By Miss Edgeworth.
"Yes, madam, I bees an Englishwoman, though so low now and untidy
like--it's a shame to think of it--a Manchester woman, ma'am--and my
people was once in a bettermost sort of way--but sore pinched latterly."
She sighed, and paused.
"I married an Irishman, madam," continued she, and sighed again.
"I hope he gave you no reason to sigh," said Gerald's father.
"Ah, no, sir, never!" answered the Englishwoman, with a faint sweet
smile. "Brian Dermody is a good man, and was always a koind husband to
me, as far and as long as ever he could, I will say that--but my friends
misliked him--no help for it. He is a soldier, sir,--of the
forty-fifth. So I followed my husband's fortins, as nat'ral, through the
world, till he was ordered to Ireland. Then he brought the children
over, and settled us down there at Bogafin in a little shop with his
mother--a widow. She was very koind too. But no need to tire you with
telling all. She married again, ma'am, a man young enough to be her
son--a nice man he was to look at too--a gentleman's servant he had
been. Then they set up in a public-house. Then the whiskey, ma'am, that
they bees all so fond of--he took to drinking it in the morning even,
ma'am--and that was bad, to my thinking."
"Ay, indeed!" said Molly, with a groan of sympathy; "oh the whiskey! if
men could keep from it!"
"And if women could!" said Mr. Crofton in a low voice.
The Englishwoman looked up at him, and then looked down, refraining from
assent to his smile.
"My mother-in-law," continued she, "was very koind to me all along, as
far as she could. But one thing she could not do; that was, to pay me
back the money of husband's and mine that I lent her. I thought this odd
of her--and hard. But then I did not know the ways of the country in
regard to never paying debts."
"Sure it's not the ways of all Ireland, my dear," said Molly; "and it's
only them that has not that can't pay--how can they?"
"I don't know--it's not for me to say," said the Englishwoman,
reservedly; "I am a stranger. But I thought if they could not pay me,
they need not have kept a jaunting-car."
"Is it a jaunting-car?" cried Molly. She pushed from her the chair on
which she was leaning--"Jaunting-car bodies! and not to pay you!--I give
them up intirely. Ill-used you were, my poor Mrs. Dermody--and a shame!
and you a stranger! But them were Connaught people. I ask your
pardon--finish your story."
"It is finished, ma'am. They were ruined, and all sold; and I could not
stay with my children to be a burthen. I wrote to husband, and he wrote
me word to make my way to Dublin, if I could, to a cousin of his in
Pill-lane--here's the direction--and that if he can get leave from his
colonel, who is a good gentleman, he will be over to settle me
somewhere, to get my bread honest in a little shop, or some way. I am
used to work and hardship; so I don't mind. Brian was very koind in
his letter, and sent me all he had--a pound, ma'am--and I set out on my
journey on foot, with the three children. The people on the road were
very koind and hospitable indeed; I have nothing to say against the
Irish for that; they are more hospitabler a deal than in England, though
not always so honest. Stranger as I was, I got on very well till I came
to the little village here hard by, where my poor boy that is gone first
fell sick of the measles. His sickness, and the 'pot'ecary' stuff and
all, and the lodging and living ran me very low. But I paid all, every
farthing; and let none know how poor I was, for I was ashamed, you know,
ma'am, or I am sure they would have helped me, for they are a koind
people, I will say that for them, and ought so to do, I am sure. Well, I
pawned some of my things, my cloak even, and my silk bonnet, to pay
honest; and as I could not do no otherwise, I left them in pawn, and,
with the little money I raised, I set out forwards on my road to Dublin
again, so soon as I thought my boy was able to travel. I reckoned too
much upon his strength. We had got but a few miles from the village when
he dropped, and could not get on; and I was unwilling and ashamed to
turn back, having so little to pay for lodgings. I saw a kind of hut, or
shed, by the side of a hill. There was nobody in it. It was empty of
every thing but some straw, and a few turf, the remains of a fire. I
thought there would be no harm in taking shelter in it for my children
and myself for the night. The people never came back to whom it
belonged, and the next day my poor boy was worse; he had a fever this
time. Then the snow came on. We had some little store of provisions that
had been made up for us for the journey to Dublin, else we must have
perished when we were snowed up. I am sure the people in the village
never know'd that we were in that hut, or they would have come to help
us, for they bees very koind people. There must have been a day and a
night that passed, I think, of which I know nothing. It was all a dream.
When I got up from my illness, I found my boy dead--and the others with
famished looks. Then I had to see them faint with hunger."
The poor woman had told her story without any attempt to make it
pathetic, and thus far without apparent emotion or change of voice; but
when she came to this part, and spoke of her children, her voice changed
and failed--she could only add, looking at Gerald, "You know the rest,
master; Heaven bless you!"
_The Christmas Box_
* * * * *