At last Nancy, her eyes red with crying, sat down, with her hands
pressed against her head, to consider what was to be done.
"Why, I ought to have sent for him at once!" she suddenly exclaimed.
"Peter, run and find Tom Swatridge, and tell him that poor missus has
gone."
I needed no second bidding, and, thankful to have something to do, I
started away.
On reaching the Hard, where I expected to find old Tom, I heard from
some of the watermen that he had gone off with a fare to Gosport, so I
had to wait for his return. Many of the men standing about asked me
after mother, and seemed very sorry to hear of her death. I saw them
talking earnestly together while I waited for Tom. Others joined them,
and then went away, so that the news soon spread about our part of the
town. I had to wait a long time, till old Tom came back with several
persons in his boat. He pocketed their fares, touching his hat to each
before he took any notice of me.
"What cheer, Peter? How's the missus?" he asked, stepping on shore and
dropping the kedge to make fast his boat. "I feared she wouldn't be up
to bum-boating to-day."
"Mother's dead," I answered.
"Dead! The missus dead!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his brow,
and looking fixedly at me. "The Lord have mercy on us!"
"Nancy wants you, Tom," I said.
"I'm coming, Peter, I'm coming. I said I'd be a father to you and Mary,
and I will, please God," he replied, recovering himself.
He took my hand, and stumped away towards our house.
"Dick Porter, look after my boat, will ye, till I comes back?" he said
to one of the men on the Hard as we hurried by.
"Ay, ay," was the cheerful answer--for Dick knew where old Tom was
going.
Not a word did the old man speak all the way. When we got to the house,
what was my astonishment to find a number of people in the sitting-room,
one of whom, with note-book in hand, was making an inventory of the
furniture! Mary was sitting in a corner crying, and Nancy was looking
as if she had a mind to try and turn them all out. As soon as Mary saw
me she jumped up and took my hand.
"What's all this about?" exclaimed old Tom, in an indignant tone. "You
might have stopped, whatever right you may have here, till the dead
woman was carried to her grave, I'm thinking."
"And others had carried off the goods," answered the man with the
note-book. "We are only acting according to law. Mrs Trawl has run
into debt on all sides, and when the goods are sold there won't be five
shillings in the pound to pay them, that I can see, so her children must
take the consequences. There's the workhouse for them."
"The work'us, do ye say? Mrs Trawl's children sent to the work'us!"
exclaimed old Tom, and he rapped out an expression which I need not
repeat. "Not while this here hand can pull an oar and I've a shiner in
my pocket. If you've got the law on your side, do as the law lets you.
But all I can say is, that it's got no bowels of compassion in it, to
allow the orphans to be turned out of house and home, and the breath
scarce out of their mother's body. Nancy, do you pack up the children's
clothes, and any school-books or play-things you can find, and then come
along to my house. The law can't touch them, I suppose."
"What is that drunken old Swatridge talking about?" said one of the
broker's men.
Tom heard him.
"Such I may have been, but I'll be no longer `drunken old Swatridge'
while I have these children to look after," he exclaimed; and giving one
hand to Mary and the other to me, he led us out of the house.