and had been in it as little as might be; he had broken his mother’s
heart, and now that she was dead how could it be that he should either
miss her or mourn her? Of course it could not be.
But still he lingered; the drink that was in him kept him warm, and he
forgot the frost and saw the summer again.
And as he looked, the moon left the last of the cloud behind and shone
out brilliantly; and there, beneath the apple-tree, he saw again the
spare figure of medium height in the faded print gown, standing still as
large as life.
His heart seemed to stop beating: there might be no such things as
ghosts, but who was that figure standing there under the apple-tree?
It stirred now. Was it coming to meet him? He felt a cold sweat break
out over his brow. No, it moved in the opposite direction—across the
grass, past the cottage; it was moving in the direction of the river.
And he followed—as though he were _obliged_ to follow; slowly at first,
as in a dream, but as the figure quickened its pace—more quickly too.
What was it, where was it going?
It moved lightly, more lightly than _she_ had done of late, and now it
was hurrying—hurrying across the crisp meadow, whose damp marshiness the
frost had seized fast—hurrying towards the river.
And he hurried too; without thought, blindly.
But the moon slid behind a cloud again, all grew dark, and the spirit—if
spirit it was—was lost in the shadow.
Still he hurried; now he seemed to see it here—now there—he was not
sure; perhaps it was all a dream. But his liquor had never served him so
before—and he had often been worse drunk.
He was near upon turning back, when the moon fringed the cloud with
silver again, and gradually showed him the figure, as clear as in
daylight, standing upon the bridge that led across to the road.
He looked; it was facing him, but though in the white light and to his
heated sense the features looked ghostly still, and the eyes wild and
inhuman, there was something life-like about the creature, and even as
he looked, it threw up its arms and took one leap forwards and downwards
into the water.
Then he awoke; he was no longer drunk. He did not stop to think—he
dashed forward, stripping off his coat as he ran, and pushed through the
reeds on the river bank, and plunged into the stream.
The cold of the water was horrible—it took his breath away. But, as luck
would have it, the stream here was not deep but swift, and it carried
the body towards him; he clutched it, caught it, and, half swimming,
half wading, brought it, in little more than a minute, safely on to the
bank.
His teeth were chattering, but it was not with fright now; he had
forgotten that he had once fancied this to have been a ghost.
It was a girl, and it lay motionless.
He stripped off the shoddy black jacket and wrung the water from it,
then tried to wring it from the poor, clinging cotton skirts, that were
stiffening with frost in the biting air; after that he chafed the cold
body, and took off the worn boots and emptied the water out of them; and
then he searched in his pockets, and drew forth a half-pint flat bottle,
which he put to her lips.
A pungent odour of common spirit filled the air.
“It’s lucky I left a drop,” he murmured to himself, and a keener
satisfaction than he had ever experienced even from drinking it himself
filled him as he watched the colour slowly come back to the ashen face.
But it took a deal of rubbing again before the eyes opened, before any
breath seemed to come struggling through those pale lips. Several times
he was for leaving her and running for assistance, because he was
frightened.
But the village was far behind, and he was afraid she might die while he
was gone; so he waited with a beating heart, and at last she moved and
tried to speak.
“D’ye feel better now?” said he.
She nodded feebly.
He passed his hand under her head and set her up against his knee.
But the head drooped again, and she began to shiver.
“She didn’t ought to be ’ere,” he muttered to himself; “it’s freezin’
plaguey ’ard, and she soaked through.”
“D’ye think ye can walk?” said he to her ear.
She did not answer, and he scratched his head.
Then suddenly an inspiration came to him. He knew a way into the old
home by the back; it would be empty and cheerless, but it would be safer
than the frosty night air, and maybe he might be lucky enough to find a
morsel of old wood with which he might light a bit of a fire.
It was worth trying, and without more ado he took the poor thing in his
arms, and stumbled up the meadow with her.
She was light enough in all conscience, and she lay passive.
Yes, the rotten old door was broken, as he last remembered it, and he
pushed it open and bore her in. The place was bare, but he lay her down
beside the cold hearth, with her head against the chimney-corner, and
ran to the outhouse. The luck was with him to-night as it was not wont
to be: there were some remnants of brushwood scattered about; he swept
together a handful, and with the matches that luckily were safe and dry
in the pocket of the coat he had cast off, he soon kindled a bit of a
blaze in the forsaken old dwelling-room.
Then he hung her jacket to dry and set to work again to rub her body.
The warmth revived her, she crept as close as she could to it, shivering
still.
He took out the bottle again, his best notion of help; but she shook her
head at the sight of it, and a sudden idea struck him.
“When did ye ’ave yer food last?” he asked.
She did not answer.
“Maybe ye’re ’ungry?” he said.
And as she was still silent, he turned out his pockets again, and
produced a broken bit of dry crust.
“It’s all I left o’ my dinner,” he said, “but it’ll stay yer stomach
till ye can get ’ome.”
She let him put it into her hand, but she did not eat.
“It’s a queer thing,” said he ruminatingly, “women don’t seem to ’ave no
pecker when they ain’t fit.”
She shivered again.
“Now, look ’ere,” said he, drawing out the spirit bottle once more,
“ye’ve got to have another go at this or I’m damned, and then ye’ve got
to eat that crust.”
He forced it on her, and she submitted, and then he added: “And as soon
as ye can walk ye ought to go ’ome. Ye’ll catch yer death in them damp
clothes.”
She was silent, and he stood watching her nibbling the crust, while he
took a pull at the spirit himself.
A notion seemed to occur to him, and he paused with the flask in his
hand.
“What did ye go and jump into the water for?” he said at last, perhaps
thinking that what she _wanted_ was to “catch her death.”
And as still she was dumb, he added another to the string of his
questions: “Where d’ye live?”
Then at last she answered.
“Nowhere,” said she bitterly.
He started.
“What, ain’t ye got no ’ome?” asked he.
“No,” she said.
He whistled.
“No more ’aven’t I,” he said.
“Nor yet no mother?” he added in a low voice after a while.
“No,” she said.
He looked round the ghostly, deserted old home—at the figure huddled by
the hearth where another had been wont to cook his meals, at the empty
window where a familiar chair had once stood.
“No more ’aven’t I,” he said. And after a pause he added with a half
laugh, “P’raps ye ’aven’t even got no work?”
“No,” she replied for the third time.
And he laughed outright as he added again: “No more ’aven’t I!”
He walked to the window, and she struggled to her feet.
“So I guess ye _wanted_ to catch yer death,” he muttered.
She stood hanging over the blaze that was beginning to flicker down, and
he with his back to her at the window gazing out into the garden, where
the moonlight lay white and hard on the frosted walk and on the dreary,
empty potato patch.
If his mother had been up-stairs she would have known what to do now.
She had always known what to do somehow. And suddenly there crossed his
mind a vision of her taking into the house a poor starved dog that had
been hooted down the road by the village boys.
Yes, she would have known what to do. But she was not up-stairs.
“I s’pose there’s plenty as wouldn’t mind a-catchin’ their death,”
murmured he, half to himself. “Folk as ’ave made a mess of it, or as
’aven’t got no one to work for.”
The girl at the fire threw up her head almost proudly.
“I ain’t what yer might think,” she said. “I ain’t done nothin’ wus than
starve. They turned me off at the factory, but it weren’t no fault o’
mine.”
“Weren’t ye drunk?” asked the boy simply.
Her wan face flushed purple.
“Drunk!” said she. “I ain’t never been drunk in my life.” And she moved
from him.
Then he flushed too—ashamed.
“I beg yer pardon,” he stammered. “It’s what they turn me off for—but o’
course ... I beg yer pardon!”
“Granted,” said she. “It’s likely ye should think so. But my dead mother
might see me and welcome, for all the ’arm I’ve a-done, and that’s the
truth!”
He shivered at the words and looked round.
“I wish I could say as much,” said he.
She looked at him and came a step nearer, but the sob that had risen in
her throat at his unintentional insult had turned to a fit of coughing,
and she could not speak.
He turned quickly to the hearth, and kicked the bits of stick together
with his foot; but there was no more life in them, they were burnt out,
and there were no more.
“Ye’re catchin’ yer death o’ cold,” repeated he testily. “I dursen’t
advise ye to stop ’ere no longer. Let me show ye the way to the next
village, if ye’re a stranger to the place. Leastways, I think there’s a
parcel o’ ’ouses afore ye come to it, where ye might get a night’s
lodgin’.”
She laughed harshly, and he stopped—confused.
He guessed her meaning.
“’Aven’t ye got no money?” asked he after a minute or two, timidly.
“No,” she answered, struggling fiercely with tears again. “I’ve been out
o’ work this three weeks. Ye’d ha’ done best to leave me where I was!”
“Don’t say that,” said he quite gently. “The luck’s bound to turn.”
She stood quietly wiping a tear now and then, and he beside her turning
his hand round and round in his breeches pocket.
At last he pulled the hand out and held it towards her: there was a
silver coin in it.
“Ye’d best take it,” said he sheepishly. “I ’ad my week’s wage to-day,
though they _’ave_ a-turned me off, and I can spare it nicely. It’ll get
ye a bed and a bit o’ supper anyways.”
Her face flushed and her lip quivered again. But she took it.
“Ye’re very kind,” said she. “I ought to thank ye, I’m sure. If mother
was alive...”
Her voice shook, and she didn’t finish the sentence.
He stepped to the hearth and took up her wretched little jacket that had
lain there a-drying, handing it to her clumsily. Her last words echoed
in his ears.
She took the jacket, and pushed her poor, thin arms into its shrunken
sleeves; it was damp still, and it would not meet, even across her
narrow chest.
“The luck’ll turn,” he repeated awkwardly. “It allers do turn—one way or
t’other. Ye must try for work again at Hoo, yonder. There’s another
factory there.”
“Seems as though God A’mighty did ought to give me another chance,” she
said with a sigh, “if it were on’y for this. For I shan’t be able to pay
ye back else.”
He had opened the cranky door, and they had passed out into the moonlit
frostiness.
“Never think o’ that,” said he.
“I shall though,” she declared. “Ye must show me your ’ome, so as I
shall know where to find ye to pay it back agin—when I do get work.”
“My ’ome!” echoed he.
And he turned and looked at the deserted cottage with its closed, silent
windows.
From the chimney a faint line of smoke from the remnants of the fire
that he had lit was stealing up straight into the calm, cold
air—ascending steadily, like incense, into the sky.
He caught his breath.
“This’d be the best place,” he said. “I’ll come ’ere next Saturday night
and see if ye’re anywheres about. I’d like to ’ear ’ow ye was a-gettin’
on, but I don’t want the money.”
They had crossed the garden by this time, and stood at the gate.
“I shan’t rest till I can bring it ye though,” said she. “I ’aven’t
never borrowed from nobody afore. That was why ... _you know_...!
P’r’aps I didn’t ought to ha’ took it now. But it seemed as though ...
well, it seemed as though, if yer pulled me out o’ the water, I’d _got_
to keep the life in me! I couldn’t ha’ felt like taking it from no one
else, I think. But there, ye’re a good sort, and I’ll owe it to you. But
I’ll pay you—s’elp me God.”
She shoved the gate open and went out into the road, he following.
“A good sort!” He “a good sort!” An hour ago he would ... no, not have
_laughed_; he would have sworn, to say the very least of it, at any one
who had dared to say such a thing; for he would have known they meant it
as an insult. But he neither laughed nor swore at this woman. He simply
stood still and looked at her.
The clock in the church steeple up the stream struck ten.
“Ye’ll ’ave to look sharp,” said he, “or no one won’t take ye in
to-night.”
She was shivering in the bitter air, and she could walk but slowly;
still she walked alone.
He moved a few steps beside her, then stopped.
A sudden instinct that he could not have defined bade him send her on
her way alone.
“Ye’ll do now,” said he, “won’t ye? Them’s the cottages—up there to yer
right. You knock at the first door—there’s an old woman lives there—she
used to be mother’s chum. She’d take ye in, if ’twas for nothing, but
that ... if she only knowed....”
Nat blushed, and he was not in the habit of blushing, and stammered as
he was not in the habit of stammering, for he did not know how to finish
his sentence.
“Well, anyways ye’ve got the money,” concluded he, “and if it comes to
that—there’s a ‘public’ at Hoo where they lets out beds. So you look
sharp.”
“Good-night; and thank ye,” said the girl.
“Good-night,” answered he.
“I shan’t forget what you done for me,” said she.
“Oh, stow that,” he said.
He watched her as she moved slowly along: watched her till she had
turned up the lane to the cluster of cottages, and waited to see if she
would come back on it.
He put his hand in his pocket to feel for his pipe and matches; the
matches were gone, and he remembered that he had used them to light the
fire—yonder in his old home, on the hearth where his mother had been
wont to boil the pot for his supper.
He turned and looked again.
The trail of smoke from the old chimney was thinner and fainter—but it
was still there—ascending softly and steadily.
His heart was lighter at the sight of it, and he whistled gently to
himself.
The girl had not reappeared; she must be housed and safe by now.
He set his face back whence he had come, and went on his way content.
A little bird twittered pitifully in the frost-bound hedge as he passed.
He searched for the place and found it; it was dying of cold and hunger.
He put it in his warm bosom within his coat; he thought that he would
feed it when he got in, and that perhaps he might bring it back to life.
THE END
_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MANXMAN
BY HALL CAINE
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Times.=—‘With the exception of _The Scapegoat_, this is
unquestionably the finest and most dramatic of Mr. Hall Caine’s novels
... _The Manxman_ goes very straight to the roots of human passion and
emotion. It is a remarkable book, throbbing with human interest.’
=The Guardian.=—‘A story of exceptional power and thorough originality.
The greater portion of it is like a Greek tragic drama, in the intensity
of its interest, and the depth of its overshadowing gloom.... But this
tragedy is merely a telling background for a series of brilliant
sketches of men and manners, of old-world customs, and forgotten ways of
speech which still linger in the Isle of Man.’
=The Standard.=—‘A singularly powerful and picturesque piece of work,
extraordinarily dramatic.... Taken altogether, _The Manxman_ cannot fail
to enhance Mr. Hall Caine’s reputation. It is a most powerful book.’
=The Morning Post.=—‘If possible, Mr. Hall Caine’s work, _The Manxman_,
is more marked by passion, power, and brilliant local colouring than its
predecessors.... It has a grandeur as well as strength, and the
picturesque features and customs of a delightful country are vividly
painted.’
=The World.=—‘Over and above the absorbing interest of the story, which
never flags, the book is full of strength, of vivid character sketches,
and powerful word-painting, all told with a force and knowledge of local
colour.’
=The Queen.=—‘_The Manxman_ is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable
books of the century. It will be read and re-read, and take its place in
the literary inheritance of the English-speaking nations.’
=The St. James’s Gazette.=—‘_The Manxman_ is a contribution to
literature, and the most fastidious critic would give in exchange for it
a wilderness of that deciduous trash which our publishers call
fiction.... It is not possible to part from _The Manxman_ with anything
but a warm tribute of approval.’—EDMUND GOSSE.
=The Christian World.=—‘There is a great fascination in being present,
as it were, at the birth of a classic; and a classic undoubtedly _The
Manxman_ is... He who reads _The Manxman_ feels that he is reading a
book which will be read and re-read by very many thousands with human
tears and human laughter.’
=Mr. T. P. O’Connor, in the ‘Sun.’=—‘This is a very fine and great
story—one of the finest and greatest of our time.... Mr. Hall Caine
reaches heights which are attained only by the greatest masters of
fiction.... I think of the great French writer, Stendhal, at the same
moment as the great English writer.... In short, you feel what Mr.
Howells said of Tolstoi, “This is not like life; it is life.”... He
belongs to that small minority of the Great Elect of Literature.’
=The Scotsman.=—‘It is not too much to say that it is the most powerful
story that has been written in the present generation.... The love of
Pete, his simple-mindedness, his sufferings when he has lost Kate, are
painted with a master-hand.... It is a work of genius.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BONDMAN
BY HALL CAINE
With a Photogravure Portrait of the Author.
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=Mr. Gladstone.=—‘_The Bondman_ is a work of which I recognise the
freshness, vigour, and sustained interest, no less than its integrity of
aim.’
=The Times.=—‘It is impossible to deny originality and rude power to
this saga, impossible not to admire its forceful directness, and the
colossal grandeur of its leading characters.’
=The Academy.=—‘The language of _The Bondman_ is full of nervous,
graphic, and poetical English; its interest never flags, and its
situations and descriptions are magnificent. It is a splendid novel.’
=The Speaker.=—‘This is the best book that Mr. Hall Caine has yet
written, and it reaches a level to which fiction very rarely attains....
We are, in fact so loth to let such good work be degraded by the title
of “novel” that we are almost tempted to consider its claim to rank as a
prose epic.’
=The Scotsman.=—‘Mr. Hall Caine has in this work placed himself beyond
the front rank of the novelists of the day. He has produced a story
which, for the ingenuity of its plot, for its literary excellence, for
its delineations of human passions, and for its intensely powerful
dramatic scenes, is distinctly ahead of all the fictional literature of
our time, and fit to rank with the most powerful fictional writing of
the past century.’
=The Athenæum.=—‘Crowded with incidents.’
=The Observer.=—‘Many of the descriptions are picturesque and
powerful.... As fine in their way as anything in modern literature.’
=The Liverpool Mercury.=—‘A story which will be read, not by his
contemporaries alone, but by later generations, so long as its chief
features—high emotion, deep passion, exquisite poetry, and true
pathos—have power to delight and to touch the heart.’
=The Pall Mall Gazette.=—‘It is the product of a strenuous and sustained
imaginative effort far beyond the power of any every-day story-teller.’
=The Scots Observer.=—‘In none of his previous works has he approached
the splendour of idealism which flows through _The Bondman_.’
=The Manchester Guardian.=—‘A remarkable story, painted with vigour and
brilliant effect.’
=The St. James’s Gazette.=—‘A striking and highly dramatic piece of
fiction.’
=The Literary World.=—‘The book abounds in pages of great force and
beauty, and there is a touch of almost Homeric power in its massive and
grand simplicity.’
=The Liverpool Post.=—‘Graphic, dramatic, pathetic, heroic, full of
detail, crowded with incident and inspired by a noble purpose.’
=The Yorkshire Post.=—‘A book of lasting interest.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SCAPEGOAT
BY HALL CAINE
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=Mr. Gladstone writes=:—‘I congratulate you upon _The Scapegoat_ as a
work of art, and especially upon the noble and skilfully drawn character
of Israel.’
=Mr. Walter Besant, in ‘The Author.’=—‘Nearly every year there stands
out a head and shoulders above its companions one work which promises to
make the year memorable. This year a promise of lasting vitality is
distinctly made by Mr. Hall Caine’s _Scapegoat_. It is a great book,
great in conception and in execution; a strong book, strong in situation
and in character; and a human book, human in its pathos, its terror, and
its passion.’
=The Times.=—‘In our judgment it excels in dramatic force all the
Author’s previous efforts. For grace and touching pathos Naomi is a
character which any romancist in the world might be proud to have
created, and the tale of her parents’ despair and hopes, and of her own
development, confers upon _The Scapegoat_ a distinction which is
matchless of its kind.’
=The Guardian.=—‘Mr. Hall Caine is undoubtedly master of a style which
is peculiarly his own. He is in a way a Rembrandt among novelists. His
figures, striking and powerful rather than beautiful, stand out, with
the ruggedness of their features developed and accentuated, from a
background of the deepest gloom.... Every sentence contains a thought,
and every word of it is balanced and arranged to accumulate the
intensity of its force.’
=The Athenæum.=—‘It is a delightful story to read.’
=The Academy.=—‘Israel ben Oliel is the third of a series of the most
profoundly conceived characters in modern fiction.’
=The Saturday Review.=—‘This is the best novel which Mr. Caine has yet
produced.’
=The Literary World.=—‘The lifelike renderings of the varied situations,
the gradual changes in a noble character, hardened and lowered by the
world’s cruel usage, and returning at last to its original grandeur, can
only be fully appreciated by a perusal of the book as a whole.’
=The Anti-Jacobin.=—‘It is, in truth, a romance of fine poetic quality.
Israel Ben Oliel, the central figure of the tale, is sculptured rather
than drawn: a character of grand outline. A nobler piece of prose than
the death of Ruth we have seldom met with.’
=The Scotsman.=—‘The new story will rank with Mr. Hall Caine’s previous
productions. Nay, it will in some respects rank above them. It will take
its place by the side of the Hebrew histories in the Apocrypha. It is
nobly and manfully written. It stirs the blood and kindles the
imagination.’
=The Scottish Leader.=—‘_The Scapegoat_ is a masterpiece.’
=Truth.=—‘Mr. Hall Caine has been winning his way slowly, but surely,
and securely, I think also, to fame. You must by all means read his
absorbing Moorish romance, _The Scapegoat_.’
=The Jewish World.=—‘Only one who had studied Moses could have drawn
that grand portrait of Israel ben Oliel.’
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE HEAVENLY TWINS
BY SARAH GRAND
_In One Volume, price 6s._
=The Athenæum.=—‘It is so full of interest, and the characters are so
eccentrically humorous yet true, that one feels inclined to pardon all
its faults, and give oneself up to unreserved enjoyment of it.... The
twins Angelica and Diavolo, young barbarians, utterly devoid of all
respect, conventionality, or decency, are among the most delightful and
amusing children in fiction.’