"LAME DOGS OVER STILES."
We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides.
But tasks in hours of insight will'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.
With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 't were done.
Not till the hours of light return,
All we have built do we discern.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
"There's been a scrap of a child here asking for you," said the old
captain to Donovan, as they returned to their rooms one evening after
dining at a restaurant. "I couldn't make out what she wanted, but
she's been here twice to see if you weren't come home."
"What sort of child?"
"Oh! a shabby-looking little lass. She wouldn't tell me what she
wanted with you, only she must see Mr. Farrant, and when would he be
in."
"She'll turn up again, I suppose," said Donovan. "I'm pretty free
this evening; shall we do those slides?"
Old Rouge had lately developed a most satisfactory love for the
microscope, and whenever it was possible Donovan asked his help over
it, or awakened his interest in some new specimen to be seen. There
were now actually three things in the world besides himself and his
toddy which the old captain cared for--Donovan, Sweepstakes, and the
microscope. He loved them all exceedingly in his odd way, and, on
the whole, the year which he had spent in York Road was almost the
happiest year of his life.
They were hard at work with their slides, specimens, and Canada
balsam when the doorbell rang and the mysterious "child" was
announced.
"Show her in here," said Donovan to the landlady.
"Indeed, sir, she ain't fit," returned the woman. "It's a-pouring
with rain, and she be that wet and dirty."
Donovan frowned the frown of a Republican, deposited his section of
the brain of a gorilla in a safe place, and went out into the
passage. The smallest little white-faced child imaginable stood on
the mat; the rain had soaked her, the water dripped down from her
dark hair, from her ragged shawl, from her indescribably-draggled
skirt; she looked the picture of misery.
"Come in and dry yourself by the fire," said Donovan, and the small
elf, too frightened to refuse, followed him into the sitting-room.
The old captain bowed to her as gallantly as if she had been a
princess, Waif sniffed at her wet frock and yielded up his place in
front of the fender, Donovan drew a stool for her on to the
hearthrug, and the elf sat down and instinctively spread out her
frozen fingers to the blaze.
"You wanted to see me?" asked Donovan. "What was it about?"
"Please it was father, sir."
"What is your father's name?"
"Smith, sir, and please he's very ill with something in his inside,
and he wants to see you."
"But I'm not a doctor; he must get the parish doctor."
"Oh! please, it isn't for his inside he wants you," said the elf,
looking frightened.
"What does he want?"
"Please I don't know, but he said I was to ask Mr. Farrant to come."
"But I don't know your father; he's not been at St. Thomas's, has he?"
"No, sir, but please do come, for he'll be dreadful vexed if you
don't," and her eyes filled with tears.
"Don't cry," said Donovan, "I'll come with you. Is it far? You must
show me the way."
They set off together, Donovan taking the elf under his umbrella to
her unspeakable pride and delight, and Waif soberly trotting at their
heels.
"And how did your father know where I lived, do you think?" he asked,
as they crossed Westminster Bridge.
"Please he had it all wrote down on a card, and he can read very well
indeed, father can."
Big Ben struck nine, and therewith a recollection awoke in Donovan's
mind, a fierce struggle which he had once had just on that spot, a
sight of Stephen passing by, a hurried pursuit to a well-known
billiard-saloon, and a strange recognition of a Cornish face. He had
written his address on a card, of course! He remembered it perfectly
well now. This must be a message from Trevethan's son.
The elf did not speak again, but led him down Horseferry Road into
one of the most horrible of the Westminster slums. He took the
precaution of picking up Waif and carrying him under his arm; he was
his only valuable. They were unmolested, however, and the child,
turning into a forlorn-looking house, led the way up a steep and
dirty staircase, and turning a door-handle showed Donovan into a
perfectly dark room redolent of tobacco.
"Here's the gentleman, father; give us a light," she said, groping
her way in.
A match was struck, and Donovan could see by the fitful light a
comfortless-looking room, and in the corner a man propped up in bed
with a short pipe in his hand. The elf produced a tallow candle,
Donovan drew near to the bed, and at once recognised the
billiard-marker.
"I thought the message was from you; I'm glad you've sent for me at
last," he said.
"I thought it was too late," said the man, "and then when the child
found you out, I thought it was that you wouldn't come. Sit down;"
he pointed to a chair, then went on speaking in the most absolutely
free and easy tone. "I'm dying, or next door to it, so I thought I'd
like to hear of the old man down at Porthkerran. He asked you to
look out for me, did he?"
"It was his greatest wish to find you," said Donovan. "And after you
sent him that five-pound note he told me about you, said he thought
you must be in London, and having very little idea of the sort of
place London is, he asked me to look for you. You are like him; I
recognised you at once that night."
"No flattery to the poor old man to say I'm like him," said
Trevethan, with a laugh. "This one is like him, though; come here,
little one, are you wet? it rains, don't it?"
He drew the child towards him, touching her ragged dress with his
thin white hands.
"The gentleman made me dry it by the fire, and he held his umbrella
over me as we comed back," said the elf.
"Thank you, sir," said Trevethan, a softened expression playing about
his cynical mouth. "She's a bit of the real Cornish in her, though
London smoke has nearly spoilt it. There, run away and get your
supper, Gladys."
Donovan started and coloured.
"Yes, 'tis a queer name for the likes of her," observed Trevethan,
scanning Donovan's face curiously with his keen blue eyes. "But I
made up my mind the little one should have at least one good honest
name, though may be Miss Gladys wouldn't be best pleased to have her
name given to such a poor little brat."
"Oh! yes, she would be very glad to see that you remembered
Porthkerran and still cared for it," said Donovan. "But it's a pity
to let the poor child grow up here when your father would be only too
glad to have her."
"That's what I wanted you for," said Trevethan. "Would he be kind to
her? is he too strait-laced to take in my poor little lass? Some of
those religionists are hard as nails, and I want my little lass to be
happy."
"He would be very good to her," said Donovan, without hesitation.
"Your father is one of the best men I know."
"Odd that he should have such a son, isn't it?" said Trevethan,
trying to laugh.
"Happily the least deserving of us do often have good fathers," said
Donovan, rather huskily.
Then he listened to the history of the blacksmith's son, a very sad
history, which need not be written here. The man was now evidently
very ill, not at all fit to be left alone with no better nurse than
his child, but he had fought against the idea of being moved to a
hospital because he could not endure the thought of leaving little
Gladys alone, or of having her sent to the workhouse. Donovan
offered to pay her expenses down to Porthkerran, but even that seemed
intolerable to the poor man, as long as he lived he could not make up
his mind to part with her. Nor would he let Donovan write to his
father.
"Not now. Don't write now," he urged, "it would only make the old
man miserable, wait till I'm either dead or better. Do you think
there's a chance of my getting better? I should like to make a fresh
start."
"There would be a very good chance for you if you would go to a
hospital, you cannot be properly nursed here. Think over it, and I
will see whether I can't find some one in London who would look after
your child."
"If she could come to see me," said Trevethan, wistfully.
So Donovan left, promising to look in again the next evening and talk
things over.
There was evidently no time to be lost, he thought the matter over as
he walked home, and suddenly arriving at a possible solution of the
difficulty, he turned into the station instead of going on to York
Road, took a ticket to Gower Street, and was soon making his way to
the Osmonds.
Charles Osmond was at church, but Brian and Mrs. Osmond wore at home,
and were quite ready to hear the story of the sick man.
"Another _protégé_ for you," said Brian, laughing, "and of course a
ne'er-do-weel."
"Birds of a feather flock together," said Donovan, smiling. "We've a
natural affinity, you see. The great difficulty is about the child,
I don't know what's to be done with her."
"We might get her into some home," said Mrs. Osmond. "I know one or
two where she would be happy."
"But she wouldn't be allowed to go and see her father," said Donovan.
"And it would never do to separate them, the child is the great hope
for him."
"What child is the great hope, and for whom?" said Charles Osmond,
coming into the room with his peculiarly soft slow step. "Do I
actually hear you, Donovan, discussing such things as men and
children, I thought you were up to the eyes in work for the exam?"
Donovan told his story.
"You see," he added, at the close. "From any school or home she
would never be allowed to come out and go to the hospital."
"What's the child's name?"
"Gladys." Then as Brian looked greatly surprised and Charles Osmond
made an exclamation, he continued,--"Trevethan comes from
Porthkerran, and Miss Tremain is worshipped down there; she is the
tutelary saint of the place--and he called his child after her."
"Well, I think Gladys had better come to this home," said Charles
Osmond. "What do you say, mother--will Mrs. Maloney make the kitchen
too hot to hold her?"
"Oh, no, she is much too good-natured."
"But you don't realise, I'm afraid," said Donovan. "She's the most
neglected-looking little thing altogether, dirty and unkempt, and too
young to be of any use to you."
"She must be an odd child if we don't find her of use," said Charles
Osmond, with a strange smile in his eyes. "Why, I thought, Donovan,
you were one who believed in the influence of children."
"For those who want it, yes," said Donovan. "But----"
"But we don't want it, and are to be left to ourselves--is that it?"
"She's scarcely fit to come here," said Donovan; "she's ragged and
dirty to a degree."
"Oh, you soul of cleanliness!" said Charles Osmond, laughing. "Is
there not water in the land of Bloomsbury?--can we not scrub this
blackamoor white? And as to raggedness, it will be odd if with four
women in the house--all of them longing to be Dorcases--we can't
clothe one poor little elf. Can you get your man admitted to St.
Thomas's?"
"I think so."
"Very well, then, as soon as he is moved we will be ready to have the
little girl."
Donovan went home with the words ringing in his ears, "A stranger and
ye took me in." And instinctively his thoughts travelled back to a
certain summer day years ago, when, with muddy, travel-stained
clothes, he too had been taken into a home, ill and penniless and
utterly ignorant of that strange love which had been revealed to him.
He feared it was against the rules of political economy, and quite
against all worldly wisdom; but however that might be, such living
Christianity had a strange power of touching his heart.
It seemed to touch Trevethan's heart too; evidently kindness to the
child was the way to get hold of him. For attention to himself he
was not particularly grateful, grumbled at the prospect of losing his
pipe at the hospital, swore fearfully if, in helping him to move,
Donovan caused him any pain, and was so surly and off-hand in manner
that, had his attendant been a believer in class and caste, he could
hardly have borne it patiently.
Every evening for the next week he went to that, dismal room in
Westminster; it was thankless work, and yet Trevethan was very fond
of him, and would hardly have dragged through the wretched days
without the hope of those nightly visits. He was far too sullen and
miserable and ashamed to let this appear, however, and made it seem
rather a favour to admit his visitor. At the end of the week he was
able to be moved to St. Thomas's, and on the afternoon of the same
day Donovan took little Gladys to the Osmonds.
When he got back to his rooms he found, to his intense surprise, that
instead of old Rouge's well-known figure sitting over the fire, there
was a lady in the arm-chair, well-dressed, quite at her ease,
apparently engrossed in a newspaper. He made a sort of inarticulate
exclamation, upon which she turned hastily round.
It was Adela.
"My dear Augustus Cæsar, how delightful to see you again!" she
exclaimed, holding out both her hands. "Were you very much
astonished to see an unknown female in possession of your fire-side?"
"How good of you to come and look me up!" said Donovan, really
pleased to see her, for she was the first of his family whom he had
met for years.
"Good!" exclaimed Adela, in her old bantering tone--"why, I've been
longing to come over since I knew your whereabouts--ever since that
good Cornishman came and enlightened me at Oakdene. But there's been
a conspiracy among the fates against me! if you'll believe it, I've
hardly been in town since that time. I've been half over the world
since I saw you last--Italy, Austria, Greece, Switzerland--in fact,
the grand tour; but as to getting a day in town unmolested by friends
or dressmakers, in which to visit you, I assure you it's been as
unattainable as the moon."
Donovan, a good deal amused by this thoroughly characteristic speech,
brought a foot-stool for his cousin, poked the fire, rang the bell
for tea, and finally settled himself on the opposite side of the
fireplace.
"We will be comfortable, and you shall talk just as you did in the
old times," he said. "I declare it makes me feel quite inclined to
turn misanthropical again for the sake of one of the old arguments."
"There, I was right, then. You have actually renounced it all and
become a philanthropist! To tell you the truth, the immediate cause
of my visit was this: I happened to be in the Underground this
afternoon, and imagine my feelings when, on the platform at Gower
Street, I caught sight of my misanthropical cousin pioneering a
little City Arab through the crowd. My curiosity was so intense that
I was really obliged to come and solve the problem at once. Besides,
it was tantalising to see you so near, and to have my frantic signals
disregarded. You are immensely altered, Donovan; I almost wonder now
that I knew you."
She looked at him attentively for a minute, as if trying to find out
in what the great change consisted.
"It is a long time since we met," said Donovan; "I should think it
rather odd if I were not changed."
"You have had a hard life, I'm afraid," said Adela. "You know, of
course, how vexed I am about Ellis's conduct; he ought to have made
you a proper allowance. I said all I could to him, but that brother
of mine is terribly like a mule; when once he has made up his mind to
dislike a person, nothing will change his opinion."
"We won't discuss him," said Donovan, afraid that inadvertently he
might reveal to Adela the real depth of her brother's treachery.
"Tell me instead about my mother; it is more than a year since I had
any news of her."
"She is well, I think," said Adela, in a doubtful voice; "but, to
tell you the truth, I have been very little at Oakdene. Whether
Ellis has any idea that I act as a medium between you and your
mother, I don't know, but he makes it unbearably uncomfortable for
me. I oughtn't to say it to you, I suppose, but I must confess that
that marriage seems to me to have been a fearful mistake. Ellis is
not half as jolly as in his poor bachelor days; he has all that heart
can wish or money buy, and yet every time I go to stay with them he
seems to me more depressed and irritable and dissatisfied with
things."
"Does he manage the estate well?"
"Oh! he leaves it all to the bailiff; he knows nothing whatever about
it, moons about all day with his cigar, scolding anyone who dares to
interrupt him."
"Are they coming up for the season?"
"No, he has let the Connaught Square house till July; but they think
of spending next winter either there or abroad, for your mother
fancies the Manor damp, and she has certainly had a good deal of
rheumatism lately. That is absolutely all I know about them. Now
let us talk of something more cheerful; haven't you got some nice,
wicked medical student stories for me? You are a dreadful lot, are
you not? Now amuse me a little, there's a good boy, for, to tell you
the truth, I'm dying of _ennui_ in this most prosaic of worlds."
"We are very prosaic here," said Donovan, smiling, "nothing, I fear,
to re-vivify you except ponderous works on anatomy and medicine.
Come, you shall be my first patient; in less than a year you will
perhaps see the family name on a brass plate, not a useless brass in
a church, but a most utilitarian plate on a surgery door."
"You dreadful boy, what made you take up such a trade?"
"Take care how you speak of my profession," said Donovan, laughing.
"I'll prescribe the most horrible remedies for your _ennui_ if you
are not respectful. I chose it because it's to my mind the only
really satisfactory profession."
"If you had any interest in the medical world, and were likely to get
a good West End practice; but otherwise, just think of the sort of
people it will throw you among. You'll have to go among poverty and
dirt and everything that's disagreeable. Besides, you will lose
caste."
"You forget that I don't believe I have any to lose," said Donovan,
smiling. "You should turn Republican, it saves so many small
annoyances."
"What were you doing this afternoon with that beggar-child?"
"Taking her to some friends of mine who have promised to house her
while her father is in the hospital."
Adela lifted up her hands in horror.
"Taking that child to a gentleman's house, my dear boy--what an odd
set you must have got into! That sort of thing sounds very nice, but
it's dreadfully extravagant and romantic."
"It has a way of seeming very practical to the one who is taken in,"
said Donovan, in a voice which revealed a good deal to Adela.
"You are thinking of your good Cornishman," she exclaimed. "But you
were a more eligible subject than that little beggar-girl, more fit
to be in a gentleman's house."
"Much you know about it!" said Donovan, with a half smile, and again
Adela realised that the five years which had passed so uneventfully
with her, had brought to her cousin a knowledge both of evil and good
quite beyond her understanding.
"I tried my misanthropical creed for some time," he continued after a
minute's pause, "and found it a dead failure. And then I had the
good fortune to come across some people who lived exactly on the
opposite system."
"From extreme to extreme, of course," said Adela, "that is always the
way. I suppose you've become a Wesleyan or a Methodist."
He could not help smiling a little at her tone, and at her
fashionable horror of dissent, but his grave answer brought back to
her the remembrance that even in the old days he never could endure
to have matters of religious belief or unbelief lightly touched upon.
"I do not see my way to Christianity at all as yet."
"And you don't go to church?" said Adela, regretfully. It had always
been the one great thing she had urged upon him.
"Not quite in the way you would approve of," replied Donovan,
smiling, "but I do go in for the sermon now and then at my friend's
church. I am afraid you would think his teaching of the 'extravagant
and romantic' order, he has a habit of bringing Christianity to bear
on every-day life in rather a difficult and inconvenient way."
Adela looked thoughtful.
"He is right, of course," she said, sadly; "but I don't think people
know how hard it is when one is a great deal in society. I can't
adopt beggar children or teach in Sunday schools, it's not in my
line."
She spoke so much more seriously than usual that Donovan's heart went
out to her.
"I sometimes think," he said, "that in its way Dot's life was about
the most perfect one can fancy. It seemed such a matter of course
that she should be the patient, loving little thing she was, that at
the time it didn't strike one. But just think of it now, with
everything to make her selfish she was always the first to think of
other people, with scarcely a day of her life free from pain she was
always the one bit of sunshine in the house. And yet she was as
unconscious of it as if she had been a baby. Depend upon it it's not
the teaching in Sunday schools or the adopting of children that makes
the difference, the spirit of love can be brought into any kind of
life. What had Dot to do with philanthropy and good works? Yet if
it had not been for that little child's life I should have been a
downright fiend long ago. I don't believe you women know how much
you can do for us, not by your district-visitings and
conventionalities, but by just being the pure beings you were meant
to be."
Adela was silent. She knew she had talked a great deal of nonsense
in her life, had flirted with innumerable men, had flattered dozens
of foolish young fellows whom in her heart she had all the time
despised. She felt truly enough that her influence must all have
gone into the wrong scale, and that while meaning harmlessly to amuse
herself, she had all the time been lowering that standard of
womanhood of which Donovan seemed to think so much.
"And yet you know," she said, piteously, "if you subtracted the vein
of fun and banter and chaff from me there would be nothing left but a
dull old spinster beginning to turn grey, whom you would all wish to
get rid of. I'm like poor little Miss Moucher, volatile I was born,
and volatile I shall die."
"We can ill afford to lose any of the real fun in the world," said
Donovan. "I hope you won't turn puritanical. I don't think I could
like a person who had no sense of humour, so please don't talk of
subtracting yours."
"I suppose the real fun, as you call it, is good," said Adela. "And
the artificial nonsense is bad. At the same time it is hard to get
up anything but forced fun when life is a long bit of _ennui_."
"But you have the secret for making life something very different,"
said Donovan.
"I believe you envy me!" said Adela; "but, oh! my dear Donovan, it is
quite possible to have prescriptions, and medicines, and a doctor
within reach, and yet to be very ill and miserable."
"It seems then that we are both in a bad way," said Donovan, smiling.
"You know the remedies, but have not will enough to use them. I have
the will to use them, but have not the remedies."
"Well, what is to help us?" said Adela.
"Go to some one better fitted to tell you," replied Donovan. "This
is a good sort of working motto, though."
He opened Kingsley's life, which was lying on the table, and pointed
to the following lines:
"Do the work that's nearest,
Though it's dull at whiles,
Helping, when you meet them,
Lame dogs over stiles."
"I'll be your 'lame dog' for this afternoon, and you shall grace this
bachelor room and pour out tea for us. By-the-by, talking of
bachelors, how is old Mr. Hayes? it is an age since I heard of him."
They drifted off into talk about Oakdene and Greyshot neighbours,
feeling that they had touched upon deeper matters than they cared to
discuss.