JIM PODMORE HAS A "DAZE."
In the mean time, some of the humble personages in our drama, being
fixed in certain grooves, remain there uneventfully, the only changes
that occur to them being marked by the hand of time. Mr. Podmore
continues in his situation on the railway, works as hard and as long
hours as ever, comes home as tired as ever, but more often now with a
"daze" upon him, as he expresses it. This "daze"--he has no idea how
he got hold of the word--gives him terrible frights at times, and
causes him to be oblivious of what passes around him. It never comes
upon him but when he is dead-beat, when what is known as a fair day's
work is turned into a foul day's work by the abominable system which
coins large dividends out of its servants' health, and which taxes
their strength so unfairly as to bring old age upon men long before it
is naturally due. Jim Podmore is fearful to speak of this "daze" to
any one, for if it were known to the officers of the company, short
shrift would be his portion. Such a sympathetic affection as humanity
holds no place in the schemes and calculations of railway directors.
Given so much bone and blood and muscle: how much strain can they
bear? This ascertained, apply the strain to its utmost, until blood,
bone, and muscle can no longer bear it, and fail, naturally, to
perform their task. Then throw aside, and obtain fresh. Jim Podmore
would not thus have expressed it, but the conclusion at which he had
arrived is the same as the conclusion here set down. The only person
who knows of his fast-growing infirmity is his wife. He confides to
her the various stages of this "daze;" how he goes to work of a
morning pretty fresh, and how, when his fair day's work is being
turned into a foul day's work by the directors' strain, he begins to
tire. "I seem to--fall asleep--gradually," he says, "although I
hear--everything about me. All the wear and tear--of the day--all
the noise--all the slamming and shouting--all the whistling and
puffing--seem to get into the middle--of my head--and buzz there--as
if they were bees. And so I go off--with this buzzing. Then I jump
up--in a fright--just in time, old woman!--to shift the points--but
I'm all of a tremble--and feel fit to die. Then I fall off--into a
daze again--and the buzzing goes on--in my head. Then Snap--good
old dog!"--(Snap licks the hand that pats its head) "pulls at my
trousers--sometimes--and wakes me. Suppose I shouldn't--rouse myself
in time--some time or other--and something was to occur! What then,
old woman? I wake up--in the middle of a night--often--thinking of
it--with the perspiration--a-running down me." Mrs. Podmore does her
best to comfort him, but she cannot suggest a cure for Jim's "daze."
"You see, old woman," he says, "it wouldn't do--for me--to fall ill
even--and be laid up--for a week or two. That might do me good--but it
wouldn't do. Where's the money--to come from? We couldn't lay our
hands--on a spare half a crown--to save our lives." Which was a fact.
Capital, in the majority of instances, pays labour just such a sum for
its blood, bone, and muscle as is barely sufficient to live upon;
every farthing flies away for urgent necessities, without which labour
would starve, with which it barely manages to preserve its health. The
result is that labour grows inevitably into a state of pauperism;
hence workhouses--which are not known in the world's new lands. May
they never be known! They are plague-spots, poisonous to the healthful
blood of cities.
However, until a change for the worse comes, this small family of
three, Mr. and Mrs. Podmore and their little Pollypod, live in their
one room, and are more often happy there than otherwise. Felix
frequently pays them visits, and learns from Jim and Mrs. Podmore many
particulars concerning the railway system of overworking its servants,
which he works up with good effect in his newspaper letters and other
ways. Felix likes to get hold of a good public grievance, and has
already learnt how to make capital of it. But, indeed, he could not
write earnestly on any matter in which his sympathies were not in some
way engaged. Pollypod enjoys herself greatly; she and Lizzie are firm
friends, and the consequence is that she often accompanies Lily to
Lizzie's house in the "country," and spends the day there. Old Wheels
likes Lily to take the child with her; and, apart from her fondness
for Pollypod, Lily is glad to please her grandfather in this way.
The Gribbles, senior and junior, go on as usual. Gribble junior
maintains his ground, and is even prospering a little in his umbrella
hospital, which is generally pretty full of patients. He "keeps
moving" with his tongue, and is continually rattling away complacently
on this subject and that. He likes Felix, who indeed is a favourite
with them all, but he has contracted an inveterate dislike to Mr.
Sheldrake, and never loses an opportunity of saying an ill word
concerning that gentleman. Gribble senior keeps his chandler's shop
open, but the trade continues to fall off woefully, and the old
shopkeeper is more rampant than ever on the subject of co-operative
stores, which he declares will be the ruin of the country.
Alfred grows more and more infatuated with racing; he meets with
reverse after reverse, adopts system after system, discovers
continually new methods of winning infallibly, is buoyed up and elated
one day with the prospect of winning a great sum, and groans with
despair the next day when the result is made known. Of course he does
not always lose; he wins small sums occasionally, but they are like
raindrops in the sea. Week after week passes, month after month flies
by, and he is sinking lower and lower. David Sheldrake stands his
friend still; still supplies him with money, and takes his signature
for the amount, and what with letters and documents and information of
how matters stand with Alfred at the office of his employers, Messrs.
Tickle and Flint, holds such a dangerous power over the infatuated
young man as can crush him at any moment. Here a defence must be set
up for David Sheldrake, otherwise he might be taken for a fool for
parting with his money so freely to a young fellow for whom he cared
no more than for the snuff of a candle. David Sheldrake knew every
trick of the game he was playing. Madly infatuated as he was with
Lily, he was too completely a man of the world to throw away the sums
of money he advanced to Alfred from time to time. But the fact of it
was, he got it all back; what he gave with one hand he received with
the other. He made an express stipulation with Alfred that Con
Staveley should be the medium of all the young fellow's racing
speculations; so that no sooner did David Sheldrake lend, than Con
Staveley swallowed. Therefore, although in the aggregate, Alfred owed
David Sheldrake a large sum of money, the astute David was really very
little out of pocket. He was aware that, in other ways, Alfred was
more extravagant than his earnings at Messrs. Tickle and Flint's
warranted; but where he got the money from to supply these
extravagances was no business of David Sheldrake's. Alfred did not get
it from _him_. But in Alfred's moments of remorse, when he was pouring
into David Sheldrake's ears accounts of his misfortunes, of how he was
trapped by this tipster or deceived by that prophet, or swindled in
some other way, many a chance expression of terror escaped from him,
of which David Sheldrake made good use in his reflections--putting
this and that together until he had arrived at the truth, and knew for
a certainty that Alfred was robbing his employers. The power which
this knowledge gave him over Lily was so complete that he would not
have parted with it upon easy terms. He never failed of impressing
upon Alfred that what he did for him he did for Lily's sake, and for
Lily's sake only.
"If it were not for her, my boy," he said, "I think I should close on
you; for after all, business is business."
Alfred listened, white and trembling.
"For God's sake," he said to Lily one day, when David Sheldrake had
retired offended at her coldness; the man of the world had been more
than usually pressing in his attentions, and Lily had shrunk from
them--"for God's sake, Lily, don't offend him! You don't know how good
he is; you don't know what a friend he is to me. If it was not for
him, I should----"
Lily's eyes, fixed in alarm upon his face, stopped him, and he broke
off with,
"I am the most miserable wretch in the world! There never was anybody
half so miserable or half so unfortunate as I am! There's only one
girl in the world who loves me--and that's Lizzie. My own sister, that
I would lay down my life for, turns against me."
Lily's grief may be imagined. Turn against him! Against the dearest
brother that sister ever had! How could she prove the sincerity of her
love for him, she asked.
"By being kind to Mr. Sheldrake," Alfred answered sullenly; his fears
blinded him to the unselfishness of her affection, blinded him to
results.
Thus it came about that, on the next occasion Lily and Mr. Sheldrake
met, Lily acted a part, and Mr. Sheldrake's wound was healed. Lily
received her reward; Alfred kissed her and embraced her, and called
her the dearest sister! She found consolation in his brighter manner;
and although she shed many tears she was careful that Alfred should
not witness her pain.