. Nelson liked to lecture
vagrants, even more than other people; so Moss was required to show the
way, and his dark-skinned playfellow was not allowed to skulk behind.
Moss led his party on, over the tufty hay-colored grass, skipping from
bunch to bunch of rushes, round the osier-beds, and at last straight
through a clump of elders, behind whose screen now appeared the house,
as Moss had called it, which the gypsies had made for themselves. It was
the tilt of a wagon, serving as a tent. Nobody was visible but a woman,
crouching under the shadow of the tent, to screen from the sun that
which was lying across her lap.
“What is that that she’s nursing? Lord bless me! Can that be a child?”
exclaimed Mr. Nelson.
“A child in the fever,” replied Fleming.
“Lord bless me!--to see legs and arms hang down like that!” exclaimed
the gentleman; and he forthwith gave the woman a lecture on her method
of nursing--scolded her for letting the child get a fever--for not
putting it to bed--for not getting a doctor to it--for being a gypsy,
and living under an alder clump. He then proceeded to inquire whether
she had anybody else in the tent, where her husband was, whether he
lived by thieving, how they would all like being transported, whether
she did not think her children would all be hanged, and so on. At first,
the woman tried a facetious and wheedling tone, then a whimpering one,
and, finally, a scolding one. The last answered well. Mr. Nelson found
that a man, to say nothing of a gentleman, has no chance with a woman
with a sore heart in her breast, and a sick child in her lap, when once
he has driven her to her weapon of the tongue. He said afterwards, that
he had once gone to Billingsgate, on purpose to set two fisherwomen
quarrelling, that he might see what it was like. The scene had fulfilled
all his expectations; but he now declared that it could not compare with
this exhibition behind the alders. He stood a long while, first trying
to overpower the woman’s voice; and, when that seemed hopeless, poking
about among the rushes with his stick, and finally, staring in the
woman’s face, in a mood between consternation and amusement;--thus he
stood, waiting till the torrent should intermit; but there was no sign
of intermission; and when the sick child began to move and rouse itself,
and look at the strangers, as if braced by the vigor of its mother’s
tongue, the prospect of an end seemed farther off than ever. Mr. Nelson
shrugged his shoulders, signed to his companions, and walked away
through the alders. The woman was not silent because they were out of
sight. Her voice waxed shriller as it followed them, and died away only
in the distance. Moss was grasping Fleming’s hand with all his might
when Mr. Nelson spoke to him, and shook his stick at him, asking him how
he came to play with such people, and saying that if ever he heard him
learning to scold like that woman, he would beat him with that stick; so
Moss vowed he never would.
When the train was in sight by which Mr. Nelson was to depart, he turned
to Fleming, with the most careless air imaginable, saying, “Have you
any medicine in your house?--any bark?”
“Not any. But I will send for some.”
“Ay, do. Or,--no--I will send you some. See if you can’t get these
people housed somewhere, so that they may not sleep in the swamp. I
don’t mean in any of your houses, but in a barn, or some such place. If
the physic comes before the doctor, get somebody to dose the child. And
don’t fancy you are all going to die of the fever. That is the way to
make yourselves ill; and it is all nonsense, too, I dare say.”
“Do you like that gentleman?” asked Moss, sapiently, when the train was
whirling Mr. Nelson out of sight. “Because I don’t--not at all.”
“I believe he is kinder than he means, Moss. He need not be so rough;
but I know he does kind things sometimes.”
“But, do you like him?”
“No, I can’t say I do.”
Before many hours were over, Fleming was sorry that he had admitted
this, even to himself; and for many days after he was occasionally
heard telling Moss what a good gentleman Mr. Nelson was, for all his
roughness of manners. With the utmost speed, before it would have been
thought possible, arrived a surgeon from the next town, with medicines,
and the news that he was to come every day while there was any fear of
fever. The gypsies were to have been cared for; but they were gone. The
marks of their fire and a few stray feathers which showed that a fowl
had been plucked, alone told where they had encamped. A neighbor, who
loved her poultry yard, was heard to say that the sick child would not
die for want of chicken broth, she would be bound; and the nearest
farmer asked if they had left any potato-peels and turnip tops for his
pig. He thought that was the least they could do after making their
famous gypsy stew (a capital dish, it was said) from his vegetables.
They were gone; and if they had not left fever behind, they might be
forgiven, for the sake of the benefit of taking themselves off. After
the search for the gypsies was over, there was still an unusual stir
about the place. One and another stranger appeared and examined the low
grounds, and sent for one and another of the neighboring proprietors,
whether farmer, or builder, or gardener, or laborer; for every one who
owned or rented a yard of land on the borders of the great ditch, or
anywhere near the clay-pits or osier-beds.
It was the opinion of the few residents near the Station that something
would be done to improve the place before another year; and everybody
said that it must be Mr. Nelson’s doings, and that it was a thousand
pities that he did not come earlier, before the fever had crept thus far
along the line.
V.
For some months past, Becky had believed without a doubt, that the day
of her return home would be the very happiest day of her life. She was
too young to know yet that it is not for us to settle which of our days
shall be happy ones, nor what events shall yield us joy. The promise had
not been kept that she should return when her father and mother removed
into the new cottage. She had been told that there really was not, even
now, decent room for them all; and that they must at least wait till the
hot weather was completely over before they crowded the chamber, as they
had hitherto done. And then, when autumn came on, and the creeping mists
from the low grounds hung round the place from sunset till after
breakfast the next day, the mother delayed sending for her daughter,
unwilling that she should lose the look of health which she alone now,
of all the family, exhibited. Fleming and his wife and babe prospered
better than the others. The young man’s business lay on the high ground,
at the top of the embankment. He was there all day while Mr. Woodruffe
and Allan were below, among the ditches and the late and early fogs.
Mrs. Fleming was young and strong, full of spirit and happiness; and so
far fortified against the attacks of disease, as a merry heart
strengthens nerve and bone and muscle, and invigorates all the vital
powers. In regard to her family, her father’s hopeful spirit seemed to
have passed into her. While he was becoming permanently discouraged, she
was always assured that everything would come right next year. The time
had arrived for her power of hope to be tested to the utmost. One day
this autumn, she admitted that Becky must be sent for. She did not
forget, however, to charge Allan to be cheerful, and make the best of
things, and not frighten Becky by the way.
It was now the end of October. Some of the days were balmy
elsewhere--the afternoons ruddy; the leaves crisp beneath the tread; the
squirrel busy after the nuts in the wood; the pheasants splendid among
the dry ferns in the brake, the sportsman warm and thirsty in his
exploring among the stubble. In the evenings the dwellers in country
houses called one another out upon the grass, to see how bright the
stars were, and how softly the moonlight slept upon the woods. While it
was thus in one place, in another, and not far off, all was dank, dim,
dreary and unwholesome; with but little sun, and no moon or stars; all
chill, and no glow; no stray perfumes, the last of the year, but sickly
scents coming on the steam from below. Thus it was about Fleming’s
house, this latter end of October, when he saw but little of his wife,
because she was nursing her mother in the fever, and when he tried to
amuse himself with his young baby at meal-times (awkward nurse as he
was) to relieve his wife of the charge for the little time he could be
at home. When the baby cried, and when he saw his Abby look wearied, he
did wish, now and then, that Becky was at home; but he was patient, and
helpful, and as cheerful as he could be, till the day which settled the
matter. On that morning he felt strangely weak, barely able to mount the
steps to the station. During the morning, several people told him he
looked ill; and one person did more. The porter sent a message to the
next large Station that somebody must be sent immediately to fill
Fleming’s place, in case of his being too ill to work. Somebody came;
and before that, Fleming was in bed--certainly down in the fever. His
wife was now wanted at home; and Becky must come to her mother.
Though Becky asked questions all the way home, and Allan answered them
as truthfully as he knew how, she was not prepared for what she
found--her father aged and bent, always in pain, more or less, and far
less furnished with plans and hopes than she had ever known him; Moss,
fretful and sickly, and her mother unable to turn herself in her bed.
Nobody mentioned death. The surgeon who came daily, and told Becky
exactly what to do, said nothing of anybody dying of the fever, while
Woodruffe was continually talking of things that were to be done when
his wife got well again. It was sad, and sometimes alarming, to hear the
strange things that Mrs. Woodruffe said in the evenings when she was
delirious; but if Abby stepped in at such times, she did not think much
of it, did not look upon it as any sign of danger; and was only thankful
that her husband had no delirium. His head was always clear, she said,
though he was very weak. Becky never doubted, after this, that her
mother was the most severely ill of the two; and she was thunderstruck
when she heard one morning the surgeon’s answers to her father’s
questions about Fleming. He certainly considered it a bad case; he would
not say that he could not get through; but he must say it was contrary
to his expectation. When Becky saw her father’s face as he turned away
and went out, she believed his heart was broken.
“But I thought,” said she to the surgeon, “I thought my mother was most
ill of the two.”
“I don’t know that,” was the reply, “but she is very ill. We are doing
the best we can. You are, I am sure,” he said, kindly; “and we must hope
on, and do our best till a change comes. The wisest of us do not know
what changes may come. But I could not keep your father in ignorance of
what may happen in the other house.”
No appearances alarmed Abby. Because there was no delirium, she
apprehended no danger. Even when the fatal twitchings came, the arm
twitching as it lay upon the coverlid, she did not know it was a symptom
of anything. As she nursed her husband perfectly well, and could not
have been made more prudent and watchful by any warning, she had no
warning. Her cheerfulness was encouraged, for her infant’s sake, as well
as for her husband’s and her own. Some thought that her husband knew his
own case. A word or two,--now a gesture, and now a look,--persuaded the
surgeon and Woodruffe that he was aware that he was going. His small
affairs were always kept settled; he had probably no directions to give;
and his tenderness for his wife showed itself in his enjoying her
cheerfulness to the last. When, as soon as it was light, one December
morning, Moss was sent to ask if Abby could possibly come for a few
minutes, because mother was worse, he found his sister alone, looking at
the floor, her hands on her lap, though her baby was fidgetting in its
cradle. Fleming’s face was covered, and he lay so still that Moss, who
had never seen death, felt sure that all was over. The boy hardly knew
what to do; and his sister seemed not to hear what he said. The thought
of his mother,--that Abby’s going might help or save her,--moved him to
act. He kissed Abby, and said she must please go to mother; and he took
the baby out of the cradle, and wrapped it up, and put it into its
mother’s arms; and fetched Abby’s bonnet, and took her cloak down from
its peg, and opened the door for her, saying, that he would stay and
take care of everything. His sister went without a word; and, as soon as
he had closed the door behind her, Moss sank down on his knees before
the chair where she had been sitting, and hid his face there till some
one came for him,--to see his mother once more before she died.
As the two coffins were carried out, to be conveyed to the churchyard
together, Mr. Nelson, who had often been backward and forward during the
last six weeks, observed to the surgeon that the death of such a man as
Fleming was a dreadful loss.
“It is that sort of men that the fever cuts off,” said the surgeon.
“The strong man, in the prime of life, at his best period, one may say,
for himself and for society, is taken away,--leaving wife and child
helpless and forlorn. That is the ravage that the fever makes.”
“Well; would not people tell you that it is our duty to submit?” asked
Mr. Nelson, who could not help showing some emotion by voice and
countenance.
“Submit!” said the surgeon. “That depends on what the people mean who
use the word. If you or I were ill of the fever, we must resign
ourselves, as cheerfully as we could. But if you ask me whether we
should submit to see more of our neighbors cut off by fever as these
have been, I can only ask in return, whose doing it is that they are
living in a swamp, and whether that is to go on? Who dug the clay pits?
Who let that ditch run abroad, and make a filthy bog? Are you going to
charge that upon Providence and talk of submitting to the consequences?
If so, that is not my religion.”
“No, no. There is no religion in that,” replied Mr. Nelson, for once
agreeing in what was said to him. “It must be looked to.”
“It must,” said the surgeon, as decidedly as if he had been a railway
director, or king and parliament in one.
VI.
“I wonder whether there is a more forlorn family in England than we are
now,” said Woodruffe, as he sat among his children, a few hours after
the funeral.
His children were glad to hear him speak, however gloomy might be his
tone. His silence had been so terrible that nothing that he could say
could so weigh upon their hearts. His words, however, brought out his
widowed daughter’s tears again. She was sewing--her infant lying in her
lap. As her tears fell upon its face, it moved and cried. Becky came and
took it up, and spoke cheerfully to it. The cheerfulness seemed to be
the worst of all. Poor Abby laid her forehead to the back of her chair,
and sobbed as if her heart would break.
“Ay, Abby,” said her father, “your heart is breaking, and mine too. You
and I can go to our rest, like those that have gone before us; but I
have to think of what will become of these young things.”
“Yes, father,” said Becky gently, but with a tone of remonstrance, “you
must endeavor to live, and not make up your mind to dying, because life
has grown heavy and sad.”
“My dear, I am ill--very ill. It is not merely that life is grown
intolerable to me. I am sure I could not live long in such misery of
mind; but I am breaking up fast.”
The young people looked at each other in dismay. There was something
worse than the grief conveyed by their father’s words in the hopeless
daring--the despair--of his tone when he ventured to say that life was
unendurable.
Becky had the child on one arm; with the other hand she took down her
father’s plaid from its peg, and put it round his rheumatic shoulders,
whispering in his ear a few words about desiring that God’s will should
be done.
“My dear,” he replied, “it was I who taught you that lesson when you
were a child on my knee, and it would be strange if I forgot it when I
want so much any comfort that I can get. But I don’t believe (and if you
ask the clergyman, he will tell you that he does not believe) that it is
God’s will that we, or any other people, should be thrust into a swamp
like this, scarcely fit for the rats and the frogs to live in. It is
man’s doing, not God’s, that the fever makes such havoc as it has made
with us. The fever does not lay waste healthy places.”
“Then why are we here?” Allan ventured to say. “Father, let us go.”
“Go! I wonder how or where! I can’t go, or let any of you go. I have not
a pound in the world to spend in moving, or in finding new employment.
And if I had, who would employ me? Who would not laugh at a crippled old
man asking for work and wages?”
“Then, father, we must see what we can do here, and you must not forbid
us to say ‘God’s will be done!’ If we cannot go away, it must be His
will that we should stay and have as much hope and courage as we can.”
Woodruffe threw himself back in his chair. It was too much to expect
that he would immediately rally; but he let the young people confer, and
plan, and cheer each other.
The first thing to be done, they agreed, was to move hither, whenever
the dismal rain would permit it, all Abby’s furniture that could not be
disposed of to her husband’s successors. It would fit up the lower room.
And Allan and Becky settled how the things could stand so as to make it
at once a bed-room and sitting-room. If, as Abby had said, she meant to
try to get some scholars, and keep a little school, room must be left to
seat the children.
“Keep a school?” exclaimed Woodruffe, looking round at Abby.
“Yes, father,” said Abby, raising her head. “That seems to be a thing
that I can do; and it will be good for me to have something to do. Becky
is the stoutest of us all, and....”
“I wonder how long that will last,” groaned the father.
“I am quite stout now,” said Becky; “and I am the one to help Allan with
the garden. Allan and I will work under your direction, father, while
your rheumatism lasts; and....”
“And what am I to do?” asked Moss, pushing himself in.
“You shall fetch and carry the tools,” said Becky; “that is, when the
weather is fine, and when your chilblains are not very bad. And you
shall be bird-boy when the sowing season comes on.”
“And we are going to put up a pent-house for you, in one corner, you
know, Moss,” said his brother. “And we will make it so that there shall
be room for a fire in it, where father and you may warm yourselves, and
always have dry shoes ready.”
“I wonder what our shoe leather will have cost us by the time the spring
comes,” observed Woodruffe. “There is not a place where we ever have to
take the cart or the barrow that is not all mire and ruts; not a path in
the whole garden that I call a decent one. Our shoes are all pulled to
pieces; while the frost, or the fog, or something or other, prevents our
getting any real work done. The waste is dreadful. Nothing should have
made me take a garden where none but summer crops are to be had, if I
could have foreseen such a thing. I never saw such a thing
before,--never--as market-gardening without winter and spring crops.
Never heard of such a thing!”
Becky glanced towards Allan, to see if he had nothing to propose. If
they could neither mend the place nor leave it, it did seem a hard case.
Allan was looking into the fire, musing. When Moss announced that the
rain was over, Allan started, and said he must be fetching some of
Abby’s things down, if it was fair. Becky really meant to help him; but
she also wanted opportunity for consultation, as to whether it could
really be God’s will that they should neither be able to mend their
condition nor to escape from it. As they mounted the long flight of
steps, they saw Mr. Nelson issue from the Station, looking about him to
ascertain if the rain was over, and take his stand on the embankment,
followed by a gentleman who had a roll of paper in his hand. As they
stood, the one was seen to point with his stick, and the other with his
roll of paper, this way and that. Allan set off in that direction,
saying to his sister, as he went,
“Don’t you come. That gentleman is so rude, he will make you cry. Yes, I
must go, and I won’t get angry; I won’t indeed. He may find as much
fault as he pleases; I must show him how the water is standing in our
furrows.”
“Hallo! what do you want here?” was Mr. Nelson’s greeting, when, after a
minute or two, he saw Allan looking and listening. “What business have
you here, hearkening to what we are saying?”
“I wanted to know whether anything is going to be done below there. I
thought, if you wished it, I could tell you something about it.”
“You! what, a dainty little fellow like you?--a fellow that wears his
Sunday clothes on a Tuesday, and a rainy Tuesday too! You must get
working clothes and work.”
“I shall work to-morrow, Sir. My mother and my brother-in-law were
buried to-day.”
“Lord bless me! You should have told me that. How should I know that
unless you told me?” He proceeded in a much gentler tone, however,
merely remonstrating with Allan for letting the wet stand in the
furrows, in such a way as would spoil any garden. Allan had a good ally,
all the while, in the stranger, who seemed to understand everything
before it was explained. The gentleman was, in fact, an agricultural
surveyor--one who could tell, when looking abroad from a height, what
was swamp and what meadow; where there was a clean drain, and where an
uneven ditch; where the soil was likely to be watered, and where flooded
by the winter rains; where genially warmed, and where fatally baked by
the summer’s sun. He had seen, before Allan pointed it out, how the
great ditch cut across between the cultivated grounds and the little
river into which those grounds should be drained; but he could not know,
till told by Allan, who were the proprietors and occupiers of the
parcels of land lying on either side the ditch. Mr. Nelson knew little
or nothing under this head, though he contradicted the lad every minute;
was sure such an one did not live here, nor another there; told him he
was confusing Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown; did not believe a word of Mr.
Taylor having bought yonder meadow, or Mrs. Scott now renting that
field. All the while, the surveyor went on setting down the names as
Allan told them; and then observed that they were not so many but that
they might combine, if they would, to drain their properties, if they
could be relieved of the obstruction of the ditch--if the surveyor of
highways would see that the ditch were taken in hand. Mr. Nelson
pronounced that there should be no difficulty about the ditch, if the
rest could be managed; and then, after a few whispered words between the
gentlemen, Allan was asked first, whether he was sure that he knew where
every person lived whose name was down in the surveyor’s book; and next,
whether he would act as guide to-morrow. For a moment he thought he
should be wanted to move Abby’s things; but, remembering the vast
importance of the plan which seemed now to be fairly growing under his
eye, he replied that he would go; he should be happy to make it his
day’s work to help, ever so little, towards what he wished above
everything in the world.