breakfast that was ordered up, she sat beside me, holding my hand, and
more than once I saw the tears steal down her pleasant face as she won
from me, bit by bit, the story of my troubles and my bitter struggles
here in town.
"At last I rose to go, trembling and expectant. Would she engage me?
It was more than I dared to hope.
"`Sit still, my child,' she said, tenderly, `and stay with me; we shall
be the best of friends.'
"I stayed--stayed to know her real worth and to win her motherly love--
stayed to find, when John Murray returned, that his love was greater for
my sister than for me, and patiently resigned my love to her, and then
battled with a long illness when they had gone together to the far-off
home. But every day gave me a new lesson on not judging too hastily.
That is ten years since; and I am still in my peaceful, happy home,
though only as companion to a lady."
CHAPTER NINE.
MY OLD SERGEANT.
I have visited the sick a good deal in my time, and have ever found that
a serious illness is one of the greatest softeners of a rugged nature.
I have noticed it in workhouse and in hospital as well as in the dreary
habitations that are occupied by the poor. Perhaps it is more
noticeable in men than in women, and in many cases it has seemed to me
to bring forth nature's gentility where it has for years, perhaps, been
encrusted with rude, rugged ways.
One of my most genuine gentlemen by nature was a quaint old sergeant of
dragoons, living in ill-health upon his little pension, and at the wish
of some people in the country near our old home, I sought him out, and
found him, after some trouble, in one of the little streets of Walworth,
and imparted to him my mission, namely, to inquire if he could tell me
the whereabouts of one John Morris and his wife, relatives of the
farming people who asked me to inquire.
I found the sergeant, a stern, rugged old fellow, in his lodgings, and
he looked surlily at me, being, as I afterwards found, in pain, and he
saluted me with a harsh "Well, ma'am, what's for you? I'm not in the
humour for visitors now."
"I will not keep you long," I said, and stated my business.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" he said. "I thought you came to preach at me,
and tell me what a wicked old man I am. There, bless your heart, I
knowed it well enough, none better. John Morris, eh?"
"Yes, and his wife, do you know where they are?"
"Dead, ma'am, dead, both of them: gone to where there's rest and peace,
and no more sorrow; `where the wicked cease from troubling, and the
weary--' You know the rest. Know them! Of course. John Morris was in
my troop--B troop, 20th Dragoon Guards; smart, fresh-coloured, honest
Lincolnshire lad--a good lad; without any of the general rough ways of a
soldier: for there's good sort of fellows among us, as well as the
sweepings of towns and villages; and I loved that lad as if he'd been my
own son. Why? Because he was a thorough soldier, every inch of him.
He came to me to 'list--I was recruiting sergeant then. `Think twice of
it, my lad,' I says; `ours is a rough life;' for from his talk I found
he'd been having some tiff at home; so `think twice of it, my lad,' I
says: for I did not want to see a fine young fellow throw himself away.
And it is that, you know, though it don't sound loyal of me, as an old
troop-sergeant-major, to say so; and feeling this--though I knew I
should make a profit of the young fellow--I did not like to see him
'list, when a `rough' would have done just as well. But he would do it;
he was set upon it; and told me that if I didn't take him, he would join
the foot-regiment quartered in the town. So seeing how things stood,
and sooner than he should do that, I gave him the shilling, and he
entered one of the smartest heavy cavalry regiments in the service.
"I always liked him for his frank, honest, open manner, and the way he
set to work to learn his duties--riding-school, foot-drill,
sword-exercise,--no matter what it was, he worked at it; learned quietly
and cheerfully; and in a wonderfully short time made himself a smart
soldier. You never heard him snubbed for dirty belts or rusty
accoutrements; everything belonging to him shone like silver or gold;
while his horse was groomed till its skin was like satin. The men
called him `Model Jack;' for whenever some one on parade was having it
for want of smartness, without pausing for a moment, the captain, or
major, would shout, `Rein back, John Morris,' tell the one in trouble to
look at him and his traps, and then order so much punishment-drill.
"But we all liked John Morris; and there was not a man in the troop
would have said a word against him, or done him an ill turn; for wasn't
he always ready to help a mate who was sick, or do a turn for a young
beginner? But he was only a weak man, and he must do what no soldier
who has any respect for a woman should do--he must get in love with a
nice pretty little body, who was foolish enough to take a fancy to the
fine smart young fellow. Seeing what a superior sort of lass she was,
if it had been any other man in the troop, I'd have done what I could to
stop it; but knowing the lad's character--no smoker, no drinker; but one
who spent all his spare time in the barrack reading-room--I couldn't say
a word; and so matters went on till we got the route, and were to be
shifted from Edinburgh to Hounslow.
"Next time I saw John Morris, I knew there was something the matter; and
after stable he comes to me, and in a blunt, straightforward way, he
says--
"`Sergeant, I want to be married. Will you speak to the officers for
me?'
"`No, my lad,' I says, `I won't.'
"He started, and looked surprised; for I was gruff; while as a rule I
was always as friendly to him as I could be to a private--though there
wasn't a man in the troop who speaking honestly would tell you I was
ever a bully.
"`Look here, my lad,' I says: `if you respect that little lass, you'll
just say good-bye to her kindly, and for good; or else tell her to wait
till you can buy yourself out, and go into something civilian.'
"`But--' he began.
"`There, hold your tongue, my lad; and just go up to the married men's
quarters, and look at the want of common comforts in the accommodation;
look at the misery of their life; and then, if you're not satisfied, go
and look at the poor women who are not on the strength of the regiment--
married without leave, you know--and see whether you'd like to see your
little maid brought down to that.'
"`But I've always done my duty, sergeant, and the colonel would give me
leave to be married, and I'd do more to make her comfortable than--'
"`Major Ellis wants Sergeant Rollin,' shouts some one; and, seeing that
was me, I jumped up.
"`But you'll ask for me, sergeant?' says John Morris, getting hold of my
hand as he looked in my face.
"`Be off with you, sir, to your duty,' I roared fiercely; and he went
away, and so did I, and, as a matter of course--stupidly, as I told
myself--I spoke to the major, and he said he'd speak to the colonel; but
it was no use, for there were three more men married than there should
have been by rights, and they could not have so many women and children
in barracks.
"I told Morris afterwards, and he thanked me, and went about his duties
till the day for marching came, and then I found out that John had
married without leave, and, of course, punishment must follow as soon as
it was known. I would not see it; but it was reported by another
sergeant, and, as a matter of course, the poor weak lad was placed in
arrest. I say wreak; but, there, I don't know--the poor things loved
one another very dearly; and the official orders, though they're strong,
ain't so strong as human nature.
"He never grumbled or said anything about his punishment, but bore it
all like a man, though he was anxious enough about his little wife, who
travelled by parly train as far as their money would go, and walked the
rest of the way up to Hounslow. And then there was the regular misery
and struggle for the next few years: the poor little lass not being
acknowledged by the regiment as one of the soldiers' wives and having to
lodge out of barracks, and live as best she could upon the beggarly
pittance her husband could give her, helped out by what she, poor little
thing, with her baby, could earn.
"I wasn't going to jump upon a fallen man, but I know John Morris
thought deeply upon my words as he saw the smart pleasant-faced little
body sinking day by day into a drudge. I never said a word about it to
him, nor he to me; but I did what I could to help him, though that
wasn't much.
"Then came another shift of quarters, and Mary Morris had a hundred and
sixty miles to tramp to the next town we were stationed at; but she did
it without a murmur, and a few days after we reached our quarters I saw
her at the barrack-gate.
"We were not there very long, but had to make a fresh start, and this
time it was with two little children that Mary Morris tramped after the
regiment, to reach her husband nearly a fortnight after we had settled
down--she looking worn out and haggard with trouble and her long
journey. To have seen her now, no one would have known her for the
bonnie little lass whom I had seen resting so lovingly upon the lad's
arm in Edinburgh town. But there, it was the usual lot of a soldier's
wife who is not on the strength; and from town to town the poor girl
followed us about till the very last; and so long as she could be near
her husband I believe the little thing was happy.
"I said till the last; for there came a day when I stood at the
barrack-gate with tears in my eyes, that I was quite ashamed of, to see
John Morris, the fine stalwart dragoon, in full marching order, leaning
down from his horse, his gauntlet glove off, holding his little wife's
hand tightly clasped, as he gazed into her loving eyes--eyes as brimful
of tears and affection as were those of the captain's sister, leaning
out of her carriage-window, and waving her handkerchief to her brother.
"Then came the trumpet-calls, and we were off, leaving many a tearful
eye behind. But Mary Morris turned up again at the port where we were
to embark; for it was only the sea that could stay the faithful little
woman from following her husband. But there was the sea now; and we
were ordered abroad for ten years, to a country that would be the grave
of many of us, as I well knew.
"I'm not sure, but I think that was Mary Morris's face I saw, all pale
and drawn, in one of the boats just pushed off; but it soon faded from
sight as the steam-tug drew our great ship down the river; and then, as
I turned away, heavy-hearted and dull at leaving the old country, I met
the eyes of poor John Morris, when he must have thought of my words
before his marriage, for he groaned, and, poor fellow, his head went
down upon his arms on the bulwarks, and I could see his great, broad
chest heaving as he sobbed and cried like a little child.
"Time went on, and up the country we had our work cut out. I'm no lover
of butchery, but I'm a soldier by trade, and always tried to do my duty.
More than one battle I had been in, to come out scathless--the last
time owing to a swinging sabre-cut given to a Sikh who was about to
shoot me down, and it was not my hand that gave that sabre-cut, but the
hand of John Morris.
Then came another fierce engagement, when, worn out with heat and
thirst, the order came to charge. The moment before, the men were
drooping and listless; but as the trumpet rang out, eyes lit up, bronzed
faces flushed a deeper hue, and we trotted steadily, knee to knee, over
the plain, nearing the enemy at every stride. John Morris was on my
left, and I could not help smiling to think what a good man and true I
had by my side; when the trumpet call again rang out `gallop,' and on we
went until within a hundred yards of the foe, when again came the loud
blast; spurs were used, and with a dash like a thunderbolt we were upon
them. I recollect the sharp, ringing volley they gave us as we came
down, and about the air bearing a strange, shrill cry; after which it
was one wild, fierce struggle, till I found myself breathless and faint,
trying to free myself from my horse, who was down, pinning me to the
ground. A violent drag set me at liberty, just as the poor beast made
its last effort to rise, and fell back dead.
"I will not sicken you with the scene around me, one that I tried to
leave behind; but I had not limped many paces before a faint voice cried
after me, `Sergeant!' and turning, there, raising himself upon his
elbow, was poor John Morris, with a look that I shall never forget upon
his face. There were plenty of horrors about, but I had eyes only for
the poor fellow before me, and kneeling down, I supported his head and
tried to stanch his wounds.
"`No good! no good!' he whispered. `I'm cut to pieces. Done my duty,
sergeant, though it was hard work not to desert when I had to leave her.
Find her; tell her I was true to the last, and--Cowards!' he cried.
"At the same moment, almost, I started up, but half-a-dozen horsemen
were upon me, and I was cut down and knew no more.
"It was years after when I saw England again, and tried to find out poor
Mary--the weak, simple-hearted girl who had been left behind. I tried
hard, but for a long time without any result, till one day I met by
chance another woman who had been in the same plight.
"`Can I tell you where she is?' she said, `yes; come with me and I'll
show you.'
"I hung back for a moment, thinking of the sad news I had to tell; but
duty's duty, and I followed the woman from street to street, for quite
half an hour, during which time I'd made up the words I meant to say,
and was ready with my message, meaning, too, to tell poor Mary where she
could draw the pay due to her husband. But I never delivered my
message, for turning to the woman I said, `is it much farther?'
"`No,' she said, `close here; and I'd have been with her, but for the
hope that my poor boy would some day come back.'
"I hung back again, but she took hold of my arm as she stopped by an
iron gate, and pointed to a multitude of green mounds, saying--
"`They laid her there, somewhere, two years ago now, but I don't know
which was the grave; for poor folks die fast, and people don't put
stones up for soldiers' wives.'
"`Do you know what she died of?' I said, softly, for I was shocked and
surprised.
"`Died of?' said the woman bitterly; `what I should have died of, only I
was too hard--died because her husband was dragged away, and her little
ones went one after the other: died of a broken heart! a poor, gentle
thing, praying that they might meet again.'
"Yes; that mark was left when the Sikh cut me down, as I held poor John
Morris's head; and now if you please, ma'am, we'll change the subject,
for when I get talking about other people's sorrows that old wound
begins to throb."
CHAPTER TEN.
>122-->
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
>130-->
"But I have," he said, "and she has gone home."
"Quite cured?" I said.
"Quite cured! Bah! It was easy enough. My doctoring was no good, what
she wanted was to see the gentleman again whom she believed to have
slighted her. I set people to work to find him. They found him, and
the poor child has recovered rapidly and I don't believe she well can
have a relapse. It was all a mistake or a misunderstanding that was
all, and now matters are as happy as the day is long."
I could not help wishing then that he might as easily solve the cause of
so many others' terrible state; but when I hinted at such a thing he
shook his head.
"Such cases as hers are easy to manage, Miss Stoneleigh; I wish I could
deal with my other patients as well."
CHAPTER TWELVE.
SOMEBODY DEAD.
Going about the streets of London on errands of mercy, naturally makes
one observant of everything that seems in any way connected with trouble
or sorrow. If I see a family moving, with all the discomforts of
leaving one home for another, I immediately begin to wonder whether it
is a voluntary affair or whether it is the result of misfortune. Again,
a funeral always takes my attention and I find myself wondering whether
the mourners could be helped or comforted by me, and I note whether the
dead is young or old by the funeral trappings, and too often see that it
is some tender child, though the grief is as great or greater when it is
some dear wife or mother, or may be the father--the stay of some family.
My friends ought to consider me a doleful miserable person but they do
not, and they never think it eccentric of me to take so much interest in
houses with the window blinds drawn or shutters up, but rather give me
their sympathy and help.
Noticing such matters it will be no cause for surprise that I had often
marked the black crape band worn upon the arm of their uniform coats by
soldiers and volunteers. The first time then that I saw driver after
driver of the omnibuses along a busy line of route with a tiny black
crape bow fastened on his whip I naturally became eager to know why this
was, or rather who might be the important personage to whom the sign of
respect was paid.
I felt as if I could give anything for an hour's chat with one of the
drivers, but how was it to be obtained? I knew they were for long hours
upon the box, and that during the short time they were at home it would
be hard work to get either of them to tell me what I wanted, so I set to
and pondered.
I don't know that I should have felt any compunction in taking a seat
outside an omnibus, though now-a-days it would seem a very out of the
way place for a lady in London streets. But I thought that if I could
find one going out through the suburbs to some pleasant village it would
be no more extraordinary than for a lady to take a seat upon a stage
coach for a ride through one of the outlying districts beyond the reach
of the rail.
The difficulty was solved, for I thought of the Richmond omnibuses, and
making my way to the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly, I found no
difficulty, for a ladder was placed for me, and I was able to climb to
the vacant seat beside the driver, who looked at me askant as if
suspicious of me. I saw him give a peculiar look at the conductor, and
I smiled to myself as I nestled beneath the great tarpaulin apron, and
watched the care with which he guided his two stout well-fed horses
through the maze of conveyances, the crape bow like a strange black
butterfly seeming to flit to and fro before my eyes.
Nothing to him is the task, as through narrow channels he steers his
way, pouncing upon a passenger here, another there; rarely using his
whip, never in collision, but stopping short now in obedience to a
"ting" from the conductor's bell; started again by the same means; and
seeming to have that huge, heavily-laden vehicle, with twenty-eight
people in and upon it, as much under control as if he sat a few inches
from the ground in a pony-drawn basket carriage, driving in a country
road.
But here it was again and again, a crape bow upon whip after whip, and
many of those whip handles, and their holders' elbows, raised in the
well-known salute to my driver, though it seems strange that when
drivers salute each other they should always do it in that singular
elbowish way, their eyes being all the while carefully inspecting their
fellow's horses.
Somebody important must be dead for there to be so general a display of
mourning, and I soon found out that I was right. Somebody of
consequence had passed away.
No one of the Royal Family, surely? No. Not an eminent statesman, or
the papers would have recorded the fact. Man of science,
philanthropist, preacher, teacher, author, actor, musician? No, none of
these. Somebody of importance? Yes; somebody of importance.
To the world?
Yes, to his own little world.
Who might it be then?
An omnibus driver.
But you said a man of importance!
Yes; a man of importance--the father of a family, the man whose patient
toil produced, Saturday night by Saturday night, the sum of money that
should keep respectably his wife and six little ones;--the man who had
no rest on Sundays; but seven days a week--hail, rain, sunshine, or
bitter frost--goes on his monotonous journeys for fourteen, fifteen,
sixteen hours per day, with hardly time allowed him to supply the wants
of nature--a rough-looking, weather-stained, hoarse-voiced, ignorant
man; but a true, faithful husband, a loving father, and a patient
toiler--the sole prop, stay, support of the weeping ones at home.
A man of importance called away from this busy, competitive, stirring
world--somebody of importance dead, gainsay it who will.
So I found from my driver, who, after being exceedingly gruff and
distant for a time, gradually seemed to thaw, and, as I asked question
after question, became quite loquacious, as he made the black crape
butterfly flit from side to side in the act of caressing his horses with
the whip. I did not see him lash them once; and at last he spoke out as
if he had known me for years.
"Seems a sort of mark of respect for the poor chap, and we generally do
it. Worth nothing, of course, for a kind thought and an honest tear in
memory of an old friend's worth, to my way of thinking, all the crape
and black feathers and velvet palls, and hearses and mourning coaches,
in the world. Don't say I'm right, ma'am; and though I talk of tears I
don't say that I drop em. I leave that for the women to do, but I've
had a few thoughts about poor Sam, who got off his box come Sunday three
weeks dead beat, poor chap."
No, my driver did not seem at all the man given to tears, but in
consequence of the cutting wind blowing right into our faces, there was
a slight humidity in his eyes, and he sniffed twice very loudly, and
then put his whip in the hand that held the reins, took off his hat, and
fished out a red cotton handkerchief, with which he blew his nose
loudly.
"Strange bad colds we ketches up on the box here sometimes," he said
apologetically. "It's enough to kill anybody--the hours are so long;
but then, it's no use to grumble--not a bit. If you don't like it you
can go, and there's hundreds of men who can handle the ribbons ready to
pop into your seat. It's a precious sight easier to get out of collar
than it is to get in again, I can tell you; so I don't grumble, but keep
on.
"Look healthy? well, pr'aps I do; but all this red colour in one's face
ain't fresh air and weather. One's drops have something to do with it,
for some chaps may stand it, I dare say, but I can't, and I find a drop
of beer with some gin in it warms you better than most things. I like
temperance as well as any man, but I really can't do without a drop in
the bitter weather, and those who can must be made of different stuff to
me.
"Now, take one of our London winter days--which you like--a regular keen
frost, or a yaller fog, or a soaking rain, or one of those cold, mizzly,
clinging, go-through-your-very-marrow sort of days. Get your breakfast
in a hurry, and be off to the yard and get on the box. All's ready for
us, for we don't clean horses or 'busses; there's men on purpose to do
that. Well, I'm well wrapped up, and I get on my box at eight o'clock
in the morning, and begin my City journey. There we are all times; we
mustn't go no faster, nor we mustn't go no slower; time's time, and we
have to keep it if we can, but sometimes we can't, and do what we will,
we're late--with extra passengers, or a block, or something wrong with a
horse, or one thing or another; and then, if it happens to be near
dinner time, we have to start back as usual, and often and often, I
haven't got off the box, but swallowed a mouthful of something where I
sat, and been off again.
"Drive, drive, and pull up, all the afternoon, with about five or six
minutes for my tea, and then up and at it again, hour after hour, till
the last journey's done, and then I've got off the box hardly able to
stand, I've been so cramped; while scarcely ever before eleven, and
generally twelve, I've got home, worn out, to my bit of supper. Fifteen
or sixteen hours, Sunday and weekday, is too much of a good thing, ain't
it? And on such days as I've been talking about, when you can't feel
your feet, and your hands won't hardly hold rein or whip, and the cold
goes through and through you, don't you think as one wants something to
comfort one a bit? because if you don't, I should like them as grumbles
to try it on for a month and see.