A STARTLING SUGGESTION.
Frank Maynard, on his return from the Continent, had taken rooms close
to those occupied by Arthur Prescott, in the Temple. An arrangement,
which although in itself very pleasant for both, by no means conduced to
the promotion of the latter’s legal studies; for Arthur had been lately
called to the bar, and was working really very hard at his profession.
For the first week after his friend came back to town, he had put by his
books, and given up his time to him entirely, but after that he had been
obliged to enter into a compact with him. First, that Frank should on no
pretence whatever come to his rooms before one o’clock; and second, that
although he might pass the afternoon with him, he should be bound to
occupy himself in reading, and was on no account to enter into long
conversations. After four o’clock, Prescott put aside his law books, and
was at his friend’s service for the rest of the day.
The first part of the condition Frank found it easy enough to observe.
He did not rise until late; and after he had finished breakfast, the
“Times” occupied him pretty well till it was the hour for going into
Prescott’s. After lunch he would take up a novel, light his pipe, make
himself comfortable, and read for an hour or so. But presently he would
put his book down, and begin to ask Prescott questions, and to entrap
him into lengthy conversations, till Arthur became quite desperate; when
Frank would leave him and sally out to make a round of calls, returning
at six to go out to dinner with his friend. In the evening, Prescott was
safe from interruption, as Frank was almost always out at dances and
balls at the houses of the numerous friends he had met during his
travels.
It was a week after the party at the Holls’. The frost had broken up,
but the weather was raw and cold. Arthur Prescott was studying, and
occasionally looking over, with a rather amused glance, at his friend.
Frank having in vain tried to interest himself in his novel, had thrown
it down in disgust, and was gazing disconsolately out of the window,
upon the green lawn below, and at the leaden-coloured river beyond, with
its black drifting barges, and its busy little steamers hurrying past.
“By Jove, Prescott,” he broke out at last, “this is a beastly climate of
ours.”
“As how, Frank?” Prescott asked quietly.
“As how?” Frank repeated irritably. “Why in its wind, and its rain; and
its damp, and its cold. It’s detestable. Last winter I was in Rome.”
“Ah, and were you there in summer, Frank?”
“Of course not, Prescott. One might as well live in an oven, with an air
blowing in from a fever-den.”
“Quite so, Frank. You see other places have their detestable points as
well as ours.”
Frank Maynard gave a grunt of discontent, and again looked out of the
window. At last he turned round again.
“What on earth am I to do with myself, Prescott?”
“My dear Frank, I am afraid that question is likely to bring on a long
discussion; but in consideration of the day, and the more especially as
I see you do not mean to let me read, I will put away my books for the
afternoon.”
“There’s a good fellow,” Frank said, brightening up greatly, and
wheeling the fellow arm-chair of the one he had been sitting in, up to
the fire, while Prescott put his books back into their places on the
shelves. That done, he opened a bottle of beer, poured it into a large
tankard—a college trophy of his prowess in boating—and lit his pipe.
“There, that’s comfortable,” Frank said. “The climate has its advantages
after all. Now let us talk seriously. What in the world am I to do? Here
have I been back in England little more than three months, two of which
I have spent shooting, and now after a month in London, I am bored out
of my life.”
“It is a hard case, Frank; a man with eight hundred a year, and nothing
to do but to spend it; and you are out nearly every evening, too.”
“That’s all well enough for the evening, Prescott, but I can’t spend the
day thinking whom I am going to meet in the evening; and whether the
pretty girl I danced with the night before will be there, and so on.”
“Why not join a club, Frank?”
“I am down for the ‘Travellers,’ but it may be years before I am
elected, and I don’t believe I shall care for it when I am. I have been
into several clubs with men I know, and they seem to me the slowest
places going. Men look in, and moon about the room, and take up a paper,
and then throw it down again, and go and look out of the window, and
then order their dinner, and grumble over it when they have got it. My
dear fellow, it’s well enough for old fogies, but I can see no pull in
it at all. Of course, in the evening one can play billiards, but as I am
out nearly every night, I don’t see that I shall gain much by that.”
“Why don’t you keep a horse, Frank?”
“Well, I might do that, Prescott; but I don’t think I should ever go out
on the beggar if I had one. I don’t care much for riding at the best of
times; and as to going up and down Rotten Row, it would drive me out of
my mind in a week. No; when summer comes I shall buy a yacht of about
twenty tons, and cruise about; but the question is the winter.”
“Well, Frank, as you do not care, I have heard you say, for country
sports, I really think it would be worth your while to think seriously
of entering yourself at the bar, or of taking to literary work; or in
fact making some sort of aim for yourself. I confess that, as a busy man
myself, I can hardly conceive a man having the whole day on his hands,
with nothing definite before him.”
“My dear fellow,” Frank said despondently; “what on earth would be the
good of my entering at the bar? I should never read—you know that as
well as I do; and consequently I should have no more to do than I have
now, with the additional disadvantage of being obliged to dine so often
in Hall, instead of being able to get my dinner where I like. As to
literary work, the thing’s simply absurd; what on earth should I write
about? And when I had fixed on a subject, what in the name of goodness
should I have to say about it? Upon my word, Prescott, your suggestions
are positively childish.”
Prescott shrugged his shoulders, and smoked for some time in silence.
Presently he took his pipe from his mouth, and asked suddenly—
“Why don’t you get married, Frank?”
“Married! My dear Prescott, I wish you would not talk in that light way
of such a serious business. I should as soon think of flying up to the
moon. Besides, whom in the world should I marry? I go out to parties and
balls, and flirt with dozens of girls, but I never think any more of
them, nor do they of me. Just imagine one of their faces, if I were to
say, ‘Madam, your obedient servant is on the look-out for a wife; will
you supply the deficiency?’”
Frank laughed loudly; Prescott smiled, and then was quiet for some time.
At last he said, with a sort of effort—
“There is one young lady with whom you are at any rate on intimate
terms. I mean, of course, Miss Heathcote.”
“Alice!” Frank exclaimed in great surprise; “now that is about the very
last suggestion I should have expected to hear from you; for, upon my
word, in the three or four times we have been down there together, since
I came back, you were so quiet, and—you know what I mean—that I had a
sort of suspicion that you were spoony there yourself!”
Prescott coloured up hotly. “My dear Frank,” he said, gravely, “I have a
very great esteem for Miss Heathcote; I think her a very loveable woman,
but had I any deeper feeling for her, I should only endeavour to lay it
aside as quickly as possible, because I know that I should not have the
remotest chance in the world.”
“Upon my word now, Prescott, I don’t see why; Alice is an heiress, but I
don’t know that her money would be a serious obstacle. She has no one to
consult but herself, and if she fancies you, why should she not have
you?”
“I am not speaking of money, Frank. If Miss Heathcote loved me, she
would think nothing of her money; and I—although I would far rather
bring wealth to my wife than that she should to me, still that would be
no great obstacle. I am speaking of herself. I know that she would never
care for me. So please do not let us discuss that part of the question.
We were speaking of her in reference to yourself. Unless I am greatly
mistaken, your uncle would be very pleased if you were to marry her. Why
should you not do so?”
“Well, he has thrown out some hints, but I only laughed, thinking it was
a joke. Upon my word now, Prescott, this is too bad!” Frank went on with
an air of great perplexity, “It seems to me that my uncle and you have
entered into a sort of plot to marry me to Alice. Thank goodness,
though,” he said, cheering up, “Alice is not in it, for she has quite
changed since I came back again. We were awful friends formerly, I used
to kiss her regularly, and we were as jolly together as possible. When I
came back from abroad, after being away two years, of course I kissed
her when we met, but next time I offered to do so, she would not have
it, and said that she was a great deal too old for that sort of thing. I
said that we were cousins, and therefore it was all right and proper,
but she answered quite sharply, that we were, indeed, nothing of the
sort. Altogether she has been at times quite stiff and formal, and not a
bit like what she was before I went away to the Continent. No, no, she
is not in the conspiracy. Upon my word, Prescott, you quite frightened
me. We like each other very well—very much perhaps, but there is not the
slightest risk of either of us going further.”
Prescott shrugged his shoulders with an irritable impatience which was
very unusual to him. He was angry with Frank for his careless
indifference, and yet, although he told himself over and over again that
he was sorry to see that his friend was so blind, how could he help
being glad? To him this was no new subject. He had thought it over and
over till his head ached with the thought many a time. He had seen,
years before, how the girl had looked up to Frank, had listened to his
schoolboy stories, and his college tales, how she had submitted to all
his boy’s humours, and had made a hero of him to herself. He had noticed
in the last year before Frank went abroad, how the girl’s feeling had
grown and intensified with her own growth towards womanhood; how she
flushed up when Frank paid her little attentions; and how quickly she
resented it whenever he still treated her as a child. He had noticed how
eagerly she listened to all that was said about Frank when he was away,
and, at the same time, how she shrank from appearing to pay any but the
most ordinary attention. And more than ever, since Frank’s return, was
Prescott sure that Alice Heathcote loved him. Another, a less close and
less obtrusive watcher, would not have seen all this, but Prescott had a
deep stake in the matter. He knew that he loved Alice with the whole
strength of his nature. Had he believed that he had the slightest chance
of success, he would have yielded no point of vantage, even to his
friend Frank. Had both entered for the prize, and had Alice been
neutral, Prescott would have told his friend frankly that they were
rivals, and fought the matter out to the last. But here he could do
nothing. The prize was given away, and the winner was too indifferent to
stretch out his hand for it. True, he did not know that it might be had
for the asking, and Prescott, as he sat quietly for a few minutes after
Frank had spoken, was thinking very deeply with himself whether he ought
to tell his friend that he was sure that he was mistaken. He was
interrupted by Frank’s saying irritably, “I wish to goodness, Prescott,
you had never put such a notion into my head. I was comfortable and at
home with Alice before, as I had no more idea of marrying her than I had
of flying, and now I shall never get the idea out of my head. I wonder
whether my uncle has ever thrown out any hints of his idea to Alice. I
should not be surprised if he has. That would account for what I was
saying about her being cold and stiff to me; naturally she supposes that
I want to make love to her, and she tries as plainly as she can to show
me that she will have nothing to say to me. I tell you what, Prescott,
you and my uncle, with your plans and ideas, will end by making Alice
and me hate each other.”
Frank got up, and walked up and down the room, smoking his pipe in short
puffs, with an air of extreme vexation. Prescott said nothing in reply.
He was actually far more irritated and much more puzzled than Frank
himself was, but he could show neither his irritation nor the conflict
of thoughts and feelings which was agitating him. Presently Frank
stopped and said, “There is only one thing in the world I do think would
induce me to marry Alice.”
“What is that, Frank?” Prescott asked, looking anxiously up at him.
“I would marry her rather than that she should marry Fred Bingham. He is
constantly there, and I think he is trying to make up to her.”
“I do not think that he has any chance whatever,” Prescott said quietly;
“but you were always an upholder of your cousin—what has changed your
opinion of him?”
“I don’t think that anything has changed it as far as I am concerned,
Prescott,” Frank said, sitting down again; “you know he is not my sort
of man. I believe just as much as I did that he is not a bad-hearted
fellow—far from it; that is, I have no reason for believing otherwise.
But you see I have been away for some time, and his cantankerous way
comes upon me fresh. I never know whether he is making fun of me or not,
and he does try my temper, which is, you know, none of the best, most
amazingly. Although I know it is only prejudice, I own I do not like to
see him hanging over Alice, turning over the leaves of her music for
her, and that sort of thing; it makes me somehow feel cold and
uncomfortable all over, and as I have said, rather than that he should
marry her, I would save her from it by marrying her myself. Of course
supposing that she would have me.”
“There is no fear, Frank, that you will be called upon to sacrifice
yourself to prevent that contingency happening. Whatever Miss Heathcote
may do, be assured she will never fall in love with Fred Bingham. As for
what you say about your feelings towards him, it is not a prejudice
against which you are struggling, it is a natural antipathy; one of
those instincts which nature gives us against what is dangerous and bad.
You know what we all felt about him at Cambridge; you would not agree
with us, you fought against the idea, but your instinct is too strong
for you, and you will end by thinking like the rest of us.”
“No, no, Prescott, I will not allow that; I grant that he irritates me
more than he did, and that somehow, although I have no idea why, I
should not like to see Alice marry him; but I have not the least reason
for changing my opinion that he is a good fellow at heart.”
“He is a bad egg,” Prescott said, dogmatically. “A bad egg, Frank; do
what you will with him, he is bad to the core. His shell is white
enough, but some day when you crack it, and find what a rotten inside
it’s got, you will regret deeply enough that you ever took it in your
hand.”
“You are a prejudiced beggar, Prescott,” Frank said, laughing; “but I
know it is no use my arguing the point with you. Time will show which is
right.”
Prescott nodded, and there was a short silence, when Frank rose.
“The sun is shining, Prescott, the afternoon is quite changed; suppose
we go out. Oh, nonsense, you said you would give me the afternoon. Where
shall we go?”
“It’s all the same to me, Frank.”
“I wish to goodness it was not, Prescott; you give me all the trouble of
thinking—there now, I’ve got another idea—let’s go and see the boy that
picked the dog out of the Serpentine.”
“What are you going to say to him when you do see him, Frank?”
“In the first place I’m going to give him the sovereign Uncle Harry gave
me for him; and in the next place—what a fellow you are, Prescott, in
the next place—well, I suppose I shall tell him he is a fine little
chap. No, I’ve another idea. By Jove, I will make a Buttons of him.”
“But what on earth do you want a Buttons for, Frank?” Prescott said,
laughing.
“Oh, hundreds of things. He will be very useful in my chambers, go
messages, and all sorts of things. I never can find that old bed maker
of mine. My dear fellow, I can’t make out how I have done without one so
long. A Buttons will be just the thing; besides, if I get a horse, look
how useful he would be. I will make him cabin boy on board the
yacht—hundreds of things; my dear fellow, my ideas come so fast, I think
I shall take up the literary line, after all. There, get your hat and
coat on, Prescott, and we will charter a cab, and be off at once to get
Buttons.”
The afternoon had come out clear and fine; so they went out through
Essex Street into the Strand, and took a cab, which soon set them down
at the end of Sloane Street. Here they discharged it; and inquiring of a
policeman where Moor Street was, received the intelligence that it lay
down behind, but that they had better take the first turning to the
right, and then inquire again. Accordingly they turned off from Sloane
Street and entered the network of small lanes lying between Hans Place
and Knightsbridge. Densely populated as the neighbourhood was, there
were few signs of business, or the bustle of every day life. The place
seemed entirely deserted by grown up people, and handed over bodily to
children. The fathers were away at work, the mothers busy within the
houses, but children swarmed everywhere; boys and girls of all ages and
sizes, from the little baby set down upon a door step—sitting
contentedly there, sucking a piece of rag, and gazing with a quiet
old-fashioned look at the world around it, while its elder sister, a
staid little woman of some seven years old, gossipped with another of
the same standing—to lazy, hulking fellows of sixteen or seventeen,
lounging idly at the corners of streets, smoking. Everywhere children
engaged in every game which the youthful mind was capable of devising
from the very limited materials at hand. Boys playing at hop-scotch, and
tip-cat, and ball, with much shouting and rushing about, and danger to
passers-by; boys playing at marbles, and games with buttons, and flat
stones, and halfpence. These amusements constantly gave rise to great
squabbling and disputes, in which one of the great idle fellows before
mentioned was usually called in as umpire, although like umpires in
general, he always failed signally in giving satisfaction to either
party. Girls sitting on door steps working; girls playing at
shuttlecock; little things of five or six years old in strange garments
and vast bonnets, staggering along with babies nearly as big as
themselves; grave little parties of nurses sitting on door steps—while
the babies under their charge made dirt pies—and amusing themselves
relating stories to each other,—not fanciful Arabian nights’ tales, but
real histories of life:—“How father had come in on Saturday night drunk,
and when mother had asked for money, how he had knocked she down.” Or,
“how put about father was when he came home last night, to find that
mother had been and pawned his Sunday clothes, and got drunk on it.”
Many a similar tale do these little people relate gravely to each other.
Poor little prematurely-old things, with their babies under their
charge, and their cares already sitting heavily on their young
shoulders, and such a life before them!
Sometimes, but not often, a cart comes along, and the games are stopped,
and the marbles scattered, and the little nurses snatch up their
charges; doors open hastily, and women rush out into the road and seize
their little ones by their dress, or an arm, or a leg, or anything that
comes handy, and carry them off into their houses, with much shaking and
scolding, and through the closed doors come out sounds of slapping and
cries.
Through all this, Frank Maynard and his friend make their way. They
easily find Moor Street, but, not knowing the number, have some
difficulty in discovering the Holls’ abode. However, after inquiring of
some twenty children, they light upon one who is able to point out the
house. Mrs. Holl herself opens the door in answer to their knock. Mrs.
Holl is engaged in washing, and her arms to the elbows are white with
soap-suds. Greatly surprised is she at seeing two gentlemen standing at
the door. Finding however, by their inquiry if she is Mrs. Holl, that
there is no mistake, she wipes her arms hastily with her apron, and asks
them to walk in, apologizing as she does for the state of the room.
There was no occasion for that, for it was beautifully clean. The
washing-tub stood upon a low bench in one corner; there were some cords
stretched across the ceiling, but the clothes were not yet suspended
upon them, and except that there was a warm steam in the room, which
made everything look clammy and moist, it was neat and tidy as usual.
Mrs. Holl placed two chairs for her visitors, giving them a preliminary
polish with her apron, and then waited in silence to hear the reason of
their coming. But they were too much surprised at the conduct of the
fourth inmate of the room to be able for a time to pay her any
attention. He had at their entrance been sitting at work at his
artificial flower making near the window. On seeing two gentlemen enter,
and supposing that they wished to speak to Mrs. Holl, he had wheeled his
box to its usual place by the fire, where there was a ladder fixed at a
considerable angle and reaching to the ceiling. Under this he pushed his
box, and then taking hold of its rungs he pulled himself up hand over
hand to the ceiling, to the rafters of which were fixed a line of large
open iron handles. Along these he swung himself to the staircase, and
then away out of sight by similar handles; the whole being done
apparently without the least effort, and as if it were a perfectly
normal method of progression.
“By Jove!” Frank exclaimed, when he had disappeared up the stairs,
“that’s wonderful. I am pretty good at gymnastics, but I could no more
do that than I could fly, and it did not seem the least effort to him;
and it is so much the more difficult that I see the poor fellow has lost
the use of his legs.”
“James is wonderful strong, sir, in the arm,” Mrs. Holl said, “wonderful
strong. He began that clambering work when he was about twelve year old.
He was pale like and thin, and the doctor said he ought to go out in the
air, and not always sit indoors. Well, sir, James he could not abear the
thought of going out much, being drawed about in a cart, but he thought
if father could put up a pole, across over his head, he might make a
shift to draw himself up and down, and so exercise himself a bit. Well,
sir, father he put up a pole, and in time James he got to be like a
monkey, he could swing himself up with one arm and hang ever so long.
After a bit, father he got the thought of setting some handles in the
beams there, and the ladder to get up to them, and it were a great
amusement for James; I have seen him go right round the room ten times;
as for the stairs, that were James’s own idea. He were then about
fifteen, and father used to carry him up to bed, and all at once it came
to him, that if he had handles put on the top of the stairs and along
his room, and then a ladder to get down by, he might make shift to go up
and down of himself. Father went out that same night and got a
blacksmith to make the handles, and that very night James went up to bed
by himself. Lor, how pleased the poor lad were, to be sure. But I beg
your pardon, gentlemen, for running on so—what can I do for you?”
“About ten days since, Mrs. Holl,” Frank said, “my friend and I were at
the Serpentine, and your son—he said his name was Evan, I believe—went
into the water to fetch out a dog.”
“He did, sir; are you the gentleman, sir, who was going in to fetch him
out?”
“Just so, Mrs. Holl. Now I was very much pleased with him, and I have
come here for two things to-day: the one to give him a sovereign which a
friend of mine, to whom I was speaking of your boy’s pluck, gave me for
him. Here it is; will you lay it out in something useful to him? The
other reason was, I want a boy to be a general useful sort of
lad—messenger or domestic, in fact for all sorts of things. Now it seems
to me your son would be just the thing for me. I don’t of course know
anything of him, but from what I have seen I have no doubt we should get
on very well together, and I think he would be very comfortable with
me.”
“I am sure you are very good, sir,” Mrs. Holl said, gratefully, “very
good, and I should think Evan very lucky to get such a place. I can’t
answer for him, sir, but I should say he would jump at it”
“Let him think it over, Mrs. Holl, and let him come up and see me any
time before Thursday evening, when I may be going out of town for a
week. Here is my card. By Jove! what beautiful wax flowers; look,
Prescott, are they not exquisitely made?” and Frank went across the room
to look at James Holl’s handiwork.
“They are beautifully made,” Prescott said, examining them; “I saw your
son was at work at them when we came in.”
“Yes, sir, he mostly is at work at them. He is very clever, James is,
awful clever, and he earns a good deal of money at it too, besides its
being a great amusement to him. Poor boy, it’s a heavy life, sir, always
to sit in that box of his, with no hope of ever getting any better.”
“It must be, indeed, Mrs. Holl. Why, what is this—Colenso’s Algebra—does
he read that?”
“He do, sir, while he is at work; and when he ain’t he never puts it
down.”
“He must be fonder of it than I ever was,” Frank laughed. “But this is
very interesting, Prescott, is it not?”
“If your son is so fond of study, Mrs. Holl,” Arthur said, “I have a
number of my old college books. I shall never touch them again. They
only block my place up, and he is perfectly welcome to them.”
“Lor, sir, it would be just a godsend to him.”
“I will look them out, Mrs. Holl, and send them down to-morrow.”
“I should take it very kind of you, sir—very kind; and James will be
delighted.”
“And, Mrs. Holl, I should like some of those wax flowers amazingly; will
you ask him to make me some?—a basket of them. Eh, Prescott, don’t you
think a basket of wax flowers would be just the thing for my room?”
“I don’t know that they would be altogether in strict keeping with its
general contents,” Prescott said, smiling, “but no doubt they would look
very well.”
“Just so,” Frank said. “Will you ask your son to make me a basket, Mrs.
Holl? I suppose he can buy a basket and a shade, and all that sort of
thing? and you know I will pay him for it all when he sends it.”
“James will be very glad, sir; and thank’ee, but he is not my son.”
“Is he not, Mrs. Holl? If it is not an impertinent question, what
relation is he of yours?”
“He ain’t no sort of relation, sir,” the woman said. The young men
looked surprised, and Prescott asked—
“Then how did you come to bring him up, Mrs. Holl?”
“Well, sir, it was a very simple matter; but if so be as you care to
hear it, I will tell you just how it happened;” and leaning against the
mantelpiece, with the red light of the fire thrown up into her face,
Mrs. Holl went on, very slowly, and speaking as though she almost saw
what she was relating. “Well, sir, it were an evening in April—a cold,
bitter day—I was sitting here between light and dark, drinking my tea
with John, who had just come home from work—John is my husband, you see,
sir—when we heard a noise outside in the street. We went out to see what
was the matter, and we found a poor young creature, with a baby in her
arms, had fallen down in a faint like. She was a pretty young thing,
sir; and though her dress was poor and torn, she looked as if she had
not been always so. Some one says, ‘Take them to the workhouse;’ ‘no,’
says I—for my heart yearned towards the poor young thing—‘bring her in
here; mayn’t we, John?’ says I. Well, sir, John did not say nothing, but
he took the baby out of her arms, and gived it to me, and then he upped
and took the poor young creature—she were no great weight, sir—and
carried her into the house, and laid her on the bed, as it might be by
the window there. Well, gentlemen, that bed she never left; she came
round a little, and lived some days, but her mind were never rightly
itself again. She would lay there, with her baby beside her, and sing
songs to herself, I don’t know what about, for it were some foreigner
language. She were very gentle and quiet like, but I don’t think she
ever knew where she was, or anything about it. She were very fond of
baby, and would take it in her arms, and hush it and talk to it. She
faded and faded away, and the doctor said nothing could be done for her.
It made my heart ache, sir; and if you will believe me, I would go
upstairs and cry by the hour. The thought of the little baby troubled me
too. I had just lost my first little one, sir, and I could not abear the
thought of the little thing going to a workhouse, so one day I says to
John, ‘John, when that poor mother dies, for God’s sake, dont’ee send
the little baby to the workhouse; He has taken away our own little one,
and maybe He has sent this one for us to love in his place. Let us take
him as our own.’ John, he did not say nothing, but he up and gived me a
great kiss, and said, ‘Sairey, you’re a good woman;’ which of course,
gentlemen,” Mrs. Holl put in apologetically, “is neither here nor there,
for any mother would have done the same; but it’s John’s way when he’s
pleased. That very same night the baby’s mother died.”
The young men listened in silence as Mrs. Holl told her story; standing,
with her rough honest face lit up in the bright fire-glow, she related
it simply, and as a matter of course, all unconscious of the good part
she had taken in it, assuming no credit to herself, or seeing that she
deserved any. When she had finished, there was a little silence; Frank
passed his hand furtively across his eyes, and then Arthur sprang up and
shook Mrs. Holl warmly by the hand, saying, “Your husband was right,
Mrs. Holl; you are a good woman.”
Mrs. Holl looked completely amazed, and stammered out, “Lor bless you,
sir, there weren’t nothing out of the way in what I did, and there’s
scores and scores would do the like. Having just lost my own little one,
my heart went out to the poor little thing, and it seemed sent natural
like to fill the place of the little angel who was gone from us. Bless
your heart, sir, there weren’t nothing out of the way in that; nothing
at all; and we have never had cause to regret it. The boy’s a good boy,
and a clever boy; and he is a comfort and a help to us. A better boy
never lived; but we have always grieved sorely over his accident.”
“Then he was not originally lame, Mrs. Holl?” Prescott asked.
“Dear me, no sir, not till he were six year old. It happened this a way:
I were laid up at the time; I was just confined of Mary—she’s my eldest
girl—and somehow, James he were out in the streets playing; I don’t
rightly know how it happened, but never shall I forget when they brought
him in, and said that a cart had run over him. John, he was in, which
was lucky, for I think I lost my head like, and went clean out of my
mind for a bit, for I loved him just like my own. They did not think he
would have lived at first, for the cart had gone over the lower part of
his body, and broke one of his thigh bones, and the other leg up high.
It was a light cart, I have heard tell, or it must have killed him. He
were in bed for months; and if you will believe me, if ever there was a
patient little angel on earth, it was surely James. He never complained;
and his chief trouble was for my sake. At last he got well, but the
doctors said that he would never walk again, for they thought there were
some damage done to his spine; and sure enough he never has walked. He
is always cheerful, only he never likes going out; and never would go at
all, if we did not almost make him; he thinks folks look at him. Then he
took to the climbing work, and that did him good; and the last three
years he has taken to making them wax flowers; and it has been a
wonderful thing for him, that has. He has always been given to reading.
John made a shift to teach him his letters; and then the children of the
neighbours, they lent him their school books, and taught him what they
knew; and in a short time, bless you, sir, he knew more than them all.
He would sit and read for hours together. He is wonderful clever, James
is.”
“Well, Mrs. Holl,” Frank said, rising, “we are very much obliged to you
for your story, but we must not keep you any longer. We will call again
and arrange matters with you when Evan lets me know whether he accepts
my offer.”
“And I will be sure to forward the books to you to-morrow. Good bye.”
And greatly to Mrs. Holl’s astonishment, the two young men shook hands
warmly with her, as they took their leave.