HOME TRUTHS FOR LIONEL.
The cottages down Clay Lane were ill-drained. It might be nearer the
truth to say they were not drained at all. As is the case with many
another fine estate besides Verner's Pride, while the agricultural land
was well drained, no expense spared upon it, the poor dwellings had been
neglected. Not only in the matter of draining, but in other respects,
were these habitations deficient: but that strong terms are apt to grate
unpleasingly upon the ear, one might say shamefully deficient. The
consequence was that no autumn ever went over, scarcely any spring, but
somebody would be down with ague, with low fever; and it was reckoned a
fortunate season if a good many were not prostrate.
The first time that Lionel Verner took a walk down Clay Lane after his
illness was a fine day in October. He had been out before in other
directions, but not in that of Clay Lane. He had not yet recovered his
full strength; he looked ill and emaciated. Had he been strong, as he
used to be, he would not have found himself nearly losing his
equilibrium at being run violently against by a woman, who turned
swiftly out of her own door.
"Take care, Mrs. Grind! Is your house on fire?"
"It's begging a thousand pardons, sir! I hadn't no idea you was there,"
returned Mrs. Grind, in lamentable confusion, when she saw whom she had
all but knocked down. "Grind, he catches sight o' one o' the brick men
going by, and he tells me to run and fetch him in; but I had got my
hands in the soap-suds, and couldn't take 'em convenient out of it at
the minute, and I was hasting lest he'd gone too far to be caught up. He
have now."
"Is Grind better?"
"He ain't no worse, sir. There he is," she added, flinging the door
open.
On the side of the kitchen, opposite to the door, was a pallet-bed
stretched against the wall, and on it lay the woman's husband, Grind,
dressed. It was a small room, and it appeared literally full of
children, of encumbrances of all sorts. A string extended from one side
of the fire-place to the other, and on this hung some wet coloured
pinafores, the steam ascending from them in clouds, drawn out by the
heat of the fire. The children were in various stages of _un_-dress,
these coloured pinafores doubtless constituting their sole outer
garment. But that Grind's eye had caught his, Lionel might have
hesitated to enter so uncomfortable a place. His natural kindness of
heart--nay, his innate regard for the feelings of others, let them be
ever so inferior in station--prevented his turning back when the man had
seen him.
"Grind, don't move, don't get off the bed," Lionel said hastily. But
Grind was already up. The ague fit was upon him then, and he shook the
bed as he sat down upon it. His face wore that blue, pallid appearance,
which you may have seen in aguish patients.
"You don't seem much better, Grind."
"Thank ye, sir, I be baddish just now again, but I ain't worse on the
whole," was the man's reply. A civil, quiet, hard-working man as any on
the estate; nothing against him but his large flock of children, and his
difficulty of getting along any way. The mouths to feed were
many--ravenous young mouths, too; and the wife, though anxious and
well-meaning, was not the most thrifty in the world. She liked gossiping
better than thrift; but gossip was the most prevalent complaint of Clay
Lane, so far as its female population was concerned.
"How long is it that you have been ill?" asked Lionel, leaning his elbow
on the mantel-piece, and looking down on Grind, Mrs. Grind having
whisked away the pinafores.
"It's going along of four weeks, sir, now. It's a illness, sir, I takes
it, as must have its course."
"All illnesses must have that, as I believe," said Lionel. "Mine has
taken its own time pretty well, has it not?"
Grind shook his head.
"You don't look none the better for your bout, sir. And it's a long time
you must have been a-getting strong. Mr. Jan, he said, just a month ago,
when he first come to see me, as you was well, so to say, then. Ah! it's
only them as have tried it knows what the pulling through up to strength
again is, when the illness itself seems gone."
Lionel's conscience was rather suggestive at that moment. He might have
been stronger than he was, by this time, had he "pulled through" with a
better will, and given way less. "I am sorry not to see you better,
Grind," he kindly said.
"You see me at the worst, sir, to-day," said the man, in a tone of
apology, as if seeking to excuse his own sickness. "I _be_ getting
better, and that's a thing to be thankful for. I only gets the fever
once in three days now. Yesterday, sir, I got down to the field, and
earned what'll come to eighteen pence. I did indeed, sir, though you'd
not think it, looking at me to-day."
"I should not," said Lionel. "Do you mean to say you went to work in
your present state?"
"I didn't seem a bit ill yesterday, sir, except for the weakness. The
fever, it keeps me down all one day, as may be to-day; then the morrow I
be quite prostrate with the weakness it leaves; and the third day I be,
so to speak, well. But I can't do a full day's work, sir; no, nor hardly
half of a one, and by evening I be so done over I can scarce crawl to
my place here. It ain't much, sir, part of a day's work in three; but I
be thankful for that improvement. A week ago, I couldn't do as much as
that."
More suggestive thoughts for Lionel.
"He'd a got better quicker, sir, if he could do his work regular," put
in the woman. "What's one day's work out o' three--even if 'twas a full
day's--to find us all victuals? In course he can't fare better nor we;
and Peckaby's, they don't give much trust to us. He gets a pot o' gruel,
or a saucer o' porridge, or a hunch o' bread with a mite o' cheese."
Lionel looked at the man. "You cannot eat plain bread now, can you,
Grind?"
"All this day, sir, I shan't eat nothing; I couldn't swallow it," he
answered. "After the fever and the shaking's gone, then I could eat, but
not bread; it seems too dry for the throat, and it sticks in it. I get a
dish o' tea, or something in that way. The next day--my well day, as I
calls it--I can eat all afore me."
"You ought to have more strengthening food."
"It's not for us to say, sir, as we ought to have this here food, or
that there food, unless we earns it," replied Grind, in a meek spirit of
contented resignation that many a rich man might have taken a pattern
from. "Mr. Jan he says, 'Grind,' says he, 'you should have some meat to
eat, and some good beef-tea, and a drop o' wine wouldn't do you no
harm,' says he. And it makes me smile, sir, to think where the like o'
poor folks is to get such things. Lucky to be able to get a bit o' bread
and a drain o' tea without sugar, them as is off their work, just to rub
on and keep theirselves out o' the workhouse. I know I'm thankful to do
it. Jim, he have got a place, sir."
"Jim,--which is Jim?" asked Lionel, turning his eyes on the group of
children, supposing one must be meant.
"He ain't here, sir," cried the woman. "It's the one with the black
hair, and he was six year old yesterday. He's gone to Farmer Johnson's
to take care o' the pigs in the field. He's to get a shilling a week."
Lionel moved from his position. "Grind," he said, "don't you think it
would be better if you gave yourself complete rest, not attempting to go
out to work until you are stronger?"
"I couldn't afford it, sir. And as to its being better for me, I don't
see that. If I can work, sir, I'm better at work. I know it tires me,
but I believe I get stronger the sooner for it. Mr. Jan, he says to me,
says he, 'Don't lie by never, Grind, unless you be obliged to it; it
only rusts the limbs.' And he ain't far out, sir. Folks gets more harm
from idleness nor they do from work."
"Well, good-day, Grind," said Lionel, "and I heartily hope you'll soon
be on your legs again. Lady Verner shall send you something more
nourishing than bread, while you are still suffering."
"Thank ye kindly, sir," replied Grind. "My humble duty to my lady."
Lionel went out. "What a lesson for me!" he involuntarily exclaimed.
"This poor half-starved man struggling patiently onward through his
sickness; while I, who had every luxury about me, spent my time in
repining. What a lesson! Heaven help me to take it to my heart!"
He lifted his hat as he spoke, his feeling at the moment full of
reverence; and went on to Frost's. "Where's Robin?" he asked of the
wife.
"He's in the back room, sir," was the answer. "He's getting better fast.
The old father, he have gone out a bit, a-warming of himself in the
sun."
She opened the door of a small back room as she spoke; but it proved to
be empty. Robin was discerned in the garden, sitting on a bench;
possibly to give _him_self a warming in the sun--as Mrs. Frost expressed
it. He sat in a still attitude, his arms folded, his head bowed. Since
the miserable occurrence touching Rachel, Robin Frost was a fearfully
changed man; never, from the hour that the coroner's inquest was held
and certain evidence had come out, had he been seen to smile. He had now
been ill with ague, in the same way as Grind. Hearing the approach of
footsteps, he turned his head, and rose when he saw it was Lionel.
"Well, Robin, how fares it? You are better, I hear. Sit yourself down;
you are not strong enough to stand. What an enemy this low fever is! I
wish we could root it out!"
"Many might be all the healthier for it, sir, if it could be done," was
Robin's answer, spoken indifferently--as he nearly always spoke now. "As
for me, I'm not far off being well again."
"They said in the village you were going to die, Robin, did they not?"
continued Lionel. "You have cheated them, you see."
"They said it, some of 'em, sir, and thought it, too. Old father thought
it. I'm not sure but Mr. Jan thought it. _I_ didn't, bad as I was,"
continued Robin, in a significant tone. "I had my oath to keep."
"Robin!"
"Sir, I have sworn--and you know I have sworn it--to have my revenge
upon him that worked ill to Rachel. I can't die till that oath has been
kept."
"There's a certain sentence, Robin, given us for our guidance, amid many
other such sentences, which runs somewhat after this fashion: 'Vengeance
is mine,'" quietly spoke Lionel. "Have you forgotten who it is says
that?"
"Why did he--the villain--forget them sentences? Why did he forget 'em
and harm her?" retorted Robin. "Sir, it's of no good for you to look at
me in that way. I'll never be baulked in this matter. Old father, now
and again, _he'll_ talk about forgiveness; and when I say, 'weren't you
her father?' 'Ay,' he'll answer, 'but I've got one foot in the grave,
Robin, and anger will not bring her back to life.' No, it won't,"
doggedly went on Robin. "It won't undo what was done, neither: but I'll
keep my oath--so far as it is in my power to keep it. Dead though he is,
he shall be exposed to the world."
The words "dead though he is" aroused the attention of Lionel. "To whom
do you allude, Robin?" he asked. "Have you obtained any fresh clue?"
"Not much of a fresh one," answered the man, with a stress upon the word
"fresh." "I have had it this six or seven months. When they heard he was
dead, then they could speak out and tell me their suspicions of him."
"Who could? What mystery are you talking?" reiterated Lionel.
"Never mind who, sir. It was one that kept the mouth shut, as long as
there was any good in opening it. 'Not to make ill-blood,' was the
excuse gave to me after. If I had but knowed at the time!" added the
man, clenching his fist, "I'd have went out and killed him, if he had
been double as far off!"
"Robin, what have you heard?"
"Well, sir, I'll tell _you_--but I have not opened my lips to a living
soul,-not even to old father--The villain that did the harm to Rachel
was John Massingbird!"
Lionel remained silent from surprise.
"I don't believe it," he presently said, speaking emphatically. "Who has
accused him?"
"Sir, I have said that I can't tell you. I passed my word not to do it.
It was one that had cause to suspect him at the time. And it was never
told me--_never told me_--until John Massingbird was dead!"
Robin's voice rose to a sound of wailing pain, and he raised his hands
with a gesture of despair.
"Did your informant _know_ that it was John Massingbird?" Lionel gravely
asked.
"They had not got what is called positive proof, such as might avail in
a Court of Justice; but they was morally certain," replied Robin; "and
so am I. I am only waiting for one thing, sir, to tell it out to all the
world."
"And what's that?"
"The returning home of Luke Roy. There's not much doubt that he knows
all about it; I have my reasons for saying so, and I'd like to be quite
sure before I tell out the tale. Old Roy says Luke may be expected home
by any ship as comes; he don't think he'll stop there, now John
Massingbird's dead."
"Then, Robin, listen to me," returned Lionel. "I have no positive proof,
any more than it appears your informant has; but I am perfectly
convinced in my own mind that the guilty man was _not_ John Massingbird,
but another. Understand me," he emphatically continued, "I have good and
sufficient reason for saying this. Rely upon it, whoever it may have
been, John Massingbird it was not."
Robin lifted his eyes to the face of Lionel.
"You say you don't know this, sir?"
"Not of actual proof. But so sure am I that it was not he, that I could
stake all I possess upon it."
"Then, sir, you'd lose it," doggedly answered Robin. "When the time
comes that I choose to speak out--"
"What are you doing there?" burst forth Lionel, in a severely haughty
tone.
It caused Robin to start from his seat.
In a gap of the hedge behind them, Lionel had caught sight of a human
face, its stealthy ears complacently taking in every word. It was that
of Roy the bailiff.