WILLIE’S WIFE.
He made for the door of the public-house, but the children intercepted
him. Sylvie clung to one arm; while Bruno, on the opposite side, was
pushing him with all his strength, with many inarticulate cries of
“Gee-up! Gee-back! Woah then!” which he had picked up from the
waggoners.
‘Willie’ took not the least notice of them: he was simply conscious that
_something_ had checked him: and, for want of any other way of
accounting for it, he seemed to regard it as his own act.
[Illustration: THE RESCUE OF WILLIE]
“I wunnut coom in,” he said: “not to-day.”
“A mug o’ beer wunnut hurt ’ee!” his friends shouted in chorus. “_Two_
mugs wunnut hurt ’ee! Nor a dozen mugs!”
“Nay,” said Willie. “I’m agoan whoam.”
“What, withouten thy drink, Willie man?” shouted the others. But ‘Willie
man’ would have no more discussion, and turned doggedly away, the
children keeping one on each side of him, to guard him against any
change in his sudden resolution.
For a while he walked on stoutly enough, keeping his hands in his
pockets, and softly whistling a tune, in time to his heavy tread: his
success, in appearing entirely at his ease, was _almost_ complete; but a
careful observer would have noted that he had forgotten the second part
of the air, and that, when it broke down, he instantly began it again,
being too nervous to think of another, and too restless to endure
silence.
It was not the old fear that possessed him now—the old fear, that had
been his dreary companion every Saturday night he could remember, as he
had reeled along, steadying himself against gates and garden-palings,
and when the shrill reproaches of his wife had seemed to his dazed brain
only the echo of a yet more piercing voice within, the intolerable wail
of a hopeless remorse: it was a wholly new fear that had come to him
now: life had taken on itself a new set of colours, and was lighted up
with a new and dazzling radiance, and he did not see, as yet, how his
home-life, and his wife and child, would fit into the new order of
things: the very novelty of it all was, to his simple mind, a perplexity
and an overwhelming terror.
And now the tune died into sudden silence on the trembling lips, as he
turned a sharp corner, and came in sight of his own cottage, where his
wife stood, leaning with folded arms on the wicket-gate, and looking up
the road with a pale face, that had in it no glimmer of the light of
hope—only the heavy shadow of a deep stony despair.
“Fine an’ early, lad! Fine an’ early!” The words might have been words
of welcoming, but oh, the bitterness of the tone in which she said it!
“What brings thee from thy merry mates, and all the fiddling and the
jigging? Pockets empty, I doubt? Or thou’st come, mebbe, for to see thy
little one die? The bairnie’s clemmed, and I’ve nor bite nor sup to gie
her. But what does _thou_ care?” She flung the gate open, and met him
with blazing eyes of fury.
The man said no word. Slowly, and with downcast eyes, he passed into the
house, while she, half terrified at his strange silence, followed him in
without another word; and it was not till he had sunk into a chair, with
his arms crossed on the table and with drooping head, that she found her
voice again.
It seemed entirely natural for us to go in with them: at another time
one would have asked leave for this, but I felt, I knew not why, that we
were in some mysterious way invisible, and as free to come and to go as
disembodied spirits.
The child in the cradle woke up, and raised a piteous cry, which in a
moment brought the children to its side: Bruno rocked the cradle, while
Sylvie tenderly replaced the little head on the pillow from which it had
slipped. But the mother took no heed of the cry, nor yet of the
satisfied ‘coo’ that it set up when Sylvie had made it happy again: she
only stood gazing at her husband, and vainly trying, with white
quivering lips (I believe she thought he was mad), to speak in the old
tones of shrill upbraiding that he knew so well.
“And thou’st spent all thy wages—I’ll swear thou hast—on the devil’s own
drink—and thou’st been and made thysen a beast again—as thou allus
dost——”
“Hasna!” the man muttered, his voice hardly rising above a whisper, as
he slowly emptied his pockets on the table. “There’s th’ wage, Missus,
every penny on’t.”
The woman gasped, and put one hand to her heart, as if under some great
shock of surprise. “Then _how_’s thee gotten th’ drink?”
“_Hasna_ gotten it,” he answered her, in a tone more sad than sullen. “I
hanna touched a drop this blessed day. No!” he cried aloud, bringing his
clenched fist heavily down upon the table, and looking up at her with
gleaming eyes, “nor I’ll never touch another drop o’ the cursed
drink—till I die—so help me God my Maker!” His voice, which had suddenly
risen to a hoarse shout, dropped again as suddenly: and once more he
bowed his head, and buried his face in his folded arms.
[Illustration: WILLIE’S WIFE]
The woman had dropped upon her knees by the cradle, while he was
speaking. She neither looked at him nor seemed to hear him. With hands
clasped above her head, she rocked herself wildly to and fro. “Oh my
God! Oh my God!” was all she said, over and over again.
Sylvie and Bruno gently unclasped her hands and drew them down—till she
had an arm round each of them, though she took no notice of them, but
knelt on with eyes gazing upwards, and lips that moved as if in silent
thanksgiving. The man kept his face hidden, and uttered no sound: but
one could _see_ the sobs that shook him from head to foot.
After a while he raised his head—his face all wet with tears. “Polly!”
he said softly; and then, louder, “Old Poll!”
Then she rose from her knees and came to him, with a dazed look, as if
she were walking in her sleep. “Who was it called me old Poll?” she
asked: her voice took on it a tender playfulness: her eyes sparkled; and
the rosy light of Youth flushed her pale cheeks, till she looked more
like a happy girl of seventeen than a worn woman of forty. “Was that my
own lad, my Willie, a-waiting for me at the stile?”
His face too was transformed, in the same magic light, to the likeness
of a bashful boy: and boy and girl they seemed, as he wound an arm about
her, and drew her to his side, while with the other hand he thrust from
him the heap of money, as though it were something hateful to the touch.
“Tak it, lass,” he said, “tak it all! An’ fetch us summat to eat: but
get a sup o’ milk, first, for t’ bairn.”
“My _little_ bairn!” she murmured as she gathered up the coins. “My own
little lassie!” Then she moved to the door, and was passing out, but a
sudden thought seemed to arrest her: she hastily returned—first to kneel
down and kiss the sleeping child, and then to throw herself into her
husband’s arms and be strained to his heart. The next moment she was on
her way, taking with her a jug that hung on a peg near the door: we
followed close behind.
We had not gone far before we came in sight of a swinging sign-board
bearing the word ‘DAIRY’ on it, and here she went in, welcomed by a
little curly white dog, who, not being under the ‘eerie’ influence, saw
the children, and received them with the most effusive affection. When I
got inside, the dairyman was in the act of taking the money. “Is’t for
thysen, Missus, or for t’ bairn?” he asked, when he had filled the jug,
pausing with it in his hand.
“For t’ _bairn_!” she said, almost reproachfully. “Think’st tha I’d
touch a drop _mysen_, while as _she_ hadna got her fill?”
“All right, Missus,” the man replied, turning away with the jug in his
hand. “Let’s just mak sure it’s good measure.” He went back among his
shelves of milk-bowls, carefully keeping his back towards her while he
emptied a little measure of cream into the jug, muttering to himself
“mebbe it’ll hearten her up a bit, the little lassie!”
The woman never noticed the kind deed, but took back the jug with a
simple “Good evening, Master,” and went her way: but the children had
been more observant, and, as we followed her out, Bruno remarked “That
were _welly_ kind: and I loves that man: and if I was welly rich I’d
give him a hundred pounds—and a bun. That little grummeling dog doosn’t
know its business!” He referred to the dairyman’s little dog, who had
apparently quite forgotten the affectionate welcome he had given us on
our arrival, and was now following at a respectful distance, doing his
best to ‘_speed the parting guest_’ with a shower of little shrill
barks, that seemed to tread on one another’s heels.
“What _is_ a dog’s business?” laughed Sylvie. “Dogs ca’n’t keep shops
and give change!”
“Sisters’ businesses _isn’t_ to laugh at their brothers,” Bruno replied
with perfect gravity. “And dogs’ businesses is to _bark_—not like that:
it should finish one bark before it begins another: and it should—Oh
Sylvie, there’s some dindledums!”
And in another moment the happy children were flying across the common,
racing for the patch of dandelions.
While I stood watching them, a strange dreamy feeling came upon me: a
railway-platform seemed to take the place of the green sward, and,
instead of the light figure of Sylvie bounding along, I seemed to see
the flying form of Lady Muriel; but whether Bruno had also undergone a
transformation, and had become the old man whom she was running to
overtake, I was unable to judge, so instantaneously did the feeling come
and go.
When I re-entered the little sitting-room which I shared with Arthur, he
was standing with his back to me, looking out of the open window, and
evidently had not heard me enter. A cup of tea, apparently just tasted
and pushed aside, stood on the table, on the opposite side of which was
a letter, just begun, with the pen lying across it: an open book lay on
the sofa: the London paper occupied the easy chair; and on the little
table, which stood by it, I noticed an unlighted cigar and an open box
of cigar-lights: all things betokened that the Doctor, usually so
methodical and so self-contained, had been trying every form of
occupation, and could settle to none!
“This is very unlike _you_, Doctor!” I was beginning, but checked
myself, as he turned at the sound of my voice, in sheer amazement at the
wonderful change that had taken place in his appearance. Never had I
seen a face so radiant with happiness, or eyes that sparkled with such
unearthly light! “Even thus,” I thought, “must the herald-angel have
looked, who brought to the shepherds, watching over their flocks by
night, that sweet message of ‘_peace on earth, good-will to men_’!”
“Yes, dear friend!” he said, as if in answer to the question that I
suppose he read in my face. “It is true! It is true!”
No need to ask _what_ was true. “God bless you both!” I said, as I felt
the happy tears brimming to my eyes. “You were made for each other!”
“Yes,” he said, simply, “I believe we were. And _what_ a change it makes
in one’s Life! This isn’t the same world! That isn’t the sky I saw
yesterday! Those clouds—I never saw such clouds in all my life before!
They look like troops of hovering angels!”
To _me_ they looked very ordinary clouds indeed: but then _I_ had not
fed ‘_on honey-dew, And drunk the milk of Paradise_’!
“She wants to see you—at once,” he continued, descending suddenly to the
things of earth. “She says _that_ is the _one_ drop yet wanting in her
cup of happiness!”
“I’ll go at once,” I said, as I turned to leave the room. “Wo’n’t you
come with me?”
“No, Sir!” said the Doctor, with a sudden effort—which proved an utter
failure—to resume his professional manner. “Do I _look_ like coming with
you? Have you never heard that two is company, and——”
“Yes,” I said, “I _have_ heard it: and I’m painfully aware that_ I_ am
_Number Three_! But, _when_ shall we three meet again?”
“_When the hurly-burly’s done!_” he answered with a happy laugh, such as
I had not heard from him for many a year.