The number of mysterious disappearances in great cities can be
calculated upon with almost the same certainty as the death rate. A
very few of these are accounted for; a body is found and identified,
or a man vanished is found to have been in difficulties, and it
is shrewdly or rashly surmised that he has fled to escape the
consequences; but the majority of the cases pass into the great
unknown, so far as either police or public are concerned.
No. 7 Hill Place, at the South Side, leads to a back court of
wretched dwellings occupied by the very poor. At the west side of
that court is a block or “land” of houses which are now rather worse
than they were at the time of which I write, for a theatre has been
built up against the back windows, almost shutting out the light
of day from one side of the building. At that time the top windows
looked into an auctioneer’s yard, and, having a better share of light
than the lower flats, were considered rather respectable abodes for
working men. In one of these lived George Mossman, a journeyman
baker. The house consisted of two rooms, and had been at one time
very nicely furnished; but on the Saturday night of which I write the
two places were almost empty, for Mossman had been off work for many
months with a poisoned hand, which refused to heal, and so kept him
and his wife and family “living on the furniture.” At first Mossman,
who was of a cheery, blithe disposition, had made a joke of his
disabled hand, and laughingly declared that he had “an income in his
hand, but nane in his pouch;” but as month after month went past, and
the hand showed no signs of healing, joking was hushed on his lips.
Hunger, starvation, and perhaps death stared them in the face; for
Mossman shared the common horror of pauperism, and would have dropped
dead before he could have applied at the Poorhouse for a dole.
The terrible pinchings which had been endured by that family were
scarcely known outside their own door, for it was believed that
Mossman was getting an allowance off some sick fund or trade society.
There were two boys and three girls, the youngest of these being an
infant at the breast, and the eldest only ten; but these children
were so drilled and trained by their parents in their own spirit of
independence, that not a whisper of the truth reached the neighbours.
“When things are at their worst they begin to mend.” These were the
words of the poor, disabled baker to his wife on this Saturday night,
but as they did not satisfy hungry bairns, a council was held to
accelerate the mending. The house was empty, and the whole family
almost naked, so of late they had been seldom outside the house.
The general messenger was Johnny, the eldest boy, and he it was who
appeared to feel the position most keenly. Johnny was ashamed of his
rags, and had a firm opinion that he was a strong, able-bodied man,
instead of being the skinny little shadow he was, and that his proper
sphere was the sea, to which he had more than once threatened to
run away, not returning till he was a captain all covered with gold
lace, and with a fair share of the same metal in his pockets for his
parents.
“If I was away,” he remarked on the present occasion, “there would
always be one less to eat.”
“We might all say that,” said his father, who had grown somewhat
sharp and fierce with famine and fretting. “I have thought about it
myself often of late. A poor man in trouble and without a friend in
the world would be far better out of it.”
This sentiment was received with a strong and general protest, the
mother especially having got frightened of late at some of the
desperate looks and words of the disabled baker.
“You’re not without friends, if you like to apply to them,” she
remarked, after a pause, to let him cool down a little. “There’s
Borland, for instance, your old companion.”
“He’s a master now,” said Mossman, snappishly.
“So much the better—he may be the readier to help you, for you could
work it up to him when you are well. At any rate, something must be
done to-night, for the bairns canna want ower Sunday.”
“I quarrelled wi’ him over a game at draughts,” said Mossman,
stubbornly, “and I havena spoken to him for ten years, and I winna
now. He’d only crow over me.”
“You were at the schule thegither, and apprentices in the same shop.
I dinna believe he would laugh at ye,” persisted the wife, “but if ye
like I’ll gang mysel’.”
“I winna gang, and I winna let you be seen in such rags,” said her
husband, determinedly.
“I’ll gang then, faither,” eagerly cried Johnny. “I dinna care though
he laughs at me, if he only helps us.”
Johnny was kissed by his mother for the brave speech, and the
darkness hid the tear that came with it, though Johnny felt the tear
all the same. It fired his mind and made him blurt out a thought
which otherwise he would have kept in his own head.
“It couldn’t be so very bad to steal a loaf,” he remarked with a
wistful look round on the hungry ones. “I felt near doing it this
mornin’ when a baker asked me to help his board off his heid. The
smell o’ the new bread just took my heart, and I was like to bolt wi’
ane.”
His father’s bony fingers gripped him by the ear, and the touch was
no gentle one.
“If ever you turn thief while I’m living,” he fiercely hissed out,
“never come near me or look me in the face again! I wad rather see
you deid, ay, and mysel’ too,” he brokenly added, with a quiver
getting into his tones.